Glad, sad or bad fathers

If only the white man who sailed into Botany Bay, land of the Eora people, in 1788 had seen past the absence of their typical community landscape - permanent dwellings, agriculture, enclosed properties and grazing - they might have gained a better appreciation of the apparent cultural dissimilarity and adopted a different approach to sharing this country with the original inhabitants.

What the first Australians observed from the safety of thick canopy was a different society where life revolved around a master and slave mentality of its population and punitive retribution was as free wheeling as politicians’ promises on election eve.

Sadly the end result of 218 years of contact has seen the introduction of new concepts such as inter-generational trauma.

Alice Miller in her book, The drama of the gifted child, speaks of the creation of “unwell individuals and or communities” and discussed six critical components:

1. living in a culturally unsafe environment;
2. being profoundly hurt as a child, as people;
3. being hurt, but being prevented from experiencing or expressing the pain of that hurt;
4. having no one in whom we can confide our true feelings, not being being heard, acknowledged in our pain;
5. having a lack of education or knowledge, therefore being unable to intellectualise the abuse; and
6. having no way we can transform our pain, without repeating the cycle of abuse on ourselves and others

Indigenous educator, Professor Judy Atkinson in her book A returning to wholeness addressed Miller’s observation by referring to: creating culturally safe places; finding and telling our stories; making sense of our stories; feeling the feelings; moving through layers of loss and grief ...  ownership … choices; and reclaiming our sacred selves.

I’m now aware of inter-generational trauma, thanks to my friend’s narrative, and acknowledge that much needs to be done to address the ills of our communities. I am confident that with a "whole of community approach" to addressing our concerns we share on domestic violence and its consequences, we will overcome the imposition of all the white man’s bad ways he brought with him when he stepped ashore from the first fleet in 1788.