A few posts ago, I mentioned that I was going to be a guest on my creative and inspiring friend Michael G. Poe’s show, The Fatherless to Fatherhood Initiative Podcast.

Well, the ninth episode has just dropped and can be listened to by clicking here. I hope other fatherless fathers that hear my story – and Michael’s other guests’ stories – will connect and recognize some of the same experiences and emotions that I share.

Sadly, we still live in an era where toxic masculinity prevails and sets the emotional agenda for men – and women. Men are still expected to keep their feelings tucked away beneath a facade of seemingly impenetrable resilience – sheilding themselves from showing and sharing their vunerability. Hindering them to develop and evolve as fathers, as spouses. as humans.

While The Fatherless to Fatherhood Initiative Podcast focuses on fathers that were abandoned by their fathers, there are also plenty of dads that were physically present, but so emotionally distant and/or abusive, that their children still felt abandoned.

In my case, I not only had to deal with not having a father, a mentor, and a role model. my brother and I were raised in a home environment characterized by our mother’s rampant alcoholism. Which is one of these podcast’s themes: how drama feeds drama.

Being able to talk openly about some of this was cathartic and has spurred me on to continue writing about those early years and how the fallout came to shape my life as an individual and father.