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Graham, a guest on the podcast, talks about his experience as a father of two daughters in their 20s. He discusses the ongoing learning process of being a parent and the feedback he receives from his daughters. Another guest, Rob, shares his career journey and his current role as a high school math teacher. He also talks about his hobbies and interests outside of teaching, including martial arts, swimming, and gliding. The conversation then shifts to Graham's qualities as a father, including his ability to apologize and listen to his children. His wife describes him as deeply loving and willing to apologize when necessary. Graham emphasizes the importance of being real and fallible in order to maintain open communication with his children. He also values the qualities of generosity, forgiveness, and graciousness in his parenting approach. Well, hello and welcome to More Like the Father. Today, we have a very special guest. Graham, nice to have you here. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Kim. It's a pleasure and a privilege to be here today. As is our habit here on More Like the Father, we're going to start off with your dad's stats. So, kids, do you have any? Oh, I have two children, absolutely. One's 20 and one's 22. 20 and 22, so you feel like you can put down the book now. You've completed the journey. Put down the learning book? Which book am I putting down? That's right. You can come off your P's now. Oh, I see. You're still a learner. I have some competence as a father. Is that what you're saying? I'd still say I'm learning because you're learning things from your children in their 20s that you just didn't ever think that you'd need to be learning in their teens. So, alas, the book is still very much being written, I'd say. And I feel that it's... They're very free at giving you feedback when they're 20, 22, aren't they? Look, what I'll say about having daughters, because they're both girls, is the privilege of being a father of daughters is you never have to have your own opinion. That's right. You can just rely on getting... They'll give it to you. ...some strong feedback. Deeply liberating. Deeply liberating. And, of course, welcome, Rob. You're here today. Thank you very much, mate. Thank you. Good to be here. So, mate, quickly, vocation. What are you doing now? What have you done in the past? Wow. So, right now, I'm a freshly minted high school teacher. I've got a specialisation in secondary maths, and so I'm a maths teacher at a large school in Western Sydney. Before that, I was a career graphic designer and account manager off and on. Quite a lot of it off, because it's difficult to maintain continuity of employment as a creative in Australia. Wow. And so you think, Oh, yeah, I just want to hang out with high school kids. Monday to Friday, sure. On the weekends, not so much. Yeah. I like my own space on the weekends. I know that you would be a very inspiring kind of teacher. How have you found the transition into teaching? Look, I've loved it. I've always been somebody who enjoyed other kids. I loved as a kid, I loved kids, younger kids, slightly older kids, and I've always enjoyed education. There's a long journey into that space for me, and I'm very grateful that I've come to it later in life, because I feel like I've got less to prove and I'm a little bit less brittle. But being an educator is tremendously satisfying. Yeah, I'm loving it. It's not been without challenge. It's difficult to start any new career. It's really tough when you're 55, you know, a 45-minute commute each day, and, you know, so it's not without challenge, but it's one of the best things I've done, hands down. Yeah, it's super impressive to have more men in the sphere of looking after the next generation. I personally am very grateful for that. When you are not teaching, what sort of hobbies, passions do you have? Well, my hobby primarily is sleeping, and I seem not to be able to get enough of that in any version of my lifetime. But, look, if I absolutely got to do everything I want, I would read all of the books that I've, you know, bought. The Japanese have a word for when you buy, you know, a library of stuff that you won't be reading for another 20 or 30 years. I forget what the name of it is. I am an amateur martial artist. I muck around in karate and a little bit of aijitsu. I swim poorly, which is more just for my own health. I play music in my local church. I play bass and keys. And I'm just in the process of going back to the gliding field. So when I was a kid, I used to do gliding, but I ran out of money, and so I'm now going back and trying to get my credentials again, which is a lot of work. It's ridiculously expensive. The planes. Yeah, the long, skinny wings. They're called sail planes. So you have to be towed up by a tug or a winch, but I get towed up by a tug, which is another aeroplane. Which seems fascinating to me, because you're not the kind of quiet guy. Like, when you're up there, there's just no one to talk to. Are you just talking to yourself? For me, at the moment, there's an instructor in the back seat because I haven't come off checks, and they're telling you what to do. But yeah, once you're solo, there's just you and the sound of the wind going by. It's an incredible experience. Gliding is amazing. Yeah, it just seems different to the rest of your life, where you're quite a, you know, you're an extroverted, engaging kind of character. I can't imagine you sitting quietly, still, listening, watching the birds. This is the point where I disabuse