This is an AI transcription, apologies for any typos.

[00:00:00] Kazeem Jamal: And he's louder than everybody else with his company accent, you know, Hey, how you doing? Good to see. And I turn around and we just lock eyes, kind of like a western where everything kind of just goes quiet and we're just looking each other down.

[00:00:17] Alex Melia: Welcome to stories of Men Beneath the Surface. I'm Alex Melia.

Join me as we discover what it means to be a man in the modern

[00:00:27] Kazeem Jamal: era.

[00:00:34] Alex Melia: This episode is about a father who abandoned his son and how that son used his anger as motivation to walk a different path. Kazeem was raised by his mom in Lewisham. His dad left when Kazeem was just a baby. As he grew up, his dad was in and outta his life. It was unpredictable. One afternoon, Kazeem's dad smacked him across the face as a punishment.

So Kazem cut ties with him at the age of 12.

[00:01:02] Kazeem Jamal: So from 12 to 21, there was no communication between me and my dad, but from 21 onwards, we tried to bridge the gap and reconcile. But for my 27th birthday, he, he sent me a belated text message for my birthday, which isn't a big deal. To most people, but if we're meant to be working on rebuilding our relationship, how could you forget something so simple?

You clearly don't care, still don't care. I text back saying My birthday was four days ago, and he text back, well, happy belated. And it was quite obnoxious, quite dismissive. You've n not been around for the majority. High, high majority of my birthdays. And all I need you to do as the little kid still inside is just remember that this is the day your son was born and you can't even do that.

And I text him back and I said, I'm, I'm completely done with you now.

And then a month later, We bump into each other at a family function. There's music going, you know, bash music, reggae music, people talking. There's a lot of laughing, a lot of joking going on. I'm actually saying goodbye to everyone and that's when my dad walks in and he's loud than everybody else with this cockney accent, you know, Hey, how you doing?

Good to see you. Oh, I might. And I turn around and we just lock eyes, kind of like a western where everything. Kind of just goes quiet and we're just looking each other down. Everyone's watching cuz everyone knows that our relationship is, is the rockiest. And he says something very casual to me. He's like, uh, are you all right?

And I return and I just say, I'm not talking to you. And he kind of says, what's your problem with me now? And I say, this isn't, you know, this isn't a time or place to be discussing this. And he storms off.

I continued saying my goodbyes to my nan and I sit back down on my chair and he walks back in. So he's now towering over me, you know, cause he's still standing up. I'm sitting down and he's still prodding, saying, wash your problem. Let's have it out wherever it is, let's have it out right now. And I turn in my chair and look up at him and I say, if you don't move from me, I'm gonna smack you.

And he said, I would like to see you try it. So I stand up from my seat and kind of like an Avengers movie. If Tony Stark stood up all the rest of the Avengers stand, all of my cousins stood up at the same time, kind of like ding, ding, ding, ding. The fight's about to happen and they grab hold of me. We're shouting backwards and forwards, and I'm taking steps forward with about eight people holding onto me.

And I'm trying to get to him, and if I get to him, I'm, I'm gonna put my hands on him and he's not backing down and we're just shouting backwards and forwards. And then he says something to me that was cut through the air and he said, you're mad at me because I forgot your birthday, but you've never, ever remembered one of my birthdays.

And I said to him, that's because I'm your son. You are not my son and you've not been in my life. Why would I wish you a happy birthday? And he kind of storms off. Again, my cousins let go of me, but when I look down, the thing that was stopping me from getting to my dad is my nan, who's got my sleeve with free of her fingers.

It was kind of like catching your coat on the door handle, and you can't go anywhere until you get that off. It was her that stopped me from e essentially getting to my dad.

[00:05:08] Alex Melia: Can you give us a sense of who your dad is? What was he like when you were

[00:05:11] Kazeem Jamal: little at that point, at that point in time, um, you know, he, he's a fun guy. He's black guy from southeast London, but with a cockney accent. Very lively, very entertaining. Um, and what I've learned in my later years is, is because of that personality, he's very, he's someone very hard to hate or not like because his personality is so infectious.

