Not all men are fathers. Some men will always be just males. Until you have been a “childless father” or watch the Mzansi Magic television series Utatakho you will never know what that means. You will never know the pain, the emptiness that echoes in the heart of a man who is deprived an opportunity […]
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Fanon and the South African father
While there is an exciting movement, especially within neuropsychological disciplines, to highlight the contemporary value of Sigmund Freud’s notion of the unconscious mind, it is important not to dismiss the archaic Eurocentric societal tenants on which much of his work relies. However Freud’s psychosexual work need not be entirely derided on grounds of irrelevance. Particular […]
Wanted: Fathers who can put little boys together
Yehoshua Kurland tells an anecdotal story about a lonely boy who waited eagerly for his father to return from work so he could play ball with him. But dad would arrive late, tired and often with more work to do on his laptop. The boy would persist and pester his father. In frustration one day, […]
In memory of my father
The Things that Matter I Pale and bloody in the evening, the vlei is a new-born creature, ripples suckling, tugging at the light, gulls whimpering in the dark. Here, a place denied and unvisited for years and years, pebbles knocking my shoes, I’ll never forget your limp (toe amputated in World War II). Recalling that […]