your listeners about whether I am or am not an extrovert. I'm actually an introvert, but I have learned to cope by being sort of a faux extrovert. You know, if you're an introvert, you'll know that being around other people and having to talk and explain yourself is excruciating. It's just like fingernails down a chalkboard. But you realize, well, the world isn't going to go away. It's not going to stop talking to me. And so you have to develop these skills. So I've become competent at putting on, you know, I have, these are just skills that I've developed. But I love my own space. The perfect holiday for me is no one else around me for three days and lots of books. Wow. And so gliding is brilliant. Yeah, and I say I love the teaching, but my gosh, I'm exhausted by it. The juxtaposition for me is that when I first met you, you were in a waiting room and you weren't sitting in the chair. You were lying in the chair. And I can't remember whether it was silver pants or silver shoes that you had on at the time. I remember the shoes. I was in so much pain. I'd had a spinal impingement because I've been using computers for the last 30 years and I was unable to sit down. I was in so much pain. And I remember now. And I was just, I was numb with the pain. And I didn't care what people thought. And I have these silver shoes. I remember them. I still have them, Kim. Right. And, yeah, I just sprawled out. Probably sprawled would be the word you're looking for there. And I was just, yeah, going off. I was just going off. Yeah, you were indeed. But we're not here to talk about your spinal health. Sure. As fun as that is. We are here to talk to you about being a father. So I know your daughters. They are tremendous young women in my opinion. Magnificent. Yeah, I would say that I rate them highly. Yeah. And we've been in contact with your wife and just asked a few questions just about how she would describe you as a father. Oh, my gosh. So I haven't prepared you with this, but your wife says that you deeply love your children. You're willing to listen, usually. Usually. There is a caveat, usually. There was a caveat. They did that for you. And you're willing to apologise when you've wounded your kids. Wow. They are three great characteristics of a good dad, in my opinion. Yeah. Any of them surprise you? They don't surprise me, Kim. I mean, my wife knows me very well and I'm humbled, you know, to hear that stuff. So, no, it doesn't surprise me. I mean, you've not asked this question, but I think being able to apologise to anybody, really, that you've done the wrong thing by is super important because it goes to the issue of self-awareness. But I will say, as a parent, I find it's not easy to apologise to your adult children. It requires humility. It really does. But what's the alternative? You know, the alternative is that you just tell yourself that you're never wrong and you tell them that you're never wrong. And, you know, I know how that works out. What it works out is the adult kids just go, look, at some point I just have to choose between talking to my dad and having my own sanity. Right. So the fallibility is a key to keeping communication open because you're real with your kids? You have to be real and you have to know that you're fallible. Yeah. And, you know, it's not like they're saying, I hate you, they're saying, hey, listen, this thing that you did really wounded me. Can we have a discussion about that? And the answer ought to be yes. It's great that they're coming in with the question. Yes. Oh, I'm incredibly lucky. I think that's quite uncommon, you know, that they would come to you and say, let's talk about this. Wow. I think that potentially is something that, you know, Jenny and I have both instilled, I think we've instilled in our children, is the belief that if they can, if they talk to their parents, we'll listen to them. We might like it, but I'm proud of the fact that they're both able to be, I wouldn't say confrontational. They can be, but they have enough courage to believe that actually, no, this needs to be said, and I'm pretty sure that I'll be heard. Yeah, that's so wonderful. One of your daughters. Both of them. No, no, no. I'm now going to give you a fact. Oh, I see. Oh, okay. One of your daughters said, generous with your time, forgiving again, and gracious. Wow. Okay, that's cool. I'll talk about, okay, I'm reflecting. Gracious is interesting, right? Gracious is interesting because what she's not saying, and I'm not sure which daughter that you're quoting there, but it's this idea of just overlooking things or being accommodating or forgiving. I think the older you get, you realize that people crave mercy. They don't crave being told how they're wrong or how they've just bumped into the furniture. They crave you not making a big deal about their humanity, right? I mean, I just need that in my life, and I think my kids need that. I think everybody needs that. So where did you learn that? Did you learn that because you had a gracious father or an ungracious father? I have to think about that. Yeah, it's difficult answering that question as a binary because I think I've experienced my father both as being a gracious person and also being a person, just not being that. But I've also experienced what it's like when I've been in a relationship with all kinds of people, some of whom have shown me grace and have just overlooked, not overlooked, accepted me and embraced me with my humanity where it was at. Even with silver shoes. Even with silver shoes, rather than saying, hey, you need to fix yourself as a condition