Um, but he is a g also a guy with a lot of demons. His dad left him and moved to America, and from stories that I hear, he would always tell his stepdad and his mom, my grandma, My dad's coming back for me, he's gonna come back, and he never did. So there's a lot of trauma there for, for my dad. And these are things you don't necessarily understand or want to understand as a, as a young kid yourself at that time you're just thinking, your dad's a bit of a prick.

But as you get older, you're, you understand that this, this man has his own demons of himself. He was also, um, A violent man, whether he would choose to, um, admit that or not. Um, but there is history of him being violent in the households. He's, he's been in, so he's a mixed bag of different sides to him. Um, and because he's never around for very long, you don't know what side of him is gonna appear.

You don't know. You don't know who he is, even though I can tell you about these different personalities. You don't know who he is. You dunno why he is the way he is. Apart from different excerpts you've heard from other people.

[00:07:01] Alex Melia: Your father is repeating this cycle that he had with his own dad about wishing, hoping, praying that his dad was gonna come back from America and he never did.

And then he's now done that with you. What did you kind of take from that and how did you reflect upon

[00:07:14] Kazeem Jamal: that? I see that situation he had with his dad and how it made him feel, and I just can't, for the life of me understand how you could then do that to somebody else. You know, that is your flesh and blood, knowing how it feels, it's almost like a, a slap in the face.

It's almost like the kid that picks up his ball and says, I'm going home because you're not playing by my rules. If I suffer, everyone else is gonna suffer. If I have to feel this feeling, then you are gonna have to feel this feeling because I'm not gonna be the only one that goes through this. Um, but it's also a feeling that my brothers.

Have to feel because the buck didn't stop with me. He's done it to three other children and we all are in the same position now where we're all cut him off at, you know? Now it's, and I've had conversations with my dad being like, you need to try and, Break your cycle of doing this cuz you're gonna be old one day and you're gonna have no memories of your kids, no memories of your grandchildren, and you're gonna leave this world feeling the same feeling you felt when you was a kid alone.

You're gonna feel alone. I think he's also afraid of, I think he's afraid of failing and it's easier to, to leave a task than to fail at it. You know, it's easier to not take a penalty than to take one and miss. It's interesting

[00:08:55] Alex Melia: you use that football analogy cuz I was thinking about the Three England players, Saka, Rashford, and Sancho.

Yeah. And I, after what happened, I remember watching the game as we all did. And I remember thinking, I, you know, after they'd miss the penalties, I thought, I've got so much respect for these guys because these are the ones who put their balls on the line. They, they came forward okay. They might not have scored and you know, obviously we all saw the.

The horrible abhorrent abuse that Rashford got afterwards. And, you know, people graffing on that wall in Manchester, but I had so much respect for that. And your, it's, it's a really good analysis you've made about your dad from what you've told me is that Yeah, he, he didn't want to, he didn't want to be kind of, have that feeling of failure.

And I think failure's a massive thing for men, isn't it?

[00:09:43] Kazeem Jamal: Yeah, a hundred percent. And what you can take from it as an adult is that it, it, it's definitely gotta be a personal reason to him. It's not a personal reason to us because he's done it to all of us, so it's something he's battling. The only conclusion I can draw is that he's worried about, you know, how he will stack up as a parent where you don't get those reviews as a parent if you don't be one.

But it's something inside of him that I can only relate to his childhood. And it was a worry of mine becoming a parent. Is it something we invol? Is it, is it an involuntary behavior? But you know, I took what I learned from that and applied it to my son for the best possible outcome. Well,

[00:10:35] Alex Melia: we'll talk about your son in a bit, but one line that comes to mind about your dad, don't be a victim to other people's weaknesses.

And it feels like you have. Taken control of your own life. You've not become a victim to the weaknesses of your dad, but your dad was a victim to the weaknesses of his father and then he's passed it onto you. Yeah. Yeah. You, you've changed the trajectory of your life cuz you could have literally just done the same thing your dad did with your

[00:11:00] Kazeem Jamal: son.

Oh yeah, a hundred percent. And when my son was born, I, when you see a baby and how fragile they are and how much. Care they need. Um, I said to my mom one day, I said, I can see how damaged or insecure parents that aren't quite, you know, up to it. I can see how they walk out because it is overwhelming. It is scary.

