Over a family lunch recently I was informed that, as a member of the baby boomer generation, my mob was responsible for climate change, outrageous house prices, rocketing cost of living, polarisation of politics, rise of the political strongman and other disasters ranging from deforestation in Borneo to the rise of the anti-vaccination movement.
In my defence, I pleaded that at worst I had lost a few important games of rugby that I should have won, while my generation had saved the whales from extinction, pressured the Americans and Russians to engage in a Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty for the reduction of nuclear weapons, brought down the Berlin Wall and ended the apartheid regime in South Africa.
There was a look of puzzlement on the faces of my daughters/tormentors.
‘Patriarchy!’ they both screamed in unison. ‘Why was it not the first woman on the moon?’
“What’s the Berlin Wall?”
I am so glad I spent all that money on school fees.
“Come on,” I protested, “there has to be a few old, white guys that have done some good?”
“Go on. Name one?”
I must admit, I had to think.
“Neil Armstrong,” I exclaimed.
“What did he do?”
“First man to walk on the surface of the moon.”
“Patriarchy!” they both screamed in unison. “Why was it not the first woman on the moon?”
Well, that answer was easy. The Americans did not let women into their aeronautical space programme. But I didn’t add that part.
I tried humour.
“Syd Williams,” I stated with confidence. “He scored the match-winning try in 1969 when our team, Balmain, beat Souths in the Sydney Rugby League Grand Final.”
Not even a smile.
My mind was racing. JFK? Had they heard of Marilyn Monroe?
When he finished playing and completed his medical training he gave his professional life to humanitarian aid work in Sumatra and Indonesia, before spending 36 years as a surgeon in hospitals in Zambia
Winston Churchill? Yeah right.
Abraham Lincoln! Weeks before the USA 2024 elections, trying to explain that the Republicans were once the radical left was far too difficult.
Finally, I hit on a name. “Jack Kyle,” I screamed.
Confused faces looked back at me.
“Jackie was the legendary outhalf who masterminded Ireland’s first Grand Slam win in 1948. When he finished playing and completed his medical training he gave his professional life to humanitarian aid work in Sumatra and Indonesia, before spending 36 years as a surgeon in hospitals in Zambia. I met him. He was truly a wonderful man.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Is that not just a construct of colonial power?”
Where do they get this stuff from?
If Jackie Kyle did not tick all the boxes of being a great human being then the rest of us are never going to measure up.
“What about all the Dads who simply get up each day and go to work to earn money to feed, clothe and educate their children? The guys who love and respect the women in their lives and only want to encourage them to become the independent people they want themselves to be?
Here I thought they would then say: “Oh, you mean dads like you?”
There was silence.
“Well?” Did I have to prompt them?
“Like me!” I yelled as if they could not see the bleeding obvious.
I could not see any problem with doing that ‘rugby stuff’. If someone was silly enough to pay me to do something I love, I was silly enough to take the money and long may it continue
Now they laughed. “Oh yeah ... ”. More laughter. “Like you.”
“You” the eldest said accusingly, “have simply never grown up and just done that rugby stuff you love all your life”.
“And your point being?”
I could not see any problem with doing that “rugby stuff”. If someone was silly enough to pay me to do something I love, I was silly enough to take the money and long may it continue.
The looks on their faces told me that they were not buying any of it. But I had them on a technicality.
“Talking of rugby,” I thought I had a positive. “Our game is played by people in over 150 countries, from a huge range of diverse cultural backgrounds by people of all shapes and sizes and by both genders.”
“Dad!” What had I done wrong now? “There are more than two genders.”
And I thought I had been doing so well.
Why had I not foreseen that by providing education, shelter, food, clothes, holidays, driving lessons, orthodontists, laptops and a thousand other things from piano and saxophone lessons, to paying registration fees to sing in the chorus, acting in amateur musical productions, playing water polo, GAA, soccer, rugby and sailing that I was actually being a selfish male and perpetuating the patriarchy?
If only I had bought that Aston Martin that I always wanted, then justice would have been restored.
With my enlightenment suspended, we all gathered to break bread around the ancient wooden table that had belonged to my grandparents. The old table is my sentimental reminder of the generations who have touched its wooden grains and are now gone.
My father’s entire working life was spent in a factory. It was a tough existence. Yet he and my mother sacrificed so that their four sons could attend a good fee-paying school to get the type of high-quality education that Irish immigrants so value. My father was not one for making speeches. However, the one piece of advice he gave me as a 10-year-old is imprinted on my soul.
“I work in a factory. You don’t.”
There is a lot in those two short phrases of fatherly advice to analyse. Work hard. Get an education. Be ambitious. Be dedicated. Take calculated risks. Look after the next generation.
As the laughter of my children drifted over me, I touched the ancient eucalyptus wood and thought of the intense struggles that past generations of my family’s Irish immigrants had endured to simply put food on this old table to feed their family.
Two world wars, the Great Depression, the floods, droughts and bushfires that had cost them their family farm. Rugby is trivial in such circumstances.
‘Dad,’ my youngest started with that tone in her voice that told me I was about to be asked something that I did not want to do
Those who once sat around the old table are gone. The things that had seemed so important to them are, like them, now dust.
So no matter how impossible our problems seem today, time will find a way of dealing with them, one way or another. So trying to find joy in the moment, however difficult, is paramount.
“Dad,” my youngest started with that tone in her voice that told me I was about to be asked something that I did not want to do.
“You know when you are in Ireland for the November Internationals? Can I borrow your car?”
If I drove an Aston Martin the answer would have been no.
I love every second that life gives me with my children, and my daughters are 100 per cent correct. There is something askew regarding the patriarchy in our family and the balance of power is definitely gender-based.
My daughters, the matriarchy, reign supreme.
All of which, I am very happy about.