of you being a part of this community or even of just having a relationship with me. People have just gone, oh, yeah, just welcome, walked and all, right? And I find that in that context, which often for me has been a church context, once you feel unconditionally sort of accepted and valued, you then just sort of lower your defences a little bit. And over time, you'll work on the bits and pieces. But sometimes it's the acceptance that comes first. It's the grace that you need in order to change. Well, it sounds like that is being seen and heard from one of your daughters at least. So that is exciting. It's very gratifying. So you've mentioned your dad and your experience growing up. And you're saying it's not binary. So you wouldn't say you're more or less like your father? You've got a bit of both? I would say I'm definitely. The question is, are you more like your father or are you more like not like your father? And I would say I'm definitely both. You're definitely both. In what ways? How does it shine through? All right. So a couple of things that are sort of safe and very easy, like low-hanging fruit to observe. My father served, had national service, and he was in the Air Force. And I'm looking backwards now through time. I'm like, why was he like this? And he was quite a regimented person. He was very organized in how he liked to run his life. And his bedroom was tidy. And if he got to do the dishes, he was very methodical about it. And he was also a farmer, and so he'd lay out things. And he's quite systematic about how he approached life. And I see some of that sort of tendency towards systematization. I like ritual. I like things to be where they should be. I'm quite compartmentalized. Really? Oh, yeah. That doesn't sound like a musician to me. Well, oh. I thought you would just wake up late. No. Well, no, no. The thing about musicians is they know when a thing is not wrong. You try and play a C major chord when you should be playing a C minor chord, and you watch them look at you with daggers because they know. And all you've done is you've been one semitone out. But they can tell you exactly what semitone you are. All right, let's go. Sorry, I shouldn't have been derogatory about musicians. No, no, not at all. You were talking about your dad, and so are you saying that regiment has been a positive? Oh, I think it has. Yeah. Right? Now, but like any positive, Kim, you can overdo it. Yeah. So if, you know, one of the ways you can go through life is only if everything is completely the way you want it. It's a cookie cutter. It's like, well, maybe you're a little bit too attached to order. And my question, with a sort of a semi-psychological hat on, would be, and why is that, do you think, right? Why is order so important to you? And it would be like, because I can't handle chaos. I'm like, let's talk about your trauma. Okay, so it's not bad, but it could be a coping mechanism. But there are many other admirable qualities that my dad has. You know, he's incredibly hardworking, like to the point that, I mean, we had a farm for many years, and it ended up costing us a bunch of money, and they sold it in the divorce, and that's all very sad. But, man, nobody works harder than my dad. Just out there in all weathers, it was a couple of hundred acres, and when we bought it back in the early 70s, he had Lantana over quite a lot of it, which is like this highly invasive plant with a deep root system. It's super hard to kill. Well, he would be out there, he'd pull it out by hand. Like, you've got to burn it, you've got to poison it, you've got to root rake it, then you've got to burn it again, and go back for two years in a row to pull up all the seedlings. He'd be out there all by himself. Hard, hard work. Summer, winter, rain, you know, like extraordinary work ethic. So I think it's important to work on things that are actually intelligent and strategically going to pay a kind of dividend. But, you know, I can't criticise that. Hard, hard working, regimen, but. I get the feeling there's a but. Well, there are buts, yeah, of course there are buts. It's difficult to look at my dad, you know, who I don't talk to, just for being transparent with your listeners, it's difficult to look at him and go, was he born this way or did something horrible happen when he was young, right? And I think potentially both, but actually it's a moot point. And I can never know. I can never know, of course. But, no, there are things about him in terms of he has a fondness for sort of conspiracy theories, and he's not great with money, and his assets stripped a few people, and he's not honest about that. And so when you confront him about it, he gets incredibly angry to the point of threatening you with violence and assault. And I'm like, okay, so that's not going to work with me relationally. And I've invested a lot of time trying to make that work. But at some point you just go, this thing is cooked, right? And it's horrible. It's horrible to come to the place of going, look, any relationship here is going to be worse than no relationship. That's a painful, painful thing. And my heart goes out to any child of any age who's felt like they've needed to make that decision for their own protection and the insanity of their own kids and, you know, family and whatnot. So there are definitely differences. Yeah. So more like the father, one of the premises that we have is that we all have had father figures, whether that be our actual fathers or father figures in and around the church. And there are certain characteristics that hopefully many in our lives