What’s a big lesson for fathers? Having patience – and the understanding that none of us can do it all, says Kenneth Braswell a leader in the responsible fatherhood movement. Kenneth is the chief executive officer of Fathers Incorporated, a widely recognized nonprofit that supports fathers, researchers, and policymakers. His group focuses on providing services to thousands of organizations working to ensure that fathers can contribute to the healthy well-being of their children. He is also the author of the autobiography “When The Tear Won’t Fall” and four children’s books. Listen to him talk about what fathers can do but also what government agencies and workplaces need to do to help fathers succeed in their parenting roles.
Podcasts
30
How Fathers Can Get Help Being Fathers
Interview with Kenneth Braswell / National Expert on Responsible Fatherhood
Hosted by Paul Sullivan
Transcript
00;00;04;19 – 00;00;22;20
Paul Sullivan
I’m Paul Sullivan, your host of the Company of Dads podcast, where we explore the sweet, sublime, strange and silly aspects of being a dad. In a world where men are the primary parents often feel they have to hide, or at least not talk about their roles. One thing I know from personal experience of being a dad is not a traditional role for men.
00;00;22;23 – 00;00;54;24
Paul Sullivan
Parenting is so often left to mothers or caregivers, but here at the Company of dads, our goal is to shake all that off and create a community for fathers who are needed, and to welcome other dads. We of them. Today, my guest is Kenneth Braswell. Kenneth is a chief executive officer of Fathers Incorporated, a widely recognized national and international nonprofit that supports fathers, researchers, and policy makers and also provides capacity building services to thousands of organizations working to ensure that fathers contribute to the healthy well-being of their children.
00;00;54;27 – 00;01;15;04
Paul Sullivan
Additionally, he serves as the National Director of the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse, directing and guiding the strategic activities of this group. He’s the author of several books, including his autobiography, When the Tears Won’t Fall for Children’s Books, and he’s got a graphic novel in the works. Kenneth, welcome to the Company of Dads podcast.
00;01;15;06 – 00;01;21;02
Kenneth Braswell
Thank you so much. It’s such an honor to be here. Thank you for thinking of me. I’m looking forward to our conversation.
00;01;21;04 – 00;01;36;09
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. So you’re a dad to five kids, and I know you’re a guardian to one more. What have you learned personally about about fatherhood is if you, as you’ve gone through this, this journey, you know, what does each kid, taught you over the years?
00;01;36;11 – 00;02;02;00
Kenneth Braswell
You know, I being a father and then doing this work. You know, I try very hard not to analyze my fatherhood with the work that I do. Fatherhood. Right. Because, you know, my kids are vastly different, all of them. And yet there’s some commonality of threads, you know, between them. They are all ambitious as I am.
00;02;02;03 – 00;02;37;02
Kenneth Braswell
They all tend to have very narrow and intentional focus about whatever it is they want to do. They are all challenging in their own way. My four girls, who are all out of my house now and so, and now having two boys in my house is a very different experience. And so what I’ve been able to do, you know, with all of those things, is learn more about myself as an individual that I have about my children by.
00;02;37;05 – 00;03;07;07
Kenneth Braswell
And then one of those things that I’m learning about myself that I want to share, with my children. I think the to answer your question, one of the biggest things I’ve learned is patience. Not trying to parent too fast. Not trying to force my children, to be independent too fast. Not to take myself too seriously too quickly.
00;03;07;09 – 00;03;52;12
Kenneth Braswell
Right. And having patience, even with my business of doing fatherhood, having patience in the understanding that I can’t do it all. However, at the same time, there was a great need out there. And it is a growing need, and they. There are not enough fingers, to put, in all of the holes in the dike, that are bleeding with the pain of children not having fathers in their lives, of fathers struggling to be in their children’s lives, of families dealing with some levels of father absence, even, with the parents or in their own individual situations.
00;03;52;14 – 00;04;32;17
Kenneth Braswell
And so I’ve had to temper my, my need to want to save the world. And to be able to position myself to speak to the voices that hear me right, and work with those fathers and support and love on, others, such as yourself. For being a soldier in this field with me so that I don’t have to feel like I have to do it all, that I have peers of other men out there who share my passion about fathers in particular, that are doing their, thing in their space based on their calling, to help in this effort.
00;04;32;19 – 00;04;46;18
Paul Sullivan
That’s great. Take us back. Take take the listeners back. You know, 30 plus years. How did you get into this space? How did this become, you know, something that you got passionate about and you wanted to be involved in?
00;04;46;20 – 00;05;13;25
Kenneth Braswell
You know, I was trucking along, you know, doing what young men do, chasing girls, and and and following what? Wherever the wind was blowing at the time, was moving in on a path to become a computer analyst. That’s something that I wanted to do. I was extremely interested in computers and computer programing and accounting, both at the same time.
00;05;13;25 – 00;05;40;23
Kenneth Braswell
I was equally interested in both of those at the college. To major in both of those things, both accounting and computer science. Got a great job with the state of New York, when computers were just beginning to really build themselves up and in corporate offices, got a programing gig. They were paying me more money than I knew how to handle.
