My Dad, his dad and my son

I think many of us get into this work because of our “daddy issues”. I know I did, so let me figure out how to put this down and whether I should start at the top being the birth of our son Quinn or at the bottom with my dad's dad's dad.

I had one pretty open and heartfelt conversation with my dad on the way to the Drakensburg in 2018, he offered to come along and support me on my 1st 100km ultra trail marathon called Sky Run, in the lower Drakensberg. So we jumped in my van and spent about 12 hours in the car together for a road trip for the first time since I was a little kid. I had recently completed my New Warrior Training with the Mankind Project here in Cape Town, so I had flushed out and come to terms with a lot of my limiting beliefs and “daddy issues”, most of which were unresolved and suppressed by our bad friend alcohol and various avoidance tactics. So there we were on the long open road with hours to kill and many years of unasked questions and emotions to address, we eventually got on to the subject of my youth. My dad explained that when I was very young probably around two or three years old he used to smack me pretty hard and often, to the point that his father pulled him aside one day and said please stop hitting the boy like this or you will hardly become a monster like I did. Having gone through this age with my son and the pushing of boundaries, sleepless nights, developing prefrontal cortex, many suppressed emotions that only a testy toddler or baby can bring to the fore I am not surprised to hear what he did. Not to go too much into him as a person, that is a blog for another day, my sister and I and many people we're always pretty scared of him when he was angry.

Anyways I digress somewhat, we got onto the subject of his dad and how he was treated as a boy. My Oupa (Afrikaans for grandad) was the head priest of the church in the thriving mining town of Stilfontein in the 60s and 70s, this put him on a pedestal as the most pious and righteous man in town. He was also very handsome and charismatic by what my Ouma tells me, they were married until his death in the late 80s and she misses him to this day. They had four sons of which my father was the second oldest, and a defender of the weak and bringer of justice - he grew up to be a policeman and eventually lawyer. His dad would regularly fly off the handle when he got home after a long day of work in the mines. With four young boys in their house you can imagine there was always some mischief taking place or broken appendage or window to deal with! He regularly took to route of physical punishment of a solid hiding (which was and is still perfectly acceptable corporal punishment in many South African and Afrikaans households). When this violence was aimed at any of his siblings (far or possibly at his mother ) and deemed to be going too far, my father would step in to defend them. He would subsequently be thrown into a room and beaten to a pulp. We didn't go much further into details than that and I'm not sure how long this went on for but it clearly caused a lot of trauma to him and his family much of which was never processed.

The little he knew about his grandfather, it sounded even worse. He relayed a story his father had told him about how my great grandfather and his oldest son would tie my grandfather to the back of the horse and drag him on the farm road and whipped. So yes the physical trauma runs deep my dad's side of the family and possibly explains why my Oupa was such a viscous man when he chose to be.