are speaking to us. But I'm not sure that you got many. Did you get some positives? Oh, like so many. So I'm looking, you know, at Rob's book here, which we've, you know, you've discussed a little earlier. And there are definitely some things that my dad did. Like, for example, one of the points that Rob makes is that dad prioritized church. Well, he did, right? But I'm, you know, I would go and say he prioritized a certain expression of church, which happened to be very fundamentalistic and it was very apocalyptic. And they predicted that the rapture was going to come in 1988. Well, it didn't. No. Oh, yeah. That was huge on the eastern seaboard of this country. It's massive, right? Rob gets it. It didn't actually get into a lot of the mainstream, you know, Catholic, you know, Anglican churches and whatnot. But it got into a lot of the Pentecostal churches. It certainly got into my Pentecostal church. The problem was when it didn't come, nobody said anything. Right. Right? There was radio silence. No one's ever talked about it. Now, there's a whole generation of youth groups from my church just up and left the church over that and a few other quite hubristic, you know, theological nonsenses that nobody had the courage to say, hey, we got this wrong. Like, oh, my goodness me, such an easy win to go, we got that wrong. No one's ever said that. Now, you can't actually square that circle. There's no way to look at that and go, oh, you're a theological leader who has integrity at this point. You're incredibly flaky. So you can't judge a person, particularly a young person, who's distanced themselves from the church at that point and then gone on and had families who were told by their dad never, ever go to church. Right? So that kind of thing really alienated people, and it's terrible. Yeah. So that's an integrity thing or a lack of integrity thing where people are not owning what they thought was going to happen. It's clearly a lack of integrity, Kim, but it's also a lack of self-awareness. And also it's like if you make a mistake, where is the harm in saying you've made a mistake? Right? See, in defense of my dad, I don't think he grew up in a context where it was safe for him to be wrong about anything or when he was to acknowledge the error because I think his dad was quite firm on being very gracious to the man. I think he was a martinet. I think he was a bully, and I loved that man too. But I don't think my dad grew up in a culture where it was like, oh, no, we encourage you to be transparent and authentic about your mistakes, son. I really don't think that was what he had. And this, again, is a theory. I don't know, but I think he's just never developed that courage. And that sounds so different to what you've done with your kids. I hope so, right? Because I've seen what happens when you affect to be somebody that you're not. Like it doesn't just hurt your kids. It hurts yourself. So you end up becoming like this sort of cardboard replica of yourself. You're not actually your congruent person. I can't imagine a worse existential pain. No, it would be dreadful. So thinking about your experience growing up, having a father that in some ways you admire and you want to replicate, and in other ways you don't want to replicate, then where does the Bible fit into all of this? Where does your heavenly father influence the man, the father that you are? That's really been the theme of my life probably since my early 20s. So up until about the age of 14, 15, I wanted to be nothing more than exactly like my dad. I loved the man like a fat kid loves cake. So can we say that anymore? Probably can't say that anymore. We'll take that out. And then I became aware that there were things that he just wasn't seeing. And with a tremendous amount of love, he steered me into a bunch of choices which ended up being fabulously destructive to my health and also my finances. And it took me a long time to get out from under his financial control. But he did not understand what I was doing. And I think I broke his heart because he just did not get, hey, son, why are you trying to, you know, wheedle your way out of these excellent choices that I've made for you? The idea that they were really, really poor choices. So what he did is he... And were they poor choices because he didn't understand you or was he just making bad choices? He didn't... Would they have been good choices? I'll tell you what he did, right? So I topped my high school doing 14 units. Got a mark in the 95th percentile of the state. Handy? Handy, sure. And that did absolutely nothing at all to persuade him that he wasn't the best and indeed the only person to be making choices about my future life, right? Yeah, right. And so he said, look, I'll support you in any course of career you want to do at uni as long as it's engineering, civil engineering, only civil engineering and nothing but civil engineering. I thought he was kidding. I'm like, you're joking, right? I don't want to be an engineer. And this was going on right around when the trial HSC was dropping. I thought, he's kidding, he's kidding. But I've also got to hit the... I've got to hit the books, got to study. By the time the actual HSC came around, I figured out that he was serious. Long story short, I said, look, I'm not doing it, Dad. He goes, well, you're not living on the farm next year. Oh, heaven. I'm like, oh, my gosh. So I found myself homeless, right? And he said, and I'll cut off all financial support unless you do this. Like he used those words. So now I'm like, oh, wow. So within about a six-month period, bearing in mind that for the six years before that, I've been told the rapture is coming, right? And also, university is bad. It's going to rot your brain. It'll give you what was called heart knowledge in our church. No, no, no. It'll give you head knowledge, not heart knowledge, right? Well, let's talk about Gnosticism, but that's a whole other conversation, right? So this is completely delusional architecture. University is bad. Well, no, it's not. You need it. And as I say, the rapture didn't come. Anyway, long story short, I'm like, I'm going to starve and be homeless, or I can take my dad's money, because he offered to help me with it, and go to Sydney. So I put my best face on it and tried to make it look like my idea, which it clearly wasn't. And you tried to go to... Oh, yeah. You become an engineer. 