00;05;40;26 – 00;06;08;10
Kenneth Braswell
You know, at 26 years old, writing programs for the state of New York, particularly to, count all of the housing stock in the state of New York to completely automate their contracting system contracts, payments, monitoring, you name it, I was writing code, and dBASE three and Lotus one, two, three, and I’m dating myself.
00;06;08;11 – 00;06;11;29
Paul Sullivan
Your day? Yeah. The young dads. This is like, what is this guy talking about?
00;06;12;00 – 00;06;19;12
Kenneth Braswell
Right? Word. Perfect. Right? Oh, not, you know, Aids maker. You know, those are the things I cut my cut my teeth on.
00;06;19;14 – 00;06;24;23
Paul Sullivan
And the listeners are having this image kind of like a little, like, hamster and wheel powering these computers back.
00;06;24;23 – 00;06;51;01
Kenneth Braswell
Then. Absolutely. And I’m going along that track and I worked for a gentleman by the name of doctor Jack Conway. Doctor Jack Conway was a technical writer for the State of New York Housing and Community Renewal. Whose past was extremely interesting. Didn’t know how interesting it was when I met him. His dad, was the chairperson for Catholic.
00;06;51;04 – 00;07;16;15
Kenneth Braswell
The Diocese of Catholic Charities in the state of New and New York, which was a huge at the time. And his father was also personal friends with Malcolm X and Doctor Conway. Went was an anthropologist in a state job writing technical reports for the state of New York. Graduated and his master’s from the University of Phoenix.
00;07;16;17 – 00;07;49;15
Kenneth Braswell
In the area of African-American studies, Native American studies, and Irish, American studies. And we used to sit down and he would tell me stories and talk to me about his journey and his path, and learning about these cultures. And he would tell me stories about Malcolm X coming to his house at him, sitting in the other room, listening to him and his father listening to Malcolm X in his father having conversations in the other room after dinner, he would tell me these stories, and at the time I wasn’t doing anything philanthropic.
00;07;49;15 – 00;08;12;19
Kenneth Braswell
I wasn’t doing anything with my for profits. Somewhere along the line, he just stirred up this need for me to do more for my community, to get out and use some of my gifts and talents. I was a great writer, great logical. Think, great. You know, I had all of these talents that I wasn’t using, and I actually went out to a group that was doing some community work.
00;08;12;21 – 00;08;33;27
Kenneth Braswell
They were planning the, New York State African American Black Arts for African-American Festival, the largest black festival in the state of New York. And so I walked into this, apartment where, you know, several other folks in the community, and they’re talking about planning this conference, are planning this thing. And I had never done that work before.
00;08;34;00 – 00;09;00;18
Kenneth Braswell
And as I was walking through that path, met all of these other different, interesting and high level people, that were working specifically with African-Americans. And we did a great job in doing that. And I caught the book of actually working in my community. Yeah, fast forward from that. Fast forward 15 years in some, maybe 12 years into that, I did I published two newspapers.
00;09;00;20 – 00;09;13;04
Kenneth Braswell
I was the vice president of the Urban League of North Eastern New York. I sat on the boards of the NAACP, Big Brothers Big Sisters, YMCA, Boys and Girls Club, you name it. I had a finger in everything.
00;09;13;07 – 00;09;13;17
Paul Sullivan
As it.
00;09;13;20 – 00;09;15;09
Kenneth Braswell
Relates to community.
00;09;15;12 – 00;09;20;17
Paul Sullivan
And I went from 0 to 60. And a few years into quickly. Yeah, really.
00;09;20;17 – 00;09;47;07
Kenneth Braswell
Fast. And in all of that I was also doing radio. So I had this, this, this, thirst for wanting to be a DJ, wanting to be a radio personality, to be in some big market, and doing radio. And so I moved from New York City, moved to Albany, New York, after coming out of the military and having my first child, to which I had a broken, disconnected relationship with.
00;09;47;07 – 00;10;06;28
Kenneth Braswell
I was young and dumb when my daughter was born, my wife and I got married at 18 years old. Neither one of us knew what we were doing, what we were supposed to be doing. Our relationship was oil and water, and it just went back. And I moved to Albany and left my daughter and her, in Brooklyn.
00;10;07;01 – 00;10;31;11
Kenneth Braswell
And in two 1220, 1999, my second daughter was born. And, when I first found out that, her mom was pregnant, kind of just, like, went crazy. I didn’t want any kids because I had vowed not to have any kids ever, ever again. Like I felt I made the biggest mistake with or did not want to make that mistake with any other kids.
00;10;31;11 – 00;11;05;06
Kenneth Braswell
My father was absent from my life. I did not want to bring another child onto this world to experience what I experienced, and something about in a changed my heart. Something about her changed who I was and what I wanted to do. I made a commitment that she was not going to, experience the same measure of father absence that I experienced with my father and my youngest daughter experience with me.
00;11;05;08 – 00;11;27;08
Kenneth Braswell
And so till today, till today, I still call her my game changer. I call in Zingo, my game changer. She changed the game for me. And I went all in, and being her dad, her mother and I weren’t married, but I was, you know, working. And I changed the diapers and all the things, you know, you weren’t supposed to be men weren’t doing then.
00;11;27;08 – 00;11;31;22
Kenneth Braswell
And we already talked in 2001. Right. Let’s not like we talking 1965. We talked.
