TRANSCRIPT FROM 'EUPHORIA'
Yarra Valley FM
17th September 04

MANHOOD No.3
Graeme Dawson - Valley Care Counsellor with Glenda Riddell

GD: Today we're starting with 'father-hunger'. Some authors who have written books on men's issues have coined the phrase. It seems that many men are not sure what they are hungering for and they tend to search for things in different directions but it could be this father-hunger. A hunger for a father they didn't have or a hunger for a father who was there but didn't really father them.

GR: Yes, wasn't actively fathering.

GD: It's a common problem. We spoke last week about the decades gone by and even fifty years ago when the role of men was fairly well defined by their work. They just had to keep working long hours with not much else happening, not much pleasure time. This meant that they were restricted from spending time, especially leisure time, with their sons. However the irony is that supposedly today we have more leisure time than in any era that has been in Australia before, yet somehow men still seem to be working longer and harder and are more carried away with their work at the expense of their children.

GR: It is good though, isn't it to see some dads taking the time and being more aware now of the need to spend that time with their kids.

GD: Sure, and we shouldn't stereotype men either, then or now, but sadly there are still a lot of men who are not fathering well at all. Yes, they will take the kids to the soccer or the football or something like that and sometimes buy their children things rather than just giving them time. Of course there have always been fathers who have spend time with their children, rock climbing or doing things, but there is a great lack of it these days for different reasons. Men have a choice yet many tend to make the choice to go into more self satisfying pursuits rather than dealing with the kids. Men in the business world sometimes come home late at time when the kids are in bed and all that busy part of the night is over so they just come home and read the paper and have their meal.

GR: So there are still dad's out there who think, oh, it's women's business, they are better off with their mothers, they can handle them.

GD: I don't think it's altogether a chauvinistic problem here, I think it is probably more to do with the fact that their own fathering was inadequate and they don't know how to do it. Biddulph refers to Robert Bly and Keith Thompson who coined the phrase 'father-hunger'. He quotes Robert Bly often, and if you ever get to read the book called 'Iron John', you will learn a lot.

GR: I think I have read that book, 'Iron John', it's only a little book isn't it?

GD: I don't know but he constantly quotes it in his book. For listeners who are wondering what we are talking about, we did advocate earlier on that you can borrow Biddulph's book 'Manhood' from our group of libraries or you can buy it through Collins Bookstores for around $22.00. It's a really good read, for men particularly but for woman who have men in their lives, to help them understand what boys need as they grow up. Single mums with boys would particularly benefit. They say 'father-hunger' is the deep biological need for a strong humorous, hairy, wild, tender, sweaty, caring intelligent masculine input in boy's lives. 

GR: Very descriptively put, isn't it. 

GD: If you asked kids to tell you what they wanted in a father, I'm sure they wouldn't come up with that recipe, but I guess if they had a father like that they would love it. This is part of the definition of father hunger - a longing for long satisfying hours spent learning to be confident and capable in this world in the pleasure of doing. Quoting from the book, he talks of things like, making, striving together, laughing at adversity, learning the joy of being a man from men who know these things and importantly are willing to share them. Some men say get out of my way I will do it, instead of saying come on we will see if we can make this together. 

GR: So we can do it together.

GD: Yes and even if they fall over in the bush and fall into a creek together it becomes part of the fun of the exercise. 

GR: Exactly. Let's take a break. 

Glenda played the song 'Walk like a man' during the break which had been suggested to her during the week.

GR: Welcome back, we are talking to Graeme Dawson from Valley Care about the topic of 'father-hunger'.

GD: Yes, well just to finish that very last line on his description of 'father hunger' he says it is perhaps the most important concept in male psychology. It's the starting point for most men on their own journey to health. 
How to recover what has been lost is the subject we will address next, and Biddulph starts to talk then about you and your father, and about the fact that your father colors your life. He talks about the need to come to grips with making that connection with your father to sort out or settle things with him. To get it worked out. Of course, that is more difficult for some whose fathers have died or have left and are not contactable. There is a process that people can go through to help them with that. He talks about needing to hang around with your father and older men to get the hang of how they work, and he talks about the possibility that you might not trust older men because you could not trust your father. He talks about authority and how you will never have respect for authority unless you have respect for your father. Imagine what's happening for a lot of people who don't have a father figure in their lives, and they don't have that as a model or standard for their adolescence. Or their behavior coming into young manhood or their behavior with women. He says that it is only when you reach a place where you can feel love and respect for your father and also receive the love and respect from older men, that you can move on from being a boy. 

GR: It might explain why we have some of the problems in society with men struggling to reach maturity, even though they grow older.