100%. But inside, I was dying, right? I bet. I was excruciating. I was just dead, right? That is a poor fit for you. Horribly bad. Anyway, and I had said, look, I'm not going to do civil, but I'll do aero, because he knew I wanted to be a pilot. Oh, at least that's kind. I wanted to be a pilot. You like getting up in the... No. Love the aeroplane. That would have been okay. Almost. It wasn't okay because it wasn't civil, and it wasn't okay with me because it was still engineering. Yeah, yeah. Right? And all through the degree, he'd be like, son, it's too late for you to change to civil. It's too late. I'm like... Wow. And meanwhile, my health is falling off a cliff. I'm failing subjects. And in the end, I had to show cause, and I managed that once, and then I got to fifth year. I've just finished my second year subjects. I did a double degree, and I'm failing again. And I've come to realise, and this was the epiphany I had, I'm failing. I'm definitely failing. I'm 100% failing, and the uni's going to kick me out, and they won't let me come back. And I went to God, and he's like, okay. So are you failing? Are you failing for yourself? I'm like, oh, no. I wouldn't. No. Why? That would be self-sabotage. Why would I do that? He goes, oh, so are you failing for me? I'm like, ooh. Are you failing for me, son? I'm like, no. This is God. This is God. And I'm like, okay, no, here's my theology, and this is where it starts to get a bit fine. He's like, no, I'm like, my theology, God, is that you can redeem failure, but I don't believe you make people fail so that you can redeem it. And there'd be people who do believe that. I think that's a bridge too far. He's like, okay, so who are you failing for? I'm like, oh, wow. I'm failing for my dad, right? He said, what are you going to do? I'm like, well, I need to leave, don't I, right? So that was a very painful thing. But my dad, I don't think there's any malice about his decision, Kim, to make me do civil engineering, because that was the degree that he failed at uni, right? And his father had been a surveyor, and then worked his way up to become a town planner. His father was illiterate, pretty much. He could read and write a few things, but he couldn't actually read a book. And so there's this sense of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps in the family that he came from, and to not, his whole thing was about construction. Okay, fine, some people it's about dentistry, some people it's about agriculture, some people it's about building boats, okay? In my dad's family, surveying, property development, engineering, all that sort of stuff, right? It wasn't my journey. It wasn't my journey at all. And I think he's like, I need my son to be safe in the world. I don't want him to have the sort of reversals in life that I've experienced. He's gonna get a civil engineering degree, he'll be fine. So you could say he was trying to act in what he thought was my best interest. The fact that he was clearly transposing his own frustrated past onto me and trying to make me live that, I think was entirely lost on him. But it ended up being fabulously toxic. I quit uni with my health in a sling and took a long time to recover. And you had taken it to God? I was in fifth year. I'd finished four and a half years of study. I'd just done my mid-year exams and I knew I'd failed them because I'd walked into some of the exams, written my name on the paper and walked out. I had really serious depression. I was extremely unwell, Ken. And I was desperate. Yeah, I'd taken it to God and he's like, okay, you're failing for your dad. I'm like, oh my God. And that would have been obvious to anybody looking from the outside in. I was so unhealthy. I was extremely sick. I was very unwell mentally. But it was having the courage to confront that. It was like, oh wow. Because I'm going to have to change this up and my dad will go to his grave never understanding my decision. And so it wasn't that I just had to leave uni. It's that I had to reconcile myself to the fact that I was going to break the man's heart. And he would probably try to change my decision. And he did. I went home and told him and he took the next day off work to try and talk me back into going. And I knew he was going to do that two weeks before I went home, which is why after I made the decision, I spent two weeks girding up the loins of my mind to go and be prepared that this is exactly what your dad's going to do. Because he's an open book. He's not hard to read. So you are now, is this an example where you're the exact opposite now with your girls? Your girls would come home and say, Dad, I want to be a... Oh, I'll tell you how I'm the opposite, right? And I'm also not, right? So my youngest daughter finished school and both her mother and I