00;11;31;22 – 00;11;33;20
Paul Sullivan
About, 20 years ago. Yeah.
00;11;33;21 – 00;11;59;06
Kenneth Braswell
Right. 20 years ago, but still that the conversation around fatherhood has come a long way in 20 years. And I don’t think people understand that, that it hasn’t been too long ago that the traditional stronghold of society’s notion of who fathers are was, well into early 2000, right before we began to have a lot of this responsible fatherhood conversation.
00;11;59;08 – 00;12;18;16
Kenneth Braswell
About a year and a half into that relationship, my mother and I broke up and we found ourselves in family court, not for child support, but trying to determine custody because we just could not get along and figure out how we were going to share custody. And we went into the court, both of us. And we didn’t end on bad terms.
00;12;18;16 – 00;12;29;18
Kenneth Braswell
We weren’t at each other’s throats. We weren’t those kinds of we were best friends when we got together, and we kind of that was strong enough to hold us close enough together so that we didn’t become enemies to each other.
00;12;29;18 – 00;12;32;18
Paul Sullivan
Right. So that you could sort it out for your daughter. So you could kind of put.
00;12;32;18 – 00;12;54;01
Kenneth Braswell
Her absolute first. Yeah, yeah. And, we come out of court one day, after, and zinger was doing an evaluation that they were putting on her. Yeah. You know, think about that. Two years old. Right. So doing an evaluation to find out whether or not which parent she should be with. And we walked out the door that day and so and he goes, can I talk to you for a minute?
00;12;54;01 – 00;13;18;12
Kenneth Braswell
And I said, yeah. And she turned to me and she said, we don’t belong here. She goes, we should not allow the government to tell us how to raise our child. We’re two intelligent individuals that can figure out how to do this without their intervention. And so we went to mediation and we went to mediation to put together a parenting plan.
00;13;18;15 – 00;13;42;17
Kenneth Braswell
We came out of mediation and we went back to court, and we told the judge that we weren’t moving forward with what we want to do, but we had a parenting plan that we wanted to put on record so that at any point in our life we weren’t getting along, that we would always fall back to the parenting plan, meaning throughout the kids we could adjust, that we can share and things can happen.
00;13;42;23 – 00;13;48;14
Kenneth Braswell
But if we were in a space where we weren’t getting along, Fall Back was always there rigidly.
00;13;48;18 – 00;13;54;28
Paul Sullivan
You could have something say, look, remember what we negotiated? One thing. Cooler heads. Things are going fine. Yeah, that makes sense.
00;13;54;28 – 00;14;25;21
Kenneth Braswell
Yeah. Right. And, in the 22 days or in the 19 years of a life that we actually had to move back and forth, never had to go back to that piece of paper. We figured it out and we worked it out, that day, a couple of days after that, I began to start thinking about the work that I was doing, and I was talking to other men, and I was talking to other guys, and all I remember is there’s a venom from guys that I was talking to about the court system and about.
00;14;25;28 – 00;14;28;17
Paul Sullivan
The court system as it pertained to their individual lives or as.
00;14;28;20 – 00;14;52;03
Kenneth Braswell
Yeah, as it pertains to being fathers and going through that system and child support. And I didn’t experience that, so I didn’t know anything about that. The court we were in there briefly, we were in and out. So I didn’t know what that was. I didn’t know, the level of animosity that fathers had for child support, that visceral, like, you know, nastiness that they had in their voices.
00;14;52;03 – 00;15;12;00
Kenneth Braswell
I’m like, man, how could a system like get you all riled up like that? Like you heard you cursing that you just mad, mad, mad. And I met these guys that was running a father’s rights organization in New York. They wanted me to come and speak to them about, fatherhood, but wanted me to speak to them about fathers rights.
00;15;12;02 – 00;15;38;26
Kenneth Braswell
I’m new. I’m green. I don’t know anything about fathers rights organizations. I walk in on my old yeah, fathers rights that make sense to me logically. If all this. You have rights, you know, until I walked in and these guys are yelling and screaming and they got sons, and they’re wanting to go up to the legislature’s offices and barge into their offices, and the shared parenting and all that was outside scaling the side of the building.
00;15;38;26 – 00;15;43;09
Kenneth Braswell
And they was on the news that night. It was absolutely crazy.
00;15;43;12 – 00;15;47;00
Paul Sullivan
But you were there. You were there in what capacity? What capacity did they invite?
00;15;47;01 – 00;15;52;15
Kenneth Braswell
You know, I had a friend of mine knew that I was going through some stuff and we were having these conversations, but but what.
00;15;52;15 – 00;15;54;16
Paul Sullivan
Were you doing for a job at that? What were you doing for a living?
00;15;54;16 – 00;16;13;13
Kenneth Braswell
At the time, I was working with the Urban League of Northeastern New York. I was in our community building. I was doing community, doing community work. So people kind of knew me, you know, for always looking out, particularly for men and work force development and working out, looking out for moms that were in town up and trying to transition and get get their lives right.
00;16;13;13 – 00;16;17;24
Kenneth Braswell
So people kind of knew me for that. Was it. Yet in the fatherhood space, I was.