GD: I think I said that a lot of men grow older but don't grow up. We saw that in the film 'Grumpy old men', didn't we. 

GR: That's right, yes.

GD: The question is, did they get grumpy because they got older or was it still the unresolved schoolboy churlishness that was going on? Age doesn't necessarily bring wisdom and maturity, age just brought age, grey hair and wrinkled skin for those 'Grumpy old men'.

GR: Exactly. I can think of a few older men, much more mature who absolutely bless the people they come into contact with. They have a very happy disposition toward life, so old doesn't equate with being grumpy does it, at least it doesn't need to.

GD: Biddulph talks about men trying to overcome the problem of not having this father-connection by harder work and denial but they are prone to outbursts of deep distress often masked in anger. Young men can burst out in extreme anger and quite often they don't know where it is coming from and why it is happening. I think most of it comes from inadequate fathering in the past and not having appropriate father or male models. No respect for authority resulting in no balance for themselves. So, yes it is an important thing. He has an interesting little telephone conversation where he talks about a son who has wised up to this problem and is trying to make contact with his father as his father is not good at talking. So the phone call goes as follows, "Hi dad, it's me", dad responds "oh, I'll get your mother." The son says, "no don't get mum it's you I want to talk to", there is a pause and then "Why do you need some money?" "No, I don't need money". Then the younger man starts on his (rehearsed) and somewhat vulnerable speech. "I've just been remembering a lot of things about you dad and what you did for me, working all those years to put me through college and supporting me. My life is going well now and it is because of what you did to get me started, I just thought about it and realised I had never really said thanks", (silence on the other end of the phone) "I want to say thanks and tell you that I love you". Then the father asks, "have you been drinking?" And that's the end of the conversation. Biddulph says, of course, on the other hand, there are fathers who just hanker, and wait for years for that phone call. 

GR: Yes, and they never get it!

GD: Yes, that's right, and some men will spend their whole life waiting.

GR: How wonderfully healing it was for that son to be able to make that kind of phone call to his father, even if dad didn't receive it well.

GD: And, hopefully that son was able to continue to move forward even though he did not get the response he was looking for. 

GR: And who knows maybe the father wasn't able to respond at that particular time but in thinking over it, he may act later. Maybe it was the first step towards something.

GD: Sometimes a lot of deep resentment comes from fights and disturbances in families. What often happens is that when sons hang around too long in the one house, it becomes like 'two bulls in the one herd'. There is competition and one is a threat to the other, so maybe the son should get out and start to live on his own and start working somewhere else. There does come a time for that but, I think when those conflicts continue and the sores deepen, it is hard to have those meaningful conversations. When the resentment level is still very high, the potential pain of re-engaging with the father figure or son might be too risky at the time.

GR: It's a hard line to walk isn't it.

GD: Mind you there are a lot of men who are not only lost in knowing how to deal with their fathers or sons, they are lost in terms of knowing how to relate to their women, and some of them have lost their woman as a result of that and now are fairly lonely and reluctant to try again. Often they are bruised. We are going to form a group of guys and just have a bit of a 'around the campfire' type time and have a barbeque get to know each other. We hope to build friendships, tell some stories, and there will be plenty of time to brag about the biggest fish caught and all those sorts of things. There will be times to share some of the highlights and lowlights in life and there will be older men there who will tell some of their own stories around the fire. I work, as you know with Aboriginal people, and I envy the deep cultural background into which the men are initiated. They dance and sing and carry the cultural stories forward in the dance. We don't have that in our culture, we don't have the formal initiations that they have. Whether it be the Aboriginal people, Sioux Indians, the Maori, or African tribes, they still have their formal initiations.

GR: Do you think we miss out a bit in our culture?

GD: Yes I think we do. What do we have as a the transition for boys entering manhood? Well, they turn eighteen, they get the car keys, they get the drink and they just go stupid. Unfortunately there are a lot of bad models out there who say, this is the way you do it. But there is not a lot of real guidance into sensible ways forward and it tends to be that because younger men are not comfortable with older men and haven't been throughout those early parts of their lives, that they tend to hang around in gangs of their own peers. Groups that become totally unsatisfactory in the end because it's a pack mentality with no constructive leadership. There is little respect or understanding of what older men can offer, whereas older men in different tribal situations are very much revered. I was talking the other day about the Kenyan model and someone was joking about calling me an Mzee. The interpretation was that an Mzee is an elder and I qualify for that because of both my age and grey hair but it can also mean anything from elder stateman, older man or older leader. It is a term of respect and we don't have. In our culture we have Mister or Sir, but we don't have a term that qualifies, a non-derogatory term that qualifies people for their elder statesmanship.