were quite keen that she does some kind of degree because she's intelligent, right? And so we made some suggestions. She didn't really have any skin in the game one way or the other and she enrolled in a course and it wasn't a good fit for her and she gave it one semester and then she quit. The point at which I'm different is I'm like, you know what, honey? Get a job. Or actually she had a job at Maccas. I'm like, just keep your job. Just keep working. And she stayed at home for, you know, another nine months and just kept on working. And I'm of the point that at some point she'll probably go and get a tertiary qualification but I'm like, I do not want you approaching a university. Do not attempt to go to uni until you are sure that you are ready. Certainly not just because this is what dad... A hundred percent, right? Just because you have the capacity, don't... You know, I can see that in your future but I definitely can't see her at university today. There's no way she's not mentally ready for that. And I wasn't mentally ready for it either. Admittedly, it had been because I was being told the world was ending. What I should have been told all through high school was, hey, Graham, you're really bright. Anything that you study, you seem to do well in, you know, you've topped your high school. In a small country town with no tutoring, got a great mark. It's because I'm an autodidact. I just see something and I teach myself. I mean, I'm good teachers. So do you think it's the understanding your kids? It's sort of looking at them, recognising them, knowing what they're good at, knowing... I mean, it sounds like you know your daughter. You know that perhaps this is not the season for her to do this. I think you have to know that your children are not you. Super important, right? And they're their own people. So my two daughters are very different. My oldest daughter has finished a bachelor's degree. She's on a gap year at the moment and she's just about to start her honours degree in psych, right? Because that's what she's doing. My youngest daughter isn't ready for that. But at some point in the future, potentially, she will be. And if she has an academic career, I'm sure she's going to tear it up. She'll do a really great job. The point is going, it's really important that they live their life. It's incredibly important that they don't live my life or their mother's life or anybody else's life. Yeah. That's absolutely key. It's recognising what they're good at, being a cheerleader, helping facilitate. Sure. What God-given gifts they have. Yeah. And that's not easy, by the way. Like, you know, there are things that both of my kids are doing, which to some point or another, I can go, I think that's frustrating or that's not a great decision for you or gosh, you're going to learn the hard way there. What's the alternative? Yeah. You manage them in a cookie jar and they don't learn anything at all, but meanwhile, they get super resentful of you. That doesn't work. No, that's not going to work at all. So, taking you back, you know, you've ended up in a very dark place. You're a young man. Yeah. But at some point, I can't imagine this, easily and magically changes. How do you end up in a place where, knowing you, I think you've done a good job as a dad, how have you gone through that process and ended up making a pretty good fist of being a dad? Yeah. What are some things that have helped? Well, a couple of things really helped, Kim. One for me was, I was able to make the distinction between what was the fundamentalistic, the very well-meaning but also fundamentalist sort of church background that I had and God. Yeah. I made a distinction. Yeah. Okay, this is error over here. It's well-meaning, some of it, but it's still got a lot of error, but actually God is not error. I made that distinction. Yeah. Right? And I stayed in church and that wasn't always easy. We were talking before the show about Rob who's just changed churches and it was very painful and I deeply respect his journey because I've done that journey myself. So I've had to change churches a few times. But you stayed. I stayed, right? I'm like, okay, if this church is flaky, let's find a slightly less flaky church. Okay, this church is better, but it's still a bit flaky and I've stayed in churches long enough to get well enough to realise I can't stay in that particular church and then I go to a better church. So I stayed in church, right? And the kids, getting the kids to church? They were born and brought up in church, right? Really huge decision. My wife is a person of faith and so we've done church. That's been absolutely key. There's no way we could have survived. The other thing is I've actually gone and gotten professional help. Yeah. I've talked to therapists. I've read a lot of books. I've had a lot of counselling. I've had quite a bit of prayer and I've tried to sit with the issues that have caused me pain and try to work through it and then I've just waited. So it's taken a long time in the context of community. I was 23 when I quit uni with my health in a swing. I was 46 when I went back, right? So it took the same amount of time. It took 23 years. Wow. And along that way, you know, you make a whole bunch of mistakes, but I think if you keep on trying to have your nose pointing toward north and just keep putting one foot in front of the other, surrounding yourself with great people and having hard conversations, you're going to be okay. Wow. As someone who I admire greatly, I'm so thankful for your story and the way that you've not only raised your own kids, but