I no longer hold my dad in, like in vain. I don't blame him. For anything. I'm actually quite sympathetic towards him. My

[00:11:45] Alex Melia: real father, I never lived with him. I probably saw him still see him every two or three years. I saw him last week at a, a wedding in Ireland, but I've not seen him for three years and I've never really held any sort of grudge against him.

He's actually a nice guy, you know, and I get on really well with his family, his brothers and sisters and my cousins and things. But he was never, never around for me. And he accepts that, you know, he's got three kids of his, of his own now, and you know, he's an amazing father, but, I just think as I'm at the age where I think, well, I'm a bit older than when him and my mother had me, but you, you kind of understand what maybe he was going through at that time, his own sort of mindset around things and um, but yeah, I've never held that against him because, you know, you, you've got that relatability there, haven't you?

And obviously you've got that relatability now for the fact you are a father to a son.

[00:12:36] Kazeem Jamal: Yeah. Yeah. And it was like, it was a surreal moment when it was like, if I wasn't. You know, someone who had such a strong mom and even my granddad to, you know, make sure I came out into the world as a, as a well-rounded person, I might be suffering from the same insecurities and struggles that my dad did, and I could have done the same thing.

I'm sorry that he didn't have. The network, the support around him to make sure that, you know, he was, he was someone that was ready to have kids and ready to take on that responsibility. How

[00:13:22] Alex Melia: do you think you would be different as a man? How do you think you would live your life differently if you'd had your dad ever present in your life and being a baby up till the age of 29, which

[00:13:31] Kazeem Jamal: you are now?

I think a lot of things would be different, and some things are quite, Um, selfish. Uh, but I, before I got into standup, I, I, I was good at sports and you hear stories of a lot of athletes that make it to the very top of, you know, like Tiger Woods and his dad every day. Maybe dad wasn't the best golfer, but I've learned I'm gonna make, but I'm gonna make sure you learn a thing or two.

And I'm gonna be with the schedule and waking you up and making sure you're practicing Louis Hamilton, his dad breaking his back to afford the Formula one career, the go-karting career. And even more like when we say blue collar sports like football and rugby, where, you know, most, most dads that are sporty would've played.

There's things I had to figure out just as I went along in those environments where, You know, I, I, my mom would come to me with the park and, and kick rugby balls high, as high as she could in the air so that I could practice catching them. But that's something, that's something my dad is meant to do because I, I, I can't quite explain it, but there's, it's, it's, it's just, it's a bit different where it's like, that's, these are scenarios that I needed you in.

And I remember my dad coming to a football game. And telling me to run into a certain space and I scored and I was like, my mom don't know football like that. Or, and then as I grew up and, you know, you start to go through your adolescence, there was things I didn't understand about my anger and, you know, respect and conflict and how to handle conflict.

I remember I got headbutted once on his estate on when I was younger, still in primary school, and he watched from the window. And the only thing he said to me was like, don't bend down when you get hit cuz they'll hit you again. And I'm like, that's not what I need from you. I need you to tell me how to handle conflict like a man to, you know, don't get involved.

Walk away. You know, I've been through so many scrapes in my life cuz it's been trial and error when I needed the, and my mom's always said, I can teach you as much as I can, but I'm not a man. I can't tell you how you feel. I dunno how it feels to have your pride hurt in Abu in front of everyone and you wanna lash out, but you can't.

I dunno. And I was missing that,

[00:16:04] Alex Melia: it made me think of when I was about nine on the, the estate that we lived on in Greater Manchester. It was quite a rough street and I remember my dad was on shift work and he was driving through, it was like a crescent area. He was kind of driving along and he, he looked to left.

He's like, bloody hell, there's some kids fighting there. Bloody Alex are Alex. So he just screeches the screeches the car to a halt runs over and you're expecting him to break it up. And he is like, he can, he comes over, there's a big group of like 1520. Boy's watching, and he did the unthinkable to a lot of parents.

He went, come on, Alex. Punch him in the face. Come on, you've got him here. Get him. And uh, so a lot of people would think like, was that good parenting? Was that bad parenting? I don't know. It's open, open to debate, but. It didn't really do me any harm. I think it kind of helped me to toughen up. Now, of course, would you want your kids getting involved in scraps and in the playground?