00;16;17;24 – 00;16;31;08
Paul Sullivan
But you’re you’re so you’re still coming in as as a good guy, as a good guy. And so imagine if you weren’t the good guy coming in. I mean, these guys are all, like, jazzed up, jacked up because they’re so they want to be heard. I’m guessing they want to be heard. Yeah.
00;16;31;14 – 00;16;53;03
Kenneth Braswell
I took a step back and I was like, wow. And then I started doing some reading. I started doing some research. And then I was in this relationship, a new relationship. And that relationship went bad. Went bad quickly. And it went so bad that it really had an impact on my relationship with, and Zinnia and her mom.
00;16;53;03 – 00;17;10;17
Kenneth Braswell
And so even that was going bad, and it was just a bad, bad time. And while I was sitting on my couch, it was so bad that I contemplated, killing myself. I was going to commit suicide because I had just I lost my business, actually. I was doing newspapers. I lost my business. I was in this relationship.
00;17;10;17 – 00;17;29;23
Kenneth Braswell
It was a bad relationship. Everything just seemed. The walls just seem to be closing in. And it was around the same time that we were going through family court trying to figure that out, and things were just falling apart. And I was sitting there and, you know, I pray because I always go back to what my mother taught me to do whenever I was in those kind of dark spaces.
00;17;29;26 – 00;17;47;07
Kenneth Braswell
Take some time, meditate, pray about where you are, get some guidance on that. And while I was sitting there, I simply heard these words in the spirit speak to the hearts of men. That’s that’s what I heard. Speak to the hearts of men. And I didn’t know what that meant, because I was doing DJ and I was doing all of this other kind of.
00;17;47;08 – 00;18;11;18
Kenneth Braswell
Yeah, yeah. And I was like, what is that? Speak to the hearts of men. Fast forward. I sat down on my computer that night, and within seven hours I had written a 15 page perspective for fathers Incorporated of all the things that I thought needed to be done with an organization that would help fathers navigate what I was experiencing at that time.
00;18;11;20 – 00;18;34;08
Kenneth Braswell
Yeah, within three days I had it. I and number a bank account, a board, a website, business cards, and an office. Within three days, father Cooperative and I just began moving. I just began, you know, internet was still young at that time. There wasn’t a lot of no Facebook, no Twitter, no all that stuff. Black planet and and and, I forgot the other’s Myspace.
00;18;34;15 – 00;18;56;20
Kenneth Braswell
That was the big things that were out there then, and began to start, you know, going out and speaking in different places, finding people’s names, calling them. I remember calling Joe Jones, who was running, the Urban Center for Urban Families out of Baltimore. He had just finished having I just saw him in a newspaper talking to President Bush at the time, and I was like, oh, this must be a big game space.
00;18;56;22 – 00;19;19;27
Kenneth Braswell
I remember reaching out to Ron Mincy because, somebody told me there was a guy in Columbia University that’s really big, and I heard about another guy in Washington, Charles Ballard, that they told me that was in the fatherhood field since the 70s. And I started like, yeah, moving through this network and at the same time still wanting to do my work, in Albany.
00;19;20;00 – 00;19;54;08
Kenneth Braswell
And then as I close this story, I realized very quickly that doing this simplistic work of helping fathers, get custody, visiting time and navigate that child support issues, I could not help but enough men fast enough doing that, doing that singular work. And I wanted to do something more systemic. I did not want to do anything in the way of fathers rights, because I didn’t believe that that was the way to go, that there was a different way to go to do systemic work.
00;19;54;11 – 00;20;20;26
Kenneth Braswell
And so decided that I wanted to do professional development and capacity building, building of organizations who wanted to work and serve, specifically men and fathers. And I set out, met some people at the Urban Institute at the Annie Casey Foundation and talked to them about this work that I wanted to do, met some other folks and, got a few contract to go around the country and do trainings and all of this stuff.
00;20;20;28 – 00;20;47;08
Kenneth Braswell
Fathers Incorporated just really began to develop and develop. And then I got a job with the state of New York running the New York State Fatherhood Initiative for Governor Pataki. And I began to, serve programs across the state of New York. Who were serving that? And I learned a lot, because my work was with them, the Division of Child Support, that’s where I cut my teeth and doing this.
00;20;47;12 – 00;21;19;16
Kenneth Braswell
Yeah. Within child support and work and workforce development. And I had programs in the most urban area of New York City to the most rural area of New York State. I had at all Indian reservations, you know, poor white communities, Latino communities. But, we I was everywhere. And I just in that five year span, had this concentrated incubator of really understanding what this work was.
00;21;19;19 – 00;21;31;07
Kenneth Braswell
And at the same time, finding out what my path was going to be beyond this work, because I knew that I wasn’t going to stay with the state. I want to do something bigger than even what the state was doing.
00;21;31;07 – 00;22;00;07
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, but it’s a great place for you to learn a lot. And, you know, in the division of child support, it’s a classic, you know, follow the money. I mean, that’s where there’s a lot of passion. There’s a lot at stake there. And when you think about, like where this conversation was, then, you know, what happened 15 years ago and where it is today, where where have we made, you know, progress and where do we still have, a long way to go on this, this fatherhood course?