now are looking into the next generation with your school teaching. I think it's really incredibly admirable, particularly now hearing just how hard things were along the way. It was extremely brutal. I had some very dark years. I had dark decades is what I had. Yeah. I didn't have them alone, right? It appeared that I was, I mean, I was lonely from time to time, but I always tried to have a few good people in my corner. Yeah. It's been an inspiring time talking to you. Thank you so much for your honesty. It's just something that we really value, and hopefully this will be something that our listeners are more like the father can just find extremely helpful. Thanks, Kim. It's been a privilege. Thanks so much. Thanks, Ben. There you go. Yeah, you're recording. Okay, Graeme, one of the things that really interests me is the influence of across the generations. Right. And it'd be great if you could talk to us a little bit about the people that you've kind of looked to in your life for those positive fatherhood role models. Talk a little bit about those to us. So that's interesting for me for a couple of reasons. First of all, I'm the oldest of four siblings, right? Right. And if you're an older sibling, you'll know that you always want to have one older sibling to ask questions to, right? If you're in the middle, you want to be the older sibling because you're like, I can do that job heaps better than that guy. But if you're the oldest, you're like, yeah, no, you actually can't, and this is really hard, and it looks easy, and I get that you're all just overflowing with jealousy, but like I really want to ask, I want a mentor who needs to be about two years older than me, right? So there's that. And secondly, if, you know, as I've felt the need to do, you've got to draw some lines in the sand, you know, tragically around your own dad, then it's like, okay, well, who do I ask? So one of my great wishes in life is I could bring up my dad, and he'd be the kind of person who I could have a beer with every Friday night once I'm on the throne, but I don't have that. And so if you ask my wife, she'll, and even if you'd ask my siblings, they'd be like, Graeme has always had a radar looking out for slightly older men to just help father him for want of a better word, right? Right. So I've had two pastor friends of mine over the years who've been a little bit older than me, and I've just absolutely made a V line for those guys and just, and turned them into my besties, and, you know, at different levels they were sort of helpful. And at the moment, I mean, my oldest daughter said to me, you know, Dad, why don't you call this guy, he's like 30, 30 something, I used to work with him. So he's like 20 years younger than me. You're like, you're always saying you're like 20 years, and you know, why don't you get together and have a steak with him? I'm like, oh, he wouldn't be interested. He's like, really? You know that, do you, Dad? I'm like, okay, darling, sorry, sorry to be wrong. So I hit him up, and he's like, dude, yeah, steak and wine sounds good. What are you doing on Friday night? I'm like, oh my God, I'm an idiot. Why didn't I think of that earlier? You know, again, you know, last Friday, we'll go down to a local hotel, and they've got to cook your own steak. We buy ourselves a steak, we get a glass of wine or whatever, and we just talk, and we sit, and it's not a church thing. There are Christians there, there are non-Christians there, but I try and filter it. So there's one guy there who my kids call the garden gnome, because he's a little short, becoming a little more vertically challenged as the years roll on, if you know what I mean, and he has silver hair. He goes, oh, Dad, is that the garden gnome? Yes, he's beautiful. And he's like, oh, I'm an idiot. He's like, no, he's beautiful. And I say to him, my kids think you're the garden gnome, and he just rolls around laughing, you know, as gnomes want to do. Because you're not, you know, not the tallest family. Oh, yeah, I'm not big, but this guy's short, right? So it's just delightful. He's the sweetest man, but he's very socially withdrawn to not to be uncharitable. So I get this guy to come along, and they're like, oh, you've got the garden gnome? It's like winning Yahtzee. So he'd be late 70s, right? Right. Oh, I've got my family, right? I've got my friend who's like 30 something, he's young, and then I've got a couple of 30-year-olds, early 40s, and a couple of other 50-year-olds. So it's this idea of men talking to other men of different ages. I think Australian men are uniquely bad at that. We are terrible at talking at all to each other, right? Can we do it without alcohol? I don't know. Has anyone done a research study on that? There's an opportunity for a PhD, Tim. But the idea of talking across generations is incredibly important. I'll tell you one other thing that occurs to me. I've got a friend of mine who's 30-something, he's young, and then I've got a couple of 30-year-olds, they have a model which is young people mentoring young people. So you go to church, to youth group on Friday night, and you'll have 19, 20-year-olds leading teams that are being led by 16-year-olds that are leading teams that are being led by 12-year-olds. And so it's only like two or three years apart, and it's constantly like you are butting up against, you're right up against the next layer of leadership, and you're like, well, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this, you're right up against the next layer of leadership, and you are never at a loss to go, and you are never at