Of course you don't. Of course you would want them to avoid that kind of stuff, but I think it definitely did toughen me up. But the reason why I mention it is because my stepdad was ever present in my life, you know? Whereas you didn't have. Uh, a stepfather. I had a stepfather from the age of one or two, and he was more of a father to me, and that's why I call him dad to this day.

And that's why I took, that's why my mom decided to, for me to take his last name. So it is important to have that kind of, that figure. And he's from like a coal mining working class background, and he got involved in scraps when he was a, a kid and he was told, don't come back into the house until you've sorted that lad out by, by my grandad.

[00:17:39] Kazeem Jamal: Yeah. Like you were saying, you don't. You don't want to have to go through these things, but they do. They do toughen you up. But even outside of the, you know, the scrapes and conflict and physical altercations you might get yourself into or might present themselves to you, there was no like even down to things like, but this is how you shake someone's hand.

Like I remember getting a suit and not knowing what to do with it, and I'm like, this is some, these are like the cliche things you see in movies and shows where. Your dad goes, this is how you wear your suit and this is how you know, you, you do this and this is how, when you go on a date, this is how you treat your date and et cetera.

And you know, there's things where it's just like, either I've had to ask my mom and or, you know, and my mom's like a suit. I, I, I dunno, I dunno of a suit. I'm, no, no disrespect. My mom's been the, she's my best friend, my mom, right? And uh, but I remember going to secondary school. And I had to go to the lady next door whose son was going to the same secondary school, and she taught me how to tie my tie.

Cause my mom's never had to tie a tie. I've never had to tie a tie. You kind of think like your dad didn't teach you how to tie a tie. No, he, he wasn't there. He wasn't there to tie my tie. Didn't teach me the only, the only thing my dad helped me do, which is, you know, within the cliche thing is ride a bike.

These things I hold on to dearly. He taught me how to ride a bike. He won a race at Sports day. The one time he came, it was such a good thing cuz everyone thought my dad didn't exist and now he's just coming smoke to your dad's. And I was like, so there was, there's a multitude of things I, I, I, I wish he was around to help me with.

But in hindsight, I, I'm happy he wasn't around to help me with. Because I used to sit there and think, why are these things happening to me? I've just been dealt some bad cards, and when we were expecting our child, I kept telling my Mrs. It's a boy. I know it's a boy. God is gonna give me a boy cuz there's no way, you know, I've done this getting excluded from school.

Your final warning arrested this, that, the other, um, you know, that little dabble with, with drugs and that kind of life. There's no way you've seen all of this stuff gone through all of this stuff, all the way back to Lewisham and your bike being stolen. There's no way. You've been through all this stuff to not raise a, a boy to give past on all of this knowledge.

My son's middle name is Lanre, and it's a Nigerian name shortened down from, um, Lanre wa. And it, it means, uh, wealth. Given forward, passes forward and on the face of it, you think that's about money and tangible things, but the, my wealth for my son is, you know, being able to say, I think I can help you through every walk of life.

There's nothing you can't come to me and ask me about that I probably don't know about. And if not, then there's YouTube, you know?

[00:20:58] Alex Melia: Do you think there's almost a sense of gratitude as well for the fact that your dad wasn't in your life? So he, because say for example, hypothetically speaking, he was in your life, but he's a bad influence and actually, It meant, it meant that your mum wasn't able to shape you to become the man you are today.

Yeah. Because he could have been that bad influence for you. Yeah.

[00:21:17] Kazeem Jamal: And there was, there was things that I, I'd witnessed that turned me off of a lot of things, um, during my teenagers. Like my, my dad was a heavy drinker, heavy drinker. Um, he would always have like, you know, like, like tinies, like the six pack.

Um, And him and his friends getting drunk in whilst I was with him and seeing his friends on the bed, like so out of it they're throwing up on themselves. And I remember being quite scared, I think, thinking, this guy's about to die. I've never seen anything like this before. Like he's and him turning up to my school one time when he picked me up, you know, before we, before you know, when I was 12 and smelling alcohol on his breath and being like, you're about to talk to my teachers man, like, What are you doing?