00;22;00;10 – 00;22;35;12
Kenneth Braswell
I think one of the biggest issues when I started doing the program for the state of New York was the notion that, the responsible fatherhood field was forcing men to be in relationships with moms when they were in a dangerous situation. So we had a huge there was a huge backlash of the responsible fatherhood field from women’s groups and domestic violence groups because they felt.
00;22;35;12 – 00;22;41;14
Paul Sullivan
Because they wanted them out of that relationship. They wanted a life a different way for them to be fathers and not be part of.
00;22;41;16 – 00;23;05;13
Kenneth Braswell
Yeah, like that premise was, you’re forcing women to take men that are dangerous for them. And it was such a narrow view of what we were trying to do. It took a long time to help them broaden their perspective, to see that while that is an issue, is not an issue for this work, it’s an issue we have to pay attention to.
00;23;05;20 – 00;23;26;21
Kenneth Braswell
Right? It is not an issue that’s that should stop us from doing the work that we were trying to do. So we had to expand that. And so I actually had a great relationship with the commissioner. Then, the office of, of Women Affairs for the State of New York, to which the domestic violence agency fell under her purview.
00;23;26;23 – 00;23;39;16
Kenneth Braswell
Because I worked for our commission and the governor, I was able to kind of meet with that level of people. And we used to go, and I used to go to office, and we would sit down and she would be like, Kelly, just tell me about this work you’re doing. My fathers help me understand what it is you’re doing.
00;23;39;19 – 00;23;59;02
Kenneth Braswell
And then we would have these conversations and I would tell her what I was doing. I would tell her some of the stories of the guys that I was working with. And and after a while, we actually began to create brochures together and we began to do other things. And what she understood was, my work is not just in your office.
00;23;59;04 – 00;24;27;03
Kenneth Braswell
I have to have this conversation in every other state agency there is because of how agencies see that. And so while your issue is domestic violence, my issue in employment is dads don’t want to work. My issue in housing is if they got a job, they could pay rent. If my issue wasn’t what my issue was in health, well, they don’t really care about health anyway.
00;24;27;03 – 00;24;50;05
Kenneth Braswell
Why are we spending money? It’s more important that we pay attention to the health of mom, not dads. Everywhere I went, they had their own bias. Focus on what fathers are and what they should be. And I have to spend a lot of time so my incubator began to broaden a little bit so that now I became versed in all of these other different ways to kind of.
00;24;50;08 – 00;25;09;16
Paul Sullivan
Get a lot of education on your part. You’ve got to educate all these different agencies because you have this issue that’s up here. And, you know, there’s that phrase, if you’re a hammer, everything’s a nail. And so like you, if your lens is whatever it is, whatever housing okay. That’s the only thing you, you see things through. But you’re like, okay, that’s that’s one component of what I’m trying to do.
00;25;09;16 – 00;25;34;24
Paul Sullivan
But here’s the bigger, you know, overarching goal. Was there a moment where you felt like you, you broke through and were really starting to sort of, you know, convince people that that, you know, there were these component parts of what you were working on, motherhood and what father to corporate is doing, but that you had to look at fathers, you know, more holistically and not for, you know, their best days or their worst days.
00;25;34;26 – 00;26;10;27
Kenneth Braswell
Actually, yeah. I used to tell my wife, when I was working for the state of New York, and I used to come home, and I should tell her that if I don’t see change in the neighborhood that I live in, then I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing. And my job that if I work for the state of New York and I’m working in workforce development and child support and parenting, if I come home every day and I’m hearing the same stories from the families around my house, then obviously my work is not hitting the ground.
00;26;11;03 – 00;26;41;14
Kenneth Braswell
It was always so. I’ve always been a big person of proof of concept stuff. The concept is if you alleviate fathers, you create opportunities and you regulate the societal narrative as it relates to fatherhood, that that notion should make itself down into other agencies and then down to families where they feel it as well. And so that did not happen all at once.
00;26;41;16 – 00;27;10;04
Kenneth Braswell
And then there was these there have been these moments in the last, five years. Why, where you’re now beginning to see other agencies put money in addressing responsible fatherhood in those silos that I talked about. Right. And so you had HUD putting money into their authorities to do fatherhood work in their house, in their HUD housing around the country.
00;27;10;07 – 00;27;36;11
Kenneth Braswell
You got her. So, mandating that, one fourth of the individuals that they serve in their early headstart programs are fathers. You had HHS begin to put money in responsible fatherhood grantees around the country. You had a Department of Labor begin to start talking about creating workforce development opportunities for individuals that were coming out of incarceration and reentry programs.
00;27;36;18 – 00;28;08;28
Kenneth Braswell
And so and then you have, now you have, which is you talk about advancement. Now you have the US Department of Women that have now just put out a grant for male led organizations to train women led organizations. And understanding the notion of domestic violence from the perspective of men’s organizations and trying to bring those two things together, those grant that grant just came out about six month ago.
00;28;09;04 – 00;28;52;25
Kenneth Braswell
So you’re talking about this visceral reaction to responsible fatherhood some 15, 17 years ago, where they wanted to blame the responsible fatherhood space for putting couples together and not taking into consideration that safety to the to the largest, biggest agency that oversees domestic violence in the country, saying home. There’s something to be said about ensuring that as we protect moms from domestic violence perpetrators, that all fathers aren’t perpetrators, and that there’s a way to do this level of work to make, to get everybody safe, to make sure and ensure that everybody is safe.