a loss to go, who do I ask a question? And the 20-year-olds know exactly who they're talking to. Their pastor is 25, and that person's pastor is 30. And so how it's worked for me And so how it's worked for me is I need to talk to men. is I need to talk to men. And I've had a small number of men, And I've had a small number of men, and they're not always the same men. and they're not always the same men. Some people come into your life and then they move on, and that's okay, but you've got to be talking to people. but you've got to be talking to people. and then they move on, and that's okay, but you've got to be talking to people. and then they move on, and that's okay, but you've got to be talking to people. And for me, it's always somebody who's 5 to 10 years older is the sweet spot for me. is the sweet spot for me. Somewhere between an older brother and a father figure. and a father figure. I love that idea that you say that you're looking for those people who are older than you, but also the people who are younger than you, and it's not just me and it's not just me gleaning everything I can from these older guys, which is great. which is great. Sure. But to be honest, I don't think I've seen any structures in society any structures in society any structures in society where you get that cross-generational where you get that cross-generational where you get that cross-generational I agree. We tend to live in these little horizontal communities. these little horizontal communities. Oh yeah, hugely. Oh yeah, hugely. And I think what I'm doing is, And I think what I'm doing is, yeah, not counter-cultural, yeah, not counter-cultural, that's a little bit melodramatic, that's a little bit melodramatic, but where does it naturally occur? but where does it naturally occur? So the 30-year-old, I'll tell you why I'm picking him out, is the most beautiful human being. is the most beautiful human being. The people who really attract me The people who really attract me are people who don't have bitterness. are people who don't have bitterness. I know three men, I know three men, and I can tell you their names, and I can tell you their names, I won't tell you their names, but my kids know who they are when I'm talking about them, when I'm talking about them, who haven't had particularly traumatic childhoods, who haven't had particularly traumatic childhoods, but they just don't have any bitterness. but they just don't have any bitterness. They just drip sweetness. They just drip sweetness. But they're strong men, But they're strong men, and they're lovely. and they're lovely. And you're drawn to them. And you're drawn to them. Oh my God. Oh my God. And I think underneath all of my And I think underneath all of my And I think underneath all of my And I think underneath all of my And I think underneath all of my And I think underneath all of my And I think underneath all of my And I think underneath all of my And I think underneath all of my And I think underneath all of my And I think underneath all of my And I think underneath all of my And I think underneath all of my And I think underneath all of my And I think underneath all of my And I think underneath all of my And I think underneath all of my And I think underneath all of my And I think underneath all of my And I think underneath all of my And I think underneath all of my And I think underneath all of my And I think underneath all of my And I think underneath all of my He's just the sweetest person. He's just the sweetest person. But also I'm aware that But also I'm aware that he enjoys spending time with me. he enjoys spending time with me. And I, you have to have And I, you have to have enough self-awareness to go enough self-awareness to go there are people who are younger than you there are people who are younger than you who really want to know who really want to know how you've made a fist out of your life. how you've made a fist out of your life. And they won't necessarily say that. And they won't necessarily say that. But I'm absolutely privileged But I'm absolutely privileged that he is equally keen that he is equally keen to spend time with me to spend time with me as I am with him. Experiencing life. Experiencing life. These days. These days. These young, we've established. These young, we've established. Experiencing life Experiencing life and they think about it in a way that is not just different but sort of in some way a little more freer than my generation does. than my generation does. They can make an observation They can make an observation which is like I don't really agree with what that person's doing but they won't necessarily judge them. but they won't necessarily judge them. And I just love the sense of freedom that they have around some of those issues. some of those issues. It's incredibly healing for me just to be around those kinds of people. And to a similar extent And to a similar extent my daughters are very much like that. my daughters are very much like that. They have their own opinions They have their own opinions but they're very slow I find to extend judgment but they're very slow I find to extend judgment toward other people. toward other people. And that's the thing that I really need because there have been things that have really knocked me off my kilter and you get a little crusty. and you get a little crusty. You can get crusty. You can get crusty. And so if you're around people who just aren't being crusty who just aren't being crusty it just helps you go Oh yes, this is the way Oh yes, this is the way Yes, that's great. Yes, that's great.