Like, and it, it got me to a point, I remember being 18 or 19, my grandma giving me a beer just said, you know, like, you, you know, have a beer with your grandma. I dunno if every family does that. Yeah.

[00:22:19] Alex Melia: So it's gonna be a rite of passage though. Shall have first beer with grandma. Yeah.

[00:22:24] Kazeem Jamal: And she randomly called my dad, and this is before I'd seen him.

So from 12 till now, I, I Hadn still hadn't seen him. And she called him, she didn't say I was there. She put him on loud. And I walked out the room, walked to the kitchen, and poured the beer down the sink. Cause it just reminded I'm not, I'm not gonna be like that guy. I don't want that. I don't wanna smell it.

I don't wanna taste it. I don't want, no, I don't want it near me. It's a bit different now after playing rugby for a few years. Uh, but I poured that beer down the, down the sink. I would, I would drink twice a year. I would have a drink at Christmas and at New Year's and that was it. Then the rest of the year, Because that, that resonated with me so that my dad was always had drinking in the system and I was like, I'm not, I'm never doing that.

[00:23:08] Alex Melia: Wow. So you never did the kind of typical guy thing, rite of passage where you go out until 4:00 AM you know, going to bars, nightclubs, getting drunk, you didn't do all of that.

[00:23:19] Kazeem Jamal: That came later in my life. It came when I got into the adults into the first team. And you spend this whole time thinking, I'm a professional.

And then you get into the first team and you're like, these guys aren't professional at all. And the nights out are very messy, but, but there's a level of security there as well. You're with your teammates. These are the people you risk your body for. So on a night out you can have a few drinks. Cause my unquote, my family are dead.

My, we're not leaving anyone behind. Um, so it, it lowered the reigns a little bit and to, to be like, I'm not just drinking in a house with my mates like my dad did. These are the people I essentially spill blood with, you know?

[00:24:05] Alex Melia: Of all the groups of men out there, the stories about rugby players are some of the wildest Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

They're generally big guys. You know, you could be 16 to 20 stone plus they really do know how to put them back. And it seems like that's that's absolutely right of passage. And if you go against that, then you are an outsider or you're remiss fit or something like that. And did you feel that sense of pressure from them, peer pressure, even though you'd resisted it for so many years?

Because I. In reaction to your father and how he was not

[00:24:37] Kazeem Jamal: necessarily, um, I didn't feel pressure to be involved. Cause there's some, you know, antics that go on gate drinking games and the likes that are over my threshold and I had no problem saying I'm not doing that. Um, you know, but I remember a story of my teammate saying, you're a pretty good player, but you need to get on the biz.

Cause I was like, you, I was pretty good. And then I got on beers and then I became better. And I was like, what are you talking about? And I remember that was when I was like, all right, cool. I'll come for a night out. And that was like my first time on a night out. And uh, we went on a really big session. It was a lot of fun.

And then there was like, I think it's the comradery, like we've all been out together and then it just makes you wanna, you know, run a little bit further for your mate. So there was no pressure actually. Brought me closer into the team and, um, there, there, there's always a part of me that wants to be part of the group.

You know, there's, yeah. I dunno if that relates back to my dad, but there's always part of me that there's the group I want to be, I don't need to be the main attraction, but I wanna say this is, this is my group and they're not going nowhere without me. They're always gonna, uh, gimme a shout and say, come and let's go.

Or, No one gets left behind essentially, is what I'm saying. And, and there is that nice feeling of belonging and knowing someone's, someone's there for you. Well, that's

[00:26:08] Alex Melia: everything you've just said in that last bit is kind of relates to your father. No one's left behind sense of belonging. You didn't have those things

[00:26:14] Kazeem Jamal: with your dad.

Yeah. Yeah. And um, a lot of it is, is around attention. And what I've found is that my behavior a lot of the time as a, as a youngster was. Looking for attention, whether that be negative or positive, you know, it's, it's, it's attention seeking. What it really came down to was, if I get in enough trouble, my dad's gonna have to come step in.

