Extract from Dear Son
For each copy of Dear Son purchased online or from our shops during September, Readings will donate $3 directly to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation.
In this heartfelt new anthology, 12 First Nations men each write a letter to their son, father or nephew, bringing together a range of perspectives on life, culture and First Nations masculinity.
Below is a shortened extract from editor Thomas Mayor’s letter.
Dear Son,
Do you remember, when you were about nine, you tried to take my hand as you always did, and I said you were too old to hold my hand in public?
I wish I had never said it.
I now know that what I said was wrong.
At the time, I thought what I felt was natural, that when a son reaches a certain age, a father will feel awkward about demonstrating his affection for him. I thought this was how a father helped a son to become a man.
But what is it to be a man?
You are barely nineteen now and this question might not have crossed your mind. You’ve moved to the big city of Perth, concentrating on your apprenticeship. For the first time you are living away from your family, with new responsibilities. You are regularly cooking for yourself and your housemates, paying bills and keeping your home clean and tidy.
How are your cooking skills coming along? I enjoyed guiding you over the phone through cooking your first simur, or vermicelli chicken. You haven’t called for help since.
But I have thought about it – about ‘manhood’and ‘fatherhood’ – especially now that I’m raising young children again, with the arrival of your much younger brother and sister, William and Ruby, who are eight and six years old. I have wondered what shapes how we behave as men, and in particular, as fathers.
It is undeniable that our fathers shape how wefather our own children, whether we are conscious of it or not, and whether we do it well or not. Above all, our understanding of being a man and a father is linked to our own father figures. This is especially pertinent to us – Indigenous men – who all have a mother and father, at least within a few generations, who have been terribly wronged – enslaved, raped and dispossessed.
Your Pop’s generation were born under lawful segregation and the complete control of a white ‘Chief Protector’. Pop lived in Queensland, the state that inspired apartheid in South Africa. His generation of young men were the first to throw off those shackles, but they remained bound by the walls of prejudice. His generation, mine and yours, we all struggle against a more subtle, more cunning systemic racist control. This, and more than 200 years of intergenerational trauma. These burdens are uniquely ours to carry on these stolen lands. To this ongoing struggle, for you and your children to come, I have dedicated my life.
With my obligation to the following generations in mind, I thought it would be good for you and me both if I were to write about fatherhood. Reading books and writing thoughts arewonderful things – I can hear you saying, ‘Yes, Dad, I know, you tell me that every time we talk.’
Well, son, this letter is my example for you. I will write to you about the behaviours that I once thought were acceptable for men – behaviours I now know are wrong. I will also write about the effects of historical trauma that I have passed on to you, and your sisters.
For good measure, I have invited some friends to write about fatherhood as well, because different perspectives are essential. I want you to learn to be a good man, a good partner to your loved ones, a good human being – and I want you to understand that there are more ways than one to do this, if you learn humility, empathy and how to love, the way our ancestors did.
