Paul – Pukekohe
“With children, I’ve learned that often they just take things simple. They, they don’t get too complicated. Often as adults we can get more complicated than we need to. More issues, but often the simple things in life are important; the basics, you know, looking after each other, loving each other, caring for each other.
I was brought up in Pukekohe I’d say upper middle class, but since then I’ve become a high school teacher. Now I’m a school counsellor, and my environment is very different. My wife is from the Philippines, I’ve got one brother who’s married to a Japanese girl, another brother who’s married to a lady who was born in Samoa. So very much a multi-cultural family now. Auckland’s become multi-cultural and I think if we take that on board and learn from each other’s culture, pick out the best parts and make that our own culture.
I think traditionally being a man when I was brought up was very different; the man was the income earner, the wife often stayed at home. For me, being a man is being like a leader. So being a leader in the home is not just being in control; it’s taking the lead of where the family should go. That often means the first one to say sorry, the first one to serve, the first one to help. So I think leadership is important for a man, and part of leadership can be servant-hood in leadership. As a father I see my role is to help him to reach his potential.
The key thing is the relationship, so him feeling safe with me, [that] he feels that he can communicate with me, he knows that I love him and care for him, that I’m going to be there always for him. Even if he gets in trouble, I’m still going to show that unconditional love for him. So really just be an encourager and help him to reach his potential. I think as the city, and as a country, I think just caring for each other. I suppose if I was to use a quote, I’d probably use Jesus’ one of “Love your Neighbour as you love yourself” and I think if we have a society that does that, then I think our society’s going to be pretty good.”