This brings me to the present day, Quinn is now hey happy healthy 5 year old boy. He never meat his granddad or Oupa as he would have been called. My dad and I had a relatively amicable relationship in my 30s and leading up to Quinn's birth he was very excited for me and it was a good milestone for us to bond over. But this is where things changed, when Quinn was born my beautiful wife Janine asked for space, Quinn’s birth was somewhat traumatic for her and we had to revert to an emergency C-section at the 11th hour to ensure that mom and baby were delivered through the process healthily. Obviously I stood on the sidelines of the first couple of days deflecting excited family and furnishing the many messages and phone calls of support. My mom and sister who I am very close to managed to come sneak a peek of Quinn quickly the day after he was born. My dad also wanted to come meet Quinn later that day, but Janine was completely out of it and could do no more visitations so I asked him to come the next day. He reluctantly agreed and the following day we ended up being discharged from the hospital and going home as a family for the first time. So circumstances didn't allow for that visit. The following day we invited him wanted to come through as Janine felt up for another visit. He said great, she just asked that he not smoke on route as she did not want cigarette pollutants in his clothes when he held Quinn, her motherly instincts were kicking in fully now and I could agree on the boundaries she was sitting in place as a first time mother, who carries an immense amount of childhood trauma herself that she is constantly working through. This was not the time to argue about semantics and being health conscious myself I saw no issue in expressing her wishes to my dad. So I gave him a call to fix the time and asked that he smoke in the clothing he planned to wear when coming to come visit us. He sounded a little incensed as he did at times when someone set a boundary but he agreed. Later on when he was due to come I got a message that he was not coming and I called him, at which point he blasted off into a tirade about Janine having no right to tell him how to live his life and that I was effectively at her beck and call (or pussywhipped as the boys) used to say in school. I relayed to him that she had been through a lot the past couple of days and that I supported her wishes and really thought there were not a major issue he could easily forgo smoking a cigarette for two or three hours. He said it was more than that and that she hates him and he has always known that and she is ruining my life, I could only laugh at such a childish statement. This pissed him off even more and we subsequently argued. I was definitely not in the best state of mind with new level of sleep deprivation becoming a dad and all the fears and insecurities it brings up, so we implicitly agreed to disagree. I then received further nasty judgments by whatsapp and once I had cooled down I sent an apology for the things I had said, but that I stood by my wife and her wishes and hoped he could come to reason with it eventually as I really wanted to share my entry into fatherhood with him. He blocked me on all platforms and never took my calls. And that was the last time we ever spoke in 2022. About 18 months after Quinn was born my dad passed away from a severe heart attack, here only been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer that week, it came as a shock to everyone my step sister who was with him said that after his diagnosis he had been intending to reach out to me. Funnily enough that Father's Day a few weeks before, I had the strong urge to message him but just couldn't bring myself to do it. It was still too much pain and I clearly had not resolved my misgivings with him and myself for what had happened. She did say his last words were my name over and over, George George George.

So how does this affect my relationship with Quinn? Well, I had done a lot of shadow work to do leading up to his birth I know see with the clarity of hindsight – including a couple of mushroom journeys. Thankfully I had the resources, inclination and capacity to do so because although he does test me at times I could never bring myself to lift my hand to him although there are times when I raise my voice sometimes instantly regret it. This is all part of the work and the many mirrors we are forced to look into as that, especially as sons of men raised in the postindustrial era no matter where you are.

Men were hard, encouraged to suck it up and get on with it. In South Africa especially men of Afrikaans descent are expected to be big tough guys. That is certainly who  dad like to portray in his 20s and 30s when I was a kid, traits I never truly looked up to. I could never quite understand why I shied away from this so much, as well the sexualization of women. I often would wonder if I was gay, something which was frowned upon in this segment of society.

Thankfully I've got a powerful and mindful wife at my side who helps me see my shadows and brings and deep unconditional love to this household and to our son, her passion and purpose these days is largely centered around nervous system regulation. Something that she ensures Quinn is able to self regulate. I can see the physical and competitive aspects of his nature coming through and these coupled with my tendency for physical activity will likely come to the fore as a young boy and adult for him. My job is to help him harness this energy and the plethora of hormones that will come online in the next few years to be a boy and eventually man of courage and integrity. I am sad that he never got to meet my dad, he really was a good man at heart he helped people and animals in need, he had a good heart just a misguided upbringing and no concept of taking ownership of his shadows in his adult life. Something that I strive for on a daily basis and this really is at the core of what I do, to help men see these qualities in themselves. I think with a dysregulated nervous system I plunged into alcohol and partying from the age of 16 until around 27 whole hearted, masking it as me just being an extroverted social butterfly who enjoyed meeting and connecting with people. Looking back I can see that yes I did love connecting with people but I'm actually an extroverted introvert who rarely socializes after 6:00 PM and doesn't drink. I'm sure my pendulum will swing into a more balanced approach as life goes on, but for now this is where I'm at and it feels right as I prioritize physical well-being and family overall else.

I'm sure many men can resonate with aspects of my story. It is sadly a common theme in this day and age, but my wish for men who have read this far is that they can work on themselves, don’t let these stories hold them back and possibly rebuild the bridges with their fathers and sons before it is too late. This work is vital and can be done no matter how old our children are. My mission statement from my MKP weekend is to “heal and connect” and I feel in sharing this story I am helping to kindle a reconnection with your inner boy, who you may have left alone and hurt to be protected from the harshness of men around us.