Dinner at DAD’s

pexels-photo-675951.jpegThis is all about those discussions that we wish we could have with our dad or that we wish we had had with him.

Its about the discussions we are still to have with our sons.

Its all about all of those things that we were never told about being a man and many of the things that we were.

Its about the decisions that we make about how we live as men. Its about understanding what it is to be a man and how that is changing.

It may feel uncomfortable to sit in a room with a group of men and talk about feelings and fears but we all have our insecurities, anxieties, and uncertainties that we don’t feel like we are “allowed” to express as Kiwi men.

We are all obligated to speak freely, to share our knowledge, our thoughts and opinions with the world because it is through conversation and sharing that we learn and can bring about change in the lives of other men: our brothers, mates, sons and grandsons. Men that we love.

 

The Inspiration

In 1991 I was called to the Ministry of Health. They wanted to brief me on a piece of work to do with the National Cervical Screening Campaign, about to be launched in New Zealand for the first time.

In a startling revelation, the woman with whom I was meeting for the first time, said “we know that more men die each year from prostate cancer than women die from cervical cancer.  Yet, we chose to do this (the National Cervical Screening Campaign) because we know that men are less likely to make a fuss.”

Around 27 years later, here in New Zealand 50 women die each year from cervical cancer. Way too many.

600 men die of prostate cancer in New Zealand each year and we don’t make a fuss.

We are men. We have the scars to prove it.

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