00;28;53;03 – 00;29;21;29
Kenneth Braswell
Understanding that at the end of the day, is the child we’re trying to work for. So when you say, have I seen changes? That’s now my proof of concept. I knew back then that the only way to really crack this nut was to go into those individual silos and to get people to understand the importance of responsible fatherhood within their own network, which is why I created this curriculum called What About That?
00;29;21;29 – 00;29;43;05
Kenneth Braswell
And it’s been my principle from fathers it for Fathers Incorporated for the last 15 years. And what I mean about what about that? So I’m always conscious about mission drift with my agency that I’m not going over here, not going over here, not going over here. I’m going to defund wherever I go. But that doesn’t limit me to where I go.
00;29;43;07 – 00;30;15;04
Kenneth Braswell
What that means is I can walk into any role on any subject matter and have relevancy in that room, because I only come in with one question and that is relative to this conversation. What about that? Have you taken into consideration, dads in this conversation? And if you have not, I’m going to show you where they should be relevant, where you should be having a conversation and how they should be considered in the conversation that you’re having.
00;30;15;04 – 00;30;40;16
Kenneth Braswell
So whether it’s workforce development, whether it’s housing, whether it’s health, whether it’s substance abuse, whether it is, you know, three legged stools with a broken arm on the back, whether it’s automotive film, mothers, it does not matter if you’re talking to individuals, if you’re talking about women and moms, you have to take into consideration men and fathers in that conversation.
00;30;40;22 – 00;31;14;07
Kenneth Braswell
And so over time, that has been the improvement of what I’ve seen, and it tends to continue to happen more and more and more. What’s left to work, what’s left to do is to begin to start being able to express that evolution in this work, so that we can begin to start right sizing laws and policy so that they don’t serve as an obstacle for the work that agencies are trying to do with families on the ground, because that’s where the anger is still at.
00;31;14;07 – 00;31;43;21
Kenneth Braswell
The anger is still at individuals who are we are perfect example, right? In Georgia we have a direct service problem. But working with these guys, we’re working with them and their communication. So we’re working with them in their relationships. They’re getting parenting time, they’re getting custody. All these great things are happening to them. And then they go into a system in the state of Georgia that says, if you are unmarried at the time of at the birth of your child, you are not the legal father of your child.
00;31;43;21 – 00;32;05;14
Kenneth Braswell
It’s the only state in the country that has it. It’s called the generation. And so while you’re doing great work, mom is on board, kids doing well, dads happy family. It’s energizing. And then he says, let’s okay, now I want to get the visiting time on the books. Oh hold up sir, you can’t have visiting time in a state because when your child was born, you weren’t married.
00;32;05;14 – 00;32;12;26
Kenneth Braswell
You literally do not have rights to your child, and you have to go through a legal process to get that. And so that’s when.
00;32;12;28 – 00;32;14;28
Paul Sullivan
That costs time and costs money because.
00;32;14;28 – 00;32;41;04
Kenneth Braswell
Time and it costs money. So when you talk about low income dads and this talk, you know that it doesn’t matter whether or not you white, black, green or whatever, if you don’t have the resources to be able to do those types, those types of things, you’re still bounded by laws and policies that have not changed. And some of that has not changed because those old systems still hold on to old culture.
00;32;41;06 – 00;33;03;09
Kenneth Braswell
And so we got to be able to begin to start infiltrating, those systems where people who have a different mindset of parental culture so that those policies and laws begin to change so that they don’t become an obstacle to the great work that’s being done on the ground, the great work that you’re doing and have in terms of having this conversation and getting perspective with people.
00;33;03;15 – 00;33;21;05
Kenneth Braswell
But you don’t want people to feel great, like, man, I just listen to this podcast. I’m empowered. I feel like I want to go out there and I want to run the world. And they get out there, boom. They run into something that serves as an obstacle and is all as a result of somebodies thought process about who that person is and what they expect of that person.
00;33;21;05 – 00;33;23;15
Kenneth Braswell
And he can’t get around or through that.
00;33;23;18 – 00;33;43;04
Paul Sullivan
What do you think? We talked a lot here. That’s been a great conversation. We talked a lot about, you know, sort of on the policy level, state level, federal level, what can companies do? What can employers do, in 2020 to just come out of Covid, coming out of Covid? Well, you know, what can employers do to help men, be the best fathers they could be two things.
00;33;43;04 – 00;34;11;24
Kenneth Braswell
One is invest in organizations that’s doing that work. Right. So that they are contributing to organizations that are actually trying to ensure, that fathers particularly, are, supported in the same way that they support, the other employees. The second thing is to be able to be, to what’s the best word, be stewards of your own employees, right.
00;34;11;26 – 00;34;20;18
Kenneth Braswell
You hear, you hear corporations say this all the time. Families first. Okay, well, talk to me a little bit about how you’re investing in families.
00;34;20;21 – 00;34;30;29
Paul Sullivan
What does that actually mean? What do you think? That it’s words and sounds great. Like who doesn’t want to say family first? What what what company is that? You know, families third. That’s our policy. Families. They’re like, what? I’m not going to work for you.