I'm, I've got a joke about it where my, my mom was very strict, but she probably would've loved to have been able to say things like, wait until your dad comes home. You know? And then I make a joke about saying, She said it one time, but we both started laughing cuz we knew he was, no, we knew he wasn't. And uh, there was a couple of times when my mom was like, called my dad to say like, he's struggling behavior wise.

And my, my dad was like, not my problem. Um, but maybe, maybe a lot of my behavior was to be like, at some point you've gotta step in and try and help. Um, but it, it never came. Do you still have the anger now? It's re-sparked in me since the birth of my son because me and my partner, we experienced two miscarriages.

Um, and the first time when we were pregnant, I didn't tell him. I said, he doesn't deserve to know. Um, I didn't tell him the second time either. And the third time I did tell him, and everyone was saying, maybe this will be. Kick up the backside he needs, maybe he'll be a great granddad. And that really wound me up cuz I was like, I can't sit here as a grown man and be jealous of my son.

That'd be really weird to be like, no, that's my dad. But I told him and um, yeah, he's not, he's not stepped up to that plate either. My son's two months old now. No. Two text messages. And a phone and a phone call that I made to him when he was born. That's it in two months. And people keep asking me, mom, partner, have you heard from your dad?

And I just laugh. And I'm like, why are you asking silly questions? It was a glimmer of hope. And, and he's, he's done what we knew he would do. And, uh, there's not even no responsibility there. You've just gotta spend time with him. There's no financial obligation. There's no. Legal obligation, but this is your grandson.

Kma

[00:28:50] Alex Melia: has worked incredibly hard to break the cycle of his dad's patterns of behavior. He's drinking a lot less than his dad did. He's really working on this, and I think this is something that I speak to a lot of men about that based on. The way that their fathers were with them. They want to break that cycle.

They want to do things differently to be a force for good for their children and for their immediate friends and family. We hope people will learn and change, and unfortunately that's not happened with his father in Kazeem's case. He's really used it as fuel to change and be a better version of himself.

However, we do hear stories of people repeating what happened to them as kids with their own children when they have them. Why is that? Why does some people go one way like Kain did? And some people go the other? Certainly for myself and the people that I've met over the years, I've seen many people repeat the patterns of their father.

Kazem has attempted to take his power back as an adult because he felt powerless as a child around his own dad. It's almost like as adults, we try to regain something that we never even had as a child. It's something that I've been very conscious about in my own life, not to have children until I'm absolutely ready because of the way that my biological father wasn't around for me when I was a child.

Unfortunately, in the world, there's tens of millions of people who are playing the role of both parents. As a single parent, and that's asking a lot of them. I speak to friends who've got their partners there as well, and it's even incredibly difficult for them, even just with one child, nevermind two or three or even four sometimes that you hear a single parent has.

It leads me to a question I ask myself again and again. How do we create better men of today and tomorrow if they never had their own fathers around, to teach them what it is to be a man, to take them through the rights of passage of a man, and not just any man, but a good man. A man that's gonna be a force for good in society.

Someone is going to take care of their children and their families, but on the other side, sometimes having a physically present father. Who isn't emotionally available is just as bad or even worse than a father who's not around. It might be like, in my case, you see your biological father once every year, two years, every three years.

So it makes me think, is it the quality of time spent or is it the quantity of time spent? So it makes me think, is it all about the quality of time spent with your father, or is it the quantity of time spent? Ideally, you'd have both, but that would obviously be in an ideal world. I think many listeners may have heard this one before, that a bad father, I suppose a bad parent can turn into a great grandparent, but unfortunately in Kazeem's case, this definitely was not true.

Kazem has almost built this kind of community with his three stepbrothers around their dad's lack of. Duty and lack of guidance as they were growing up. It's very comforting to hear that he's got this outlet, this kind of community that can relate to him and who know how he feels, and we almost create this community and this connection in the most unlikely of places.

So can Kazeem harness the anger around his father? And be able to let it go and forgive, or does he just not do that at all and continue to use it as fuel to make him a better man? Maybe he might need that anger. After all, anger's not always necessarily a bad thing. It can really help people. We can really drive people, but I feel like letting go and move on will be the key to helping him move forward as a

[00:32:09] Kazeem Jamal: man.