Written by Brendan Holland
Being a dad is one of the most fulfilling parts of my life, and at the same time, it is also one of the most challenging. This month, I felt called to touch on fatherhood as it is a major aspect of my life. I am a dad to four! My boys are 11 and 1 years old, and my girls are 7 and 4. As I’ve written previously, we homeschool and live in our van, so we are with our kids a lot! Would I change it? No!
Up until my eldest was 6, I worked in the Australian Federal Police, a role that kept me away from home a lot. Commuting long hours, plus 12-hour shifts, meant most days were at least 16 hours long. I’d come home, eat, sleep, and do it all over again. For the first 6 years of my eldest son’s and the first 3 years of my eldest daughter’s life, I was pretty much absent. I would go 4-5 days at a time without seeing them, and when I was home, I was angry, distant, and honestly didn’t really know how to be a dad. My own father left before I was born, and without positive male role models, I was flying blind. Never mind I was still just a boy myself.
As I reflect on my early years as a dad, I can’t help but feel sad and regretful because I wasn’t a nice person. I can only imagine how I must have come across to my kids during those times. I was parenting from my own conditioning, and I need to forgive myself and embrace that part of me. The beautiful thing now is I have the awareness and consciousness to be a more present and engaged parent. I come from a place of love and understanding rather than annoyance and reaction.
Our kids just want us. They are so innocent and pure, and sometimes we can forget that. We get too caught up in our own past, our own stressors of life, and we end up taking it out on them. Over time, we create adults who then need to work on their past. We don’t want that.
One story I want to leave you with shows the power our actions have on our kids. I was sitting in ceremony a few months back, feeling very tense and tight. I closed my eyes and asked myself, why am I so tight, why am I so tense? Straight away, I was taken back to my childhood and my mum yelling at me. I felt my body tense and tighten with fear, and in that moment, I broke down in tears as I realised the effect my shouting has potentially had on my kids… how I’ve stressed and tensed their bodies through my inability to regulate and navigate my own emotions.
When we are in the trenches with our kids, take a short, millisecond moment to take a breath, and then respond from the heart rather than reacting on auto-rage-pilot, you and your kids will notice the difference.