GR: It's well worth thinking about because sometimes you don't realise what you have missed until you become aware of it.

GD: Just thinking about it now we have Miss, Ms and Mrs as status positions for women, but, apart from the term Mr, we only have the term Master that is hardly used these days , but we still talk of Miss Johnston, the female equivalent of the male, Master.

GR: Graeme tell us of some of the plans laid down for your group?

GD: Yes, we've got about four or five older men who have been through some tough times in life, been through tough financial times, tough marital, tough health times, but they have come through with the scars but all but have survived. Some of them have had a strong faith in God which has carried them through and that's important. They are not going to walk around with a badge, teacher/leader on them at all but they will just mix with the guys. They are older men who will be the Mzee, or the tribal leaders if 

you like. I don't want to over sell the whole concept, but yes I've got probably six or seven fellows who I've have been in touch with, who when I mentioned it, put their hands up and said yes, I'll be in it, sounds good.

GR: Are they from varying age groups?

GD: Yes, although the majority are around about the forty to fifty mark, with one or two at the younger level.

GR: Sounds like an excellent idea .

GD: The younger men can come in and rub shoulders with the older ones and hear the stories and mix in with the fun. We hope that the younger men will become friends with the older men rather than just have peer mates who are their own age. Some may find out that they have got common interests and friendships may develop from there, you know motor mechanics, farming, animals, hobbies or something like that. So in a sense they could become a mentor type father or surrogate type father. Even a forty five year old could well benefit by having a mentor type father of sixty five.

GR: It sounds like a wonderful idea.

GD: Hopefully it will be in a semi dark situation around the fire at night, so the men don't feel that they're under the spot light. 

GR: Sounds like a good atmosphere.

GD: Yes, we are looking forward to it.

Go to break - music by Tom Jones 'This is a man's world'

[Glenda reintroduces Graeme and herself and reminds audience that they are discussing Manhood.
Graeme reminds the listeners that he represents Valley Care Counselling in the area, which saves people from travelling too far and gives people the chance to sit down with a counsellor and maybe come up with some innovative or creative ideas that can help people get unstuck, or even find out what is normal for your life.]

GD: I was reading another book last night on men's sexual issues. The author said that he gets letters from men asking questions regarding different things, but he said they mainly wanted to know if this or that was normal. We have been talking about father-hunger and we've been talking about finding your father. We have been talking about fathers who would just love to make connections with their sons, and sons who would love to make connections with their fathers. I guess I would encourage you, listener, just as Steve Biddulph would encourage you too as fathers and sons to work at breaking those barriers down and doing something about it. Here's a little story he told of a guy wanting to come to grips with his father. He had been brought up by his mother, his father had left maybe ten years before, so at around age thirty five he began to wonder who his father really was. He hadn't seen his father for about 10 years, so he flew out to Seattle where his father was living, knocked on the door and when his father opened the door, he said, "I want you to know one thing, I don't accept my mothers view on you any more". What happened? The father broke down in tears and said, "now I can die". Father's wait, what else can they do. I work with a lot of men who find it very hard to be separated from their children, some are very angry with the courts and angry with their outcome. Whoever was wrong in the relationship and however it finished up, many men suffer very much through not having contact with their children, and of course subsequently and at the same time the children suffer through not having contact with their fathers.

GR: Absolutely, it's a two way deal isn't it.

GD: So lots of men give up and over a period of time because it becomes too hard and too long and they try to bury the idea of ever connecting. However, boys really crave connection with their fathers and approval from them. And we do know that it is so important for girls during the pubescent or pre-pubescent time in their lives for their father to be there as affectively, their first boyfriend. The one who tells them they are beautiful, tells them they are a princess, and affirms their worthiness. Fathers should be able to play that very important part in their daughter's lives so they are less likely to run away with the first scruffy bloke that appears and says I love you. They need a solid foundation of being loved by their fathers. The same happens with boys but they might not express it the same way and don't want to be called daddy's little princey or something like that, but there are lot's of ways that recognition can happen between fathers and sons. Good affirmation without wanting them to be academically just need to be affirming for who their sons are. Just affirm the fact that they have done their best at school with the marks they have and affirming the little things that are so important.

GD: I guess just that he loves them and accepts them as they are. Well I think we will leave it there and next time we will look at 'fixing it with your fathers'. This is something that can happen even if we can't actually reach our fathers, especially if he is dead. There are some men at forty who still need to fix it with their fathers yet their fathers may have long gone.

GR: That sounds like it is something worth waiting for, thanks Graeme and we will look forward to seeing you next time.