00;34;31;01 – 00;34;31;21
Kenneth Braswell
That’s a.
00;34;31;23 – 00;34;42;19
Paul Sullivan
Barrier there. You know, it’s like words matter, but how do you then go and translate that into action and to things that employees feel like, oh, okay. My, my employer really does care about.
00;34;42;22 – 00;35;13;18
Kenneth Braswell
Like, yeah, we, we create during the pandemic. You talk about the pandemic, I created a three module curriculum called dads in the C-suite. And I created it because of all the conversations I had with men talking about how they were struggling with being a dad in their homes, because the environment changed. These are dads that are now in a house and they’re in the way right there.
00;35;13;20 – 00;35;42;24
Kenneth Braswell
That they feel like they’re in the way, and they’re trying to figure out how to position themselves. And even in their homes, many of them are feeling like I’m home all day long, and I still feel like I’m not connected to my family. What can I do to get me more connected to my children? Because I don’t do their homework with them, and I don’t do this because I’m busy and my hours of operation is now skewed because it used to be.
00;35;43;01 – 00;36;02;10
Kenneth Braswell
I left out at eight in the morning. I came back at five in the afternoon and I could separate my work from my home. Right now I’m home. It feels like my phone is ringing at 10:00 at night, and it’s 5:00 in the morning and 3:00 in the afternoon, and 4:00 here, and I’m on a zoom call here and having another zoom call at 7:00.
00;36;02;17 – 00;36;09;02
Kenneth Braswell
And I seem like I can’t stabilize. And that’s causing friction in my relationship. How do I navigate?
00;36;09;06 – 00;36;12;23
Paul Sullivan
What were some of the tips? What were some of the tips that you gave in that curriculum?
00;36;12;26 – 00;36;33;27
Kenneth Braswell
So one of them is mandate. Your mandate your family time. Your family time should not be an option. But the beauty in mandating your family time is your family time now doesn’t have to be, after 6 p.m. on weekdays, right? Yeah. Why?
00;36;33;29 – 00;36;38;04
Paul Sullivan
It can be 2:00, 2:00 in the afternoon, and you still get your work done at different times?
00;36;38;04 – 00;36;57;26
Kenneth Braswell
Yeah, absolutely. You know what you got? Hey, let’s jump in the car. We get ready to go to lunch and have food, or we’re gonna go to the park and we’re going to walk together or we’re going to, you know, or if you’re doing things individually with your kids, you’re going to walk in. If it’s the summertime, you’re going to walk your kids room and sit down, say, oh, I’m going to play your game in Baton and you’re going to do something or you’re going to play board games.
00;36;57;26 – 00;37;20;10
Kenneth Braswell
Are you going to watch these together? So it’s take so take. My thing was take advantage of the time that you feel like is being forced upon you, but it’s actually a benefit to you. Stop thinking about it as time that you, that you can’t manage, as opposed to time that it’s been gifted to you for now, for you to do the things that you’d like to do with your family.
00;37;20;10 – 00;37;41;22
Paul Sullivan
And I love this. This is one of my things that I’m so passionate about. So, you know, why can’t we say why? Hey, you work for an employer that trust you to to get your work done and you’re going to get it done. The project has to be done. Whatever you you know, but if you have a child and you want to see that child support that, or you just want to sit and talk to that child, you want to go and be with a go, go get an ice cream, go take a walk or whatever.
00;37;41;22 – 00;37;51;02
Paul Sullivan
You know why. Make up the beds together. What do to have I got it, it just makes you a better human being. And I think if you’re a better human being, you’re going to be a better a better worker.
00;37;51;04 – 00;38;24;20
Kenneth Braswell
Yeah, absolutely. I don’t even think about it. We have 13 employees on the ground here in Atlanta. About 35 others scattered around the country. And it’s attached to our federal contract. And my staff here in Atlanta, we meet twice a week. We meet on Monday from 10 to 12, and on Thursday from 10 to 12. At the beginning of the week, we talk about what we’re going to be doing the rest of the week, and at the end of the week, we talk about what we accomplish during the week, and I don’t think about them anymore as the ultimate indicator is, and I’m always on Thursday.
00;38;24;20 – 00;38;39;23
Kenneth Braswell
Did you get done what you told me you was going to do on Monday? Right. And if it didn’t get done, tell me why I didn’t get done. And then on Monday you could tell me what you going to get done on next Monday. And so to continue the of always knowing where they what they’re all what they all are doing.
00;38;39;25 – 00;38;59;28
Kenneth Braswell
Yeah. And that they’re doing it when you need things to be done. I don’t have to worry about, you know, somebody saying, you know, instance, one of my staff came to me today and said, hey, I’m working with this agency. They actually gone on a retreat to Savannah next week, all expenses paid, everything. And they’re doing some stuff on parenting.
00;38;59;28 – 00;39;15;20
Kenneth Braswell
Engagement can go. He says, don’t worry about it, because I got my computer and stuff. So I’m going to be online and connected anyway. I’m just not going to be in my house. I’m going to be in Savannah. And I was like, yeah, like my brain was like, whatever. I’m like, I don’t know if I need you.
