Who has changed your life?

Nehe | Pōneke

Nehe (Ngāti Porou, Tapuika) spoke about the parenting mātauranga his mum has passed down and how he has evolved that into the unique way he raises his daughter.

Nehe’s mother has been a rock throughout his life. He also shares a story from when he was at high school where she stood up for the values of whānau and the impact it had on him.

One key moment or decision that she made that I feel like had a massive bearing on sort of how my life played out.

And it was sort of when I was starting high school, I sort of love sharing this story. When I was at high school, third form, or year nine, I ended up — my older brother and I took a few hours out of class to go down and watch a touch tournament.

We ended up getting sort of pulled back into school, had a bit of a meeting, and sort of long story short, she ended up making a decision to pull both my brother and I out of that school to another one.

And I guess at the core of that sort of decision, was sort of whānau. Ultimately it was kind of prioritising my brother and I, thinking that it was important for us to go see whānau. Go watch a tournament, a touch tournament that, you know, we were real passionate about.

And so, not to say that, you know, education or those two periods that we missed weren’t important, but I think when I look back, making that decision, and a big decision around how ever long you spend at high school to sort of change paths and change schools, that’s had a massive impact I guess around what I base decisions off.

Around whānau, around what you’re truly passionate about. And yeah I sort of always remember that as being, you know, understanding what’s important, and not backing down in a way, but staying true to, I guess, your own beliefs and what you value.

When I think about parenting styles and the one that my mum I guess took towards myself and the bro and sister, when I think I definitely try and copy or model some of those things with my own daughter.

But then also understanding we’re in like, a changing world. When I think of evolution as a parent, it’s almost like a by the minute, by the hour, daily thing. So you know, my baby’s evolving by the minute, by the hour, by the day.

Which is hard — bloody hard — but also exciting and probably the most, even talking about it now, probably the most joy I’ve sort of felt through most of my life is being around my baby and watching her grow.

Most days when I’m talking to mum I’ll just try and reaffirm that love to her and, what’s special is seeing her like around a lot of kids, but especially her moko, so with her other moko, my nieces and nephew, and then seeing her with baby.

Yeah, I guess when I talk about that joy as a parent, it sort of goes to a whole nother level, seeing my mum around her moko.