00;39;15;22 – 00;39;30;15
Kenneth Braswell
I can get you. And I also know what you’re doing, and I know that you being away doesn’t stop you from being able to do that. I don’t think, Paul, that we’re ever going to go back to the way it was in terms of in hope.
00;39;30;15 – 00;39;31;19
Paul Sullivan
I hope not.
00;39;31;22 – 00;39;48;23
Kenneth Braswell
Right. Oh, God. Look at you. Look at you. You and your beautiful home. You guys get up there. Looks great in the background, and you’re doing what you love to do. And you’re not stressed by having to leave here and run home because, oh my goodness, my kid has an appointment at 1:00 in the afternoon.
00;39;48;28 – 00;40;04;18
Paul Sullivan
You know the irony of this, I can only tell you this on the Company Dads podcast. The irony of this is my oldest daughter needs to go somewhere, and she’s texting me during this course and the podcast wraps up. The podcast are only 30 minutes long. Don’t worry, I’m gonna wrap it up. But that’s that’s when my boss says, now is my 13 year old daughter saying, what are you doing?
00;40;04;18 – 00;40;21;08
Paul Sullivan
I was like, you know what to do. But you know what I think is great about this? And is that your employee felt like that he could be transparent with you. He could be honest and say, I’m going to Savannah, got to computers. But you’re also setting the example, like you’re having these meetings on Monday. You have now now have like three weeks in a row.
00;40;21;08 – 00;40;38;21
Paul Sullivan
Somebody says you’re gonna do something on Monday. They don’t get it on a Thursday. That’s a performance issue. That’s why that happens no matter what, you know. And and now that you’re giving these you employee 50 some odd employees, you’re giving them agency, you’re giving them the ability to say, okay, I’m going to get this done. And you know what?
00;40;38;23 – 00;40;51;00
Paul Sullivan
Some of the stuff. So I going to send 20 that I can send that at 9:00 at night. You know, I don’t I don’t need to send them at nine, at nine in the morning. You know, I can get all this and still be super productive and advance, you know, the mission advance what we’re trying to do.
00;40;51;02 – 00;41;13;14
Kenneth Braswell
Absolutely. And at the same time that that was happening, one of my other employees types in the chat, Tina was having chest pains. This what he thinks is he is is in a chat. And so we’re like, we’re all like, boy, you good? And he says, I’m just going to check on him. So his son has some.
00;41;13;14 – 00;41;34;26
Kenneth Braswell
He has, some has. He wants to play football, but he’s having some issues. And so he goes off camera. He don’t go off off. He just goes off camera. Yeah. And so we’re just I’m thinking that whatever he’s dealing with, he’s dealing with his son. And so then he pops back on camera and he has a, a mask on.
00;41;34;28 – 00;41;51;21
Kenneth Braswell
And I’m looking at the background and I’m like, could we see each other twice a week? We we know what everybody’s houses look like in the background and might. And I said, hey, Bo. I said, look like you changed your background. I was like you. I said, you could. Where you at? He says, I’m at the hospital. And I said, you’re at the hospital.
00;41;51;22 – 00;42;02;01
Kenneth Braswell
He said, yeah, we just I just brought him in. I figured it’s safe than sorry to bring him in, so that they can check him. But he said he’s good. He’s laying down, and we waiting for the doctors to come in. I said, you have to get.
00;42;02;08 – 00;42;04;15
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, right. I said, because.
00;42;04;18 – 00;42;18;22
Kenneth Braswell
I said you didn’t have to get back on a call. He said, no, I’m good. He said, this happens all the time. He says, I got my laptop in front of me. He says, I’m not. You know, he says basically when I get there, I’m not doing anything so well. Sit here and, you know, he’s on his phone doing whatever he’s doing with his friends on his phone.
00;42;18;22 – 00;42;36;00
Kenneth Braswell
And I’m sitting here on the computer and I was like, all right, well, I’m like, well, just text us later on, let us know how he’s doing to make sure he’s okay. But to your point by if we were locked into an office, he’s got to gather up his stuff. You’ve got to get the car. He’s got to drive, or possibly call an ambulance to take.
00;42;36;03 – 00;42;54;11
Kenneth Braswell
Yeah. From now it’s more traumatic right in the. Because you got an Atlanta Bob, and you’re not away and you’re in Atlanta. It might take an hour to get to the house and you’re stressed as opposed to you being at home. To your point about your daughter, you said your daughter just text, you say, hey, that way you have a son walked into the room and said that my chest is bothering me.
00;42;54;11 – 00;43;17;21
Kenneth Braswell
He goes off camera because he deals with what he has to deal with. Does it interrupt anything that we’re doing with respect to a phone call? Yeah. You you have questions about corporations and what they can do is to really begin to understand that you can incorporate the personal lives of your employees and not have that have a negative impact on your bottom line.
00;43;17;23 – 00;43;19;24
Kenneth Braswell
In fact, it may even have a positive.
00;43;19;27 – 00;43;30;14
Paul Sullivan
It’s going to it’s going to have a positive. We’re going to end it there. Kenneth Braswell, CEO of Fathers Incorporated, leader, in the father’s business. Thank you very much for joining me.
00;43;30;16 – 00;43;32;05
Kenneth Braswell
Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure.