Ep 41: Why This Father Promised His Sons He'd Never Get Angry

Jem Fuller almost lost his son twice before he learned what real fatherhood forgiveness looks like.

Tony sits down with Jem Fuller, host of The Unknown Path podcast and author of The Art of Conscious Communication for Thoughtful Men, for a conversation that moves through blended families, medical scares, anger, and the parenting philosophy Jem built after growing up with a father who was loving but controlling. 

Jem is stepdad to two kids who call him by his first name, and father to two grown sons who call him dad, and he walks through what it actually looks like to hold different roles in one household without resentment. This episode digs into real fatherhood journey material: healing childhood wounds, breaking generational patterns, and building the kind of emotional expression in sons that most men never got themselves.

Jem shares the story of his oldest son's premature birth and heart surgery and the terrifying night his second son arrived early by emergency cesarean. He gets honest about losing his temper with his own kids despite years of meditation practice, and the "three time rule" he inherited from his father that quietly wrecked his patience until he dropped it. This is one of those conversations any parenting podcast listener will want to sit with twice.

Key Takeaways:

• Stepparent roles require different boundaries than biological parenting, and that's okay
• Kids don't do what you tell them, they do what you model
• Forgiving yourself quickly after a parenting mistake matters more than never making one
• Quality time, even 15 focused minutes, may be a top love language for young kids
• A promise to never react in anger opens the door to real honesty from your kids
• Inherited "rules" about respect are often just made up, and you can rewrite them
• Physical touch and vibration (holding, humming, singing) soothe kids more than we realize
• Boys crying isn't the problem, the culture around it is

If you enjoyed The Dad Manual, leave us a rating on your podcast app! If you loved it, share this episode with a Dad! Send your questions to [e-mail]. Connect with Tony Cooper: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thetonycooper/

00:00 Introducing Jem Fuller
01:08 Meet the whole blended family
02:05 Being a stepdad without overparenting
07:46 Where his parenting philosophy started
09:41 Growing up with a loving, controlling dad
10:23 Getting disciplined and what it taught him
13:31 Building open communication with his boys
14:18 The football crying story
16:09 A five year old explains why we cry
18:15 Forgive yourself quickly as a parent
26:16 Learning to witness instead of control
28:15 Quality time as a love language
30:21 The promise to never get angry
33:21 Men and the bottomless pit of rage
35:37 Jedi's heart surgery story
42:59 Noah's early arrival by cesarean
50:04 Advice for a brand new father
51:00 The three time rule he had to drop

Creators and Guests

Host

Tony Cooper

Tony Cooper is the founder of Playing the Game of Business, a business coach, father, and podcast host.

What is The Dad Manual?

The Dad Manual is a fatherhood podcast hosted by Tony Cooper, featuring honest conversations with dads about the real, unfiltered journey of parenthood. This parenting podcast for dads explores everything from the excitement of being a first time dad to navigating the teenage years. As one of the best podcasts for expecting dads and experienced fathers alike, we dive deep into what it actually means to be a modern dad—the struggles, the growth, the mistakes, and the moments that change you forever. Whether you're looking for a new dad podcast or seasoned parenting wisdom, this family podcast delivers the honest guidance you won't find in books.

Tony Cooper 00:00
My guest today is a real gem of a human. His name is Jem Fuller, and he is the host of a podcast called The Unknown Path that features fascinating stories about the journey of being a human. And today, he explores the journey he's been on being a dad. He's also a really conscious, thoughtful dude. He's the author of a book called The Art of Conscious Communication for Thoughtful Men.
Tony Cooper 00:25
So he's really put a lot of attention on how we as men and how we as fathers communicate in the world. He's also the founder of an organization called the Center of Love Global Human Coherence Project. So he pulls together lots of groundedness and insightfulness and consciousness into the journey of being a dad.
Tony Cooper 00:52
I'm Tony Cooper. This is The Dad Manual podcast. And I'm here today with one of my favorite dads. I'm going to make a longer introduction here because there are four step offspring who call you dad. That's Jedi, that's Noah, that's Lakota, and that's Quinlan.
Tony Cooper 01:09
So will you please introduce yourself?
Jem Fuller 01:11
Thanks, Tony. Yeah. Hi, I'm Jem. I'm a great dad and I've got some wisdom to share.
Tony Cooper 01:19
Thank you for being here, Jem. I appreciate it. I do just have to say right off the bat, like, I don't think that they're going to hear this, but for Lakota and Quinlan and for their dad, he won't listen to this. But just in case they do hear this, they don't call me dad.
Jem Fuller 01:35
That. We've been very clear about that. I've been in their lives. I've been their mum's partner for 10 years now. And we were very clear, I'm not your dad. And they were very clear, I'm not calling you dad. I'm like, I don't want you to call me dad. You can just call me Jem. So it's interesting. The stepfather or stepparent role is a very interesting one. There's a whole conversation in that dynamic as well. But my boys, you know, my natural boys, Jedi and Noah, definitely call me dad.
Tony Cooper 02:05
So. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Well, having a mixed family like that is a whole different set of fathering challenges that most people aren't prepared for. So tell me more about that, like the decision you made about the relationship. So we just talked about what they're going to call you, but what are the considerations you've had around how you are going to show up for them in their life?
Jem Fuller 02:35
So my, and this was always spoken about with my partner because we communicate about everything. We've really got quite a wonderful relationship and we talk about everything. So we spoke a lot about this. It was always to be there, be consistent, to be the values that I aspire to be. You know, kind and loving and so safe and all of these things. To be that without prescribing and really hands off parenting, you know, being there. If they ever need me, I'm there for them. This is the step kids. If they ever need me for anything, I'm there and I'll drop everything for them. And I love them. I love them like they're my own, but I can't actively outwardly parent them. I've never told them what to do or how to be or anything like that. I've been very, very aware of that. And I knew that wouldn't work. It would only drive a wedge between us in our relationship.
Tony Cooper 03:24
And it's hard, man. Like, especially when you see it and you're like, I'm a parent and I know the parenting that's needed now and. Right.
Jem Fuller 03:41
Yeah, yeah. You know, and if they were my biological kids, there would have been plenty of moments where I would have intervened. You know, just say, for example, okay, and this happens for all parent kid relationships. Moments when they were being really disrespectful to their mum, my partner. And I'm sitting there watching it and every part of me wants to just go and gently scoop the kid under the arm and take them for a walk and have a chat, have a talk, check in with them and how they are, and, you know, and every situation will be different in terms of how you intervene and help them come to some awareness of the way they're treating their mum. Or sometimes even just to put a boundary and say, hey, that is not okay. You know, we don't do that, whatever it is, however you choose. But any of that, if it was with my boys, I would have been involved. But with Lakota and Quinny, I've just sat there on my hands.
Tony Cooper 04:34
Yeah. There's not like a right or a wrong in that moment. It's sort of like every part of you tells you to do it.
Jem Fuller 04:42
Yeah, yeah. There's no right or wrong. And a friend of mine who is a stepdad as well, he's the opposite. He's completely in there, engaged and creating boundaries and disciplining as a father because his stepson's father is not around, not on the scene, not in his life. Whereas Lakota and Quinny have week on, week off, and still Quinlan, week on, week off, to their dad. So their dad's there, he's present. They spend half their lives with him.
Tony Cooper 05:07
So that's his role. And yeah, it's just very clear that that's his role and it's not mine. Yeah, yeah, that's a tough one. I'm not sure how I would do with that, because I hear what you're saying, which is, yeah, they have a father and that father is responsible for raising them in the way that he feels appropriate and is connected with them. And there's that dynamic. The one topic you brought up was the one where I'd probably have the most trouble, right, which is how they're treating their mother, who's my partner in my home.
Jem Fuller 05:41
Yeah. He's not even around to be able to weigh in on that.
Tony Cooper 05:41
Like that's. He's blind to it because he doesn't see it. So that's where I'd go, well, maybe there's a loophole here for me to slip through.
Jem Fuller 05:58
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I obviously hope to be a good influence on them and I know I am, just through being. And this comes to my boys as well. You know, this is something that I've learned along the way. Good luck telling your kids how they should be. Good luck telling them which core values they should have. Good luck telling them how they should behave. You can try, and depending on their spirit, their soul and their behavioral style, some of them will toe the line and do as they're told, quote unquote, and behave the way they should behave, quote unquote. And the others will go the opposite way. They'll be like, no way, I'm my own person. Which is psychologically an important part of kids becoming adults, is that they separate and individuate and understand their own sense of autonomy and responsibility. And for some of them to do that, they need to do the opposite to what you want them to do. So what I found, I read some books that helped me in this direction when the kids were maybe 9 or 10 or 11 years old, around that age. And rather than telling them to be kind, I'd just be kind. Rather than telling them to put their dirty clothes in the basket and wash their clothes, I would just clean my room and wash my clothes. And the boys got 13, 14, 15, they're like, dad, I've got dirty clothes. And I said, I'll show you how to use the washing machine. And I showed them. And then I never told them to clean their room. And one of them just wanted to have a clean room because that felt good for him. The other one, his room was terrible until he had a girlfriend. And then he was proud and he wanted his room to be clean for his girlfriend, so he started cleaning his room. So they both cleaned their rooms. They've been washing their own clothes since they were 14 or 15 years old. But not because I told them to. Right, because they wanted to have their clean fit so they could look good with their mates, you know?
Tony Cooper 07:46
That's right. That's right. So where did your philosophy, your parenting philosophy, come from? You feel very grounded in it, very balanced, very aware, conscious. So where did that develop? I mean, maybe even starting back to thinking about it, from the influence you had as a child seeing your father. I'm just curious about that.
Jem Fuller 08:02
Well, that's certainly where it all started from. So, you know, my experience as a kid, the good and the bad. My dad was a very loving father, and he was also quite a control freak. I'm not gonna say control freak, but he liked to be in control. So the good side of it was that we were very open about expressing our love as a family. When I grew up, "I love you," we were tactile. We would hug, and every day when dad got home from, I was the oldest of four kids, we would all line up and give him a kiss and welcome him home. And we all had family dinner together every night.
Tony Cooper 08:40
And it was very like that. Was that similar with your friends? Did other families do that, or was that unique?
Jem Fuller 08:47
I thought it was normal until I started going around friends' houses and seeing that some families would just eat dinner in front of the television. Like dinner would be made ready and then they go and serve themselves whenever they wanted. And someone would sit in front of the television and eat, and someone else would sit somewhere else and eat. So I saw that that was normal. I certainly knew pretty early on it wasn't normal, my friends didn't kiss their dad.
Tony Cooper 09:10
And by the way, just to. So that your listeners know, it was a completely healthy, normal parent-child kiss. There was none of that other stuff going on for me, thankfully.
Jem Fuller 09:20
It was just normal. It was just like, hi, dad, welcome home, kiss, I love you. Very, very tactile family. So that was normal for me. But I realized pretty early on that other kids didn't kiss their dads or even hug their dads.
Tony Cooper 09:29
You know, my dad, that they love, he loved you, right? That's right. That's a big one.
Jem Fuller 09:42
Yeah. And my dad would say it a lot, I love you a lot. So there was that healthy side of things. The other side of things that I reacted against, and I learned what not to do or what I didn't want to do as a dad, was that my dad physically disciplined us. I was the eldest of four. I was a very sensitive boy, quite in my feminine energy. I was soft and sensitive and creative and emotional. And he didn't want a son like that. He thought to be a good young man, you had to be tough. Hard enough. Don't cry like a girl, I used to get told. Don't have the soft lip thing, like, no quivering lips or anything. Toughen up was the thing. And he used to discipline us by hitting us. And I really, really disagree with that. So as a parent, I was adamant that I was never gonna hit my children, which I didn't.
Tony Cooper 10:47
What memories do you have about that, when you would get hit? Like, why you're getting hit and what the experience was like, what thoughts you had had about it, about him, about you, about the world.
Jem Fuller 10:59
Oh, in the moment, I just felt humiliated. And it wasn't even so much about the physical pain. I mean, the normal hitting was just hitting us on the hand, and then if you were really in trouble, you might get a smack on the bum. And once or a couple of times, he really lost his temper and went too far. So it wasn't so much the pain, it was the humiliation, but it was this, the fear factor. I was scared of my dad. He could be up the other end of the house, right up the other end of the house, and if we were mucking around and, I don't know, he wanted us to stop, to be silent, he would just clap his hands twice, just two claps, clap, clap, really loud from the other end of the house. And we were like, "whoa." We were scared of him. Well, I was anyway. I was scared of him. I think my younger brothers, by the time they got older, they started to stand up to him and stuff. But yeah, so it was a little bit eggshell. It was weird. It was eggshells and soft, gushy love. It was both. So it was a bit like, where am I? But I was at home, that's all I knew.
Tony Cooper 11:52
Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy how we carry that, too. We carry that in our body and it's in your nervous system. And I don't know when you hear clapping, if there's any particular Pavlovian response you have to that now.
Jem Fuller 12:00
But I've done a lot of work, Tony. I've done a lot of work. I reckon I'm good with the double clap. I'm pretty good with that.
Tony Cooper 12:11
That's right, yeah. And so then it allowed you to look at all the ways in which your father chose to raise you and what worked for you and what didn't. And then when you became a dad, did you go into it with a worked out philosophy about what you're going to take from your father, what you're going to leave behind, who you're going to be yourself, or was it sort of discovering as you went?
Jem Fuller 12:25
Of course, the latter. I mean, I had a couple of key things, like, you know, I don't ever want to hit my kids, I knew that. And the other thing that I always wanted to try and do, and I've done a pretty good job at it, was to have open lines of communication with my boys. When I was a teenager, I couldn't tell my dad what I was going through. I couldn't tell him about my anxieties, my emotions, my rebellious nature. I could talk with him about things that were fine, if we were talking about science or if we were talking about geography, or any of this stuff was fine. But if we were talking about emotions or anxiety or depression or sexual anxiety, or what should I do with a girl, or any of that stuff, I didn't ever talk with my dad about it. And I wanted it to be different for my boys. I wanted them to feel like they could talk with me about anything. So I made a real conscious effort for that to be the case. And it worked. They tell me everything. There's been stuff that they haven't told me, especially the younger one, because that was a necessary part of his becoming his own man, was having stuff that he didn't tell me, and I understood that. And he would tell me things that weren't quite true, and I knew it, but I let him do what he needed to do to develop his sense of identity. But they can talk with me about anything, and they cry, they're emotionally connected. Crying's okay for men. And there's this story, actually, one time we're at, watching the football grand final. So here in Australia, we have Aussie rules football, right? It's the best sport in the world.
Tony Cooper 14:21
It's a hundred percent.
Jem Fuller 14:21
So, and it's big in Australia, it's massive. It's like in America, you go into the final and it's a big day. And we were around at a friend of my sister's house, and there was a bunch of people we didn't know, and I was there with my two boys. And it's typical Australian Grand Final day, it's a barbecue and there's meat on the barbie and the salads and people drinking beer, and we're all going on and we're sitting there watching the game, and the team that won were the underdogs, and it was their first Grand Final win in decades. And one of the people from the team, at the end of the game, was on the side of the pitch crying. And two blokes behind us sitting there drinking their beer started saying, "you bloody sook, what are you crying like a girl, you bloody wimp," blah, blah, blah, like they were giving this guy a hard time for crying. Both of my boys, who at the time were 8 and 10 years old, turned around to these guys behind us, completely innocently asking the question, and just said, "what's wrong with men crying?"
Tony Cooper 15:27
Yeah, yeah.
Jem Fuller 15:27
And out of the mouths of these two young boys who were earnest and sincere, going, "what is wrong with men crying?" And these two guys behind us just kind of, oh, they just got called out by these two young kids, and everyone sitting around was like, "yeah, that's right, men should be able to cry." And I had a proud dad moment because I'm like, yes, boys, yes, they're both quite emotionally connected.
Tony Cooper 15:52
That's beautiful. That's beautiful. I love that. It wasn't even that they were wronging them. They were just, like, curious about why. Because my takeaway is that they had not been exposed to that concept. That's a new concept to them.
Jem Fuller 16:09
Yeah, yeah. That's amazing. I'm the oldest of four. My youngest brother died on his motorbike when he was 30. I was 38, he was 30, and it was just four months after my dad had died from a brain tumor. Dad died when he was 65, so quite young. My little brother died instantly. That was very traumatic for us as a family. We have a place on top of the cliff above the ocean where we have cairn stones that have been brought together from everyone at his funeral. And we go there on the anniversary of his death each year to commemorate. We'd been there, we were leaving the cliff back to the car, and I was crying, and my 5 year old was holding my hand, and he looked up at me and he said, "dad, I understand why we cry." And I said, "why is that?" And he said, "well, because the tears are bringing out all of the pent up emotion inside you. The tears are releasing it out from the outside world so you don't have to hold onto it anymore." And I just went, I'm crying. Oh my God, you got it, you nailed it.
Tony Cooper 17:02
You know, what that really brings up is just how, as parents, it's our job, just don't mess them up. Like, they come into the world knowing stuff like that and connecting to stuff, it's so obvious. Then you become an adult and all of that becomes just whatever you've been told, or however life is supposed to work, and you let go of it all. So much about parenting is just like, how do we just not mess up our kids?
Jem Fuller 17:33
Yeah. And when you do, when you have a moment where you mess up and you didn't mean to, but you do, and it does mess them up, because that's what happens, forgive yourself really quickly. If your intentions were only ever to be the best parent you can be, and you're human, and we mess up and our kids get messed up by us inadvertently, I think it's really important to forgive yourself as quickly as possible and just come back to love and communicate with the kid, and just say, you know, in your own way that you're aware that your actions or your words or whatever, right then, that you hope to not do that again, that you regret that. How are they? Check in with them. Just communicate. I don't think you can over communicate. I mean, you can, but it's better to over communicate than under communicate. I think with kids, just let them know. That was one of the biggest surprises for me about parenting, was thinking I could be the one who raised a kid without messing him up, without being the one who triggered something. And I realized, as a dad, it's sort of, here's the analogy: I primarily wash the dishes in my house. Yeah, other people do, but it's pretty much I'm always the one. At one point my son came up, he goes, "dad, why are you always the one who breaks dishes?"
Tony Cooper 18:56
Because I'm the one who washes them. It's sort of the same thing with kids. Like, you're the one who's around doing it all the time. So, yeah, you're going to do a lot really, really well. And you're also the one who's going to mess them up. Like, with my daughter I was like, I want to be the one who shows her how men should respect and treat women. And then it turns out I'm also the first person who was really unkind to her.
Jem Fuller 19:22
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it happens and you're like, oh my God, it happened so quickly.
Tony Cooper 19:22
Yeah. You want to just take it back, but it's like it's already done. And then what we really get to do is forgive ourselves and then just clean it up and move on. Because you know that your intention, your love, your care is really the thing that you're imparting.
Jem Fuller 19:36
Yes. Then it becomes actually a beautiful lesson about being human for them. When you can sit down with them, and obviously the conversation itself and the way that you have this conversation changes with the context in terms of their age. So the way you speak to your five year old obviously is different from the way you speak to your 15 year old. So given that, put it into context. But just say, for example, your 15 year old daughter, and you had a moment where you lost your temper and she just experienced what it was like to be scared by a man because he lost his temper. So you've, quote unquote, upset your daughter in that moment. The conversation that comes afterward, around the apology and everything, you can then guide and lead that conversation into, "you know what, we're human and we all make mistakes, and we all have moments that we wish we hadn't had and we try not to have again in the future. Let's talk about self forgiveness and let's talk about unconditional love." Because what they're then learning is that they're allowed to be imperfect too. That they can make mistakes, and that's okay. They can have moments where they behave in a way that they look back afterwards and go, "oh, that wasn't great, but how can I forgive myself and learn from that and hopefully be better next time?" So anything can lead into a wonderful conversation with a kid. The journey of fatherhood too is just realizing, like, we've never done this before. We've seen it done. That's the way life happens. We're always just making it up as we go along. But never does the stake seem so continually high as when you're doing it, raising a child, raising a human into the world, because they're your flesh and blood.
Tony Cooper 21:19
Yeah, right, we have this.
Jem Fuller 21:19
But you're of me, as a dad, you're half me and you're half your mum, and you are of me. And yes, it's my responsibility to raise you in a way that hopefully sets you up to have a wonderful life. And I love you so much because you're my child, and I've never experienced a love like this ever before. And therefore, when they don't behave, quote unquote, the way we think they should, it cuts us to the quick, because it's a hit to our identity. Because they are a part of our sense of identity, of who we think we are. They're our children. And when they don't behave in a way that we think they should behave, it's very, very personal. And when something's very, very personal, our ego, our sense of identity gets very defensive. So it's hard to breathe and allow them to be their own autonomous entity. It's very hard to do, but it's part of what we need to be doing as well. And you also know, at a higher level, the only way for them to get to the place that they're going to get to is to make mistakes along the way.
Tony Cooper 22:24
Yeah, right.
Jem Fuller 22:24
It's really hard to know what you want to become in life if you haven't messed up in some way and you learn. And so that's that whole part too, about like, yes, you're not behaving how I want you to, and this is probably the best experience for you to have in my higher intention of who I see you becoming in the world. So those are like tough grounds to hold for your children.
Tony Cooper 22:52
Yeah, really tough.
Jem Fuller 22:52
And when you put a sphere around them that is beyond, that sphere is a no go zone, and you do everything you can to protect them from the outside world and not let them go beyond particular boundaries that you've imposed. If you impose those boundaries that are more constrictive than their range, they don't get to experience their own range. And that then has ramifications for them later on. And there's no right or wrong. It's tricky. The feedback that came to me consistently with my boys, when they were younger and through their teenage years, was that I gave them too much rope. I didn't have strong enough boundaries. I let them get away with too much. This was the feedback from adults around me.
Tony Cooper 23:39
Oh, wait, wait, wait. Your kids weren't saying that, your friends were saying that.
Jem Fuller 23:39
Okay, yes, yes, yes. My mum, my brother, my friend, anyone close enough to me who felt that they could share what they thought. My partner. This is a little side thing I've figured out: don't ever give a parent parenting advice. Just don't do it. Unless I ask you. Unless they say, "hey, can you come on my podcast and talk about parenting?" I'm not sure. Don't ever tell a parent how to parent. But I was aware that I gave my boys a lot of rope, we say, and that the older one didn't use the length of rope, because that's just not who he was. And the younger one did. And he went out and he pushed what would have been boundaries that other parents had. He went way beyond them. And it wasn't easy. There were years where it was really, really hard, because you kept getting the phone call from the school and he'd been in trouble again, et cetera. And he couldn't sit still in the classroom, and that was his ADHD. But he was acting out in all the wrong ways. And then when he left school, he was getting into trouble with the police and his mates and getting drunk and all the stuff. And it was stressful. I used to joke and say, most of these gray hairs, for those of you listening, not watching, I've got a gray beard, most of these are because of him, I used to say jokingly. So it was stressful. But the result now is that he's come through that, and he's a very responsible 20 year old who is completely independent, very healthy, he's in the gym six days a week, treats his girlfriend beautifully. I could not be more proud of the way he treats his partner with utmost respect, and his football club, and the way he is as a friend, all the things. I look at him and I go, "wow, I'm proud of you as a young man." And he figures things out. He fixes his own car, he'll make things happen. He was driving to football training last night and he rang me on his hands free, rang me and said, "dad, there's a storm coming, there's rain coming. I noticed that someone's got clothes on the line. You might want to go and get those clothes off the line." And I'm like, just really considerate. Thank you. But if you rewind four years ago, oh, geez.
Tony Cooper 26:00
And you get to hold that possibility of who he really is. You do get to know who they really are, and then you can see the part that they're battling with. And I would go out on a limb to say that I think they're all good inherently.
Jem Fuller 26:16
I think so.
Tony Cooper 26:16
And it's like being able to see the part of them that's good, and seeing all the other stuff is just sort of in the way, and what they're learning about, to find themselves. And I don't think they grow in our image as much as they grow in our reflection, how we see them. So all the children in your life are now almost all adults, or at least late teens, early 20s. And there is a difference when they do step into the teenager years, where the exact role of parenting is a little, it's a little question at times, because sometimes they really need you, but for the most part, they don't. And so it was hard for me, because I'm a little bit like your dad, where I could also be very loving but also be very controlling. And then it gets to the place where, like, I feel like I really need to be controlling, and then I realize that's probably not the right place to be. And then what do I do with myself? And so I had to create this whole idea that my job is to be a witness. Like, they exist because they're experienced by someone other than them. And as a dad, to be able to hold them as, just to be able to see them, not approve of them or condone or correct, but literally just to bear witness.
Jem Fuller 27:33
And so I think there's something very much about their growing, as long as I'm holding a really positive interpretation of who they are.
Tony Cooper 27:52
I think that it's a very, back to the name of your kid, a very Jedi way of parenting, Tony. I love that.
Jem Fuller 27:52
And the quality of you as witness, and the word that comes to me is presence. And it doesn't mean that you can always be present, because you've got to go out and hunt the deer and bring it back, et cetera. But when you are with them, the quality of your presence in that role as witness, I love the way you described that, it means so much to the relationship, and I think that's what they really need. I have a theory, I don't know if it's right or not, but I have a theory that, you know, the five love languages, have you heard of the five love languages?
Tony Cooper 28:27
Yeah, yeah.
Jem Fuller 28:27
I have a theory that little kids, one of their top love languages is quality time. And I used to notice, when my boys were little, that if I spent 15 minutes doing something that they loved doing, not doing something that I thought would be fun for us to do, if I noticed, "what is he into? What is he really into? Oh, he's into building Lego." If I went and sat with him for 15 minutes, and it was a meditation, all I was doing was building Lego. The phone was nowhere in sight, obviously I wasn't distracted, I wasn't thinking about what we're cooking for dinner, I wasn't trying to think about anything else. I literally was just building that space station with him, that would fill up his love tank and buy me hours. He was full. He felt loved and connected and all the right things. So I think quality time is really important. And as witness, that brings that as well, that's a part of that. If you just have that quality time, and for them to feel that you're present, that you're there, that they're safe, that they're there if they need you. And so when they're teenagers and they go off necessarily to go out into the big wide world and experience themselves without you being right there next to them, when they come home and they have a moment, and they're like, either they want to share something exciting that happened, or they want to share something really tough, or they want to share something they're anxious about, or, for me, what I always hoped for was that they felt like they could tell me things. They felt like we could talk. And so I said to them, when they were little, this is something I didn't know, I just kind of made it up, but it worked. I said to them, "boys, my promise to you is that if you have done something and you feel like you shouldn't have done it, or something went wrong, if you feel like you're in trouble, my promise to you is I want you to know you can come to me and tell me anything, and I promise I won't get angry. There might be consequences, we might have to talk about what happens now because of what you've done, but my promise is that I won't get angry." And I stuck to that promise. So every time they came to me and said, "dad, I messed up," I would breathe, manage myself, not get angry, and we would talk through it. And if there had to be consequences, there would be, but they felt safe to come and tell me anything, because they knew I wasn't going to lose it and scare them by losing my temper. That was something that I just thought I'd try, and it worked.
Tony Cooper 30:55
So, yeah. Is that a thing? Do you have an anger thing? Like, is that in you?
Jem Fuller 31:03
It's only in me as much as it's naturally in humans. And, I mean, we could have a talk about men, I wrote a book called The Art of Conscious Communication for Thoughtful Men, so I've done a lot of research into this. And a lot of men, because of the way we're raised culturally, especially in the West, in the States, Canada, Australia, a lot of men go from zero emotionally, just even keeled, and then out of the blue can just go to 100, anger, because "everything's fine, everything's fine, everything's fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, slightly irritated, slightly irritated," and then something will happen, and we go, "what the—"
Tony Cooper 31:29
Right, yes, that's quite normal for men.
Jem Fuller 31:29
Not all men, but it's quite normal for men. And I'm a man. And so that was, when my kids were little, I noticed that I would lose my temper, they'd do something and I would lose my temper, I'd shout, and I was like, "whoa, who are you, Jem? What are you doing?" Because I had prided myself on being peace, love and mung beans, hippie kind of shanty. And here I was shouting at my kids. And I realized then it's because I had expectations on how they should behave, and if they didn't behave in the way that I thought they should, my rules around the values, then I took that, that they were disrespecting me, and I felt disrespected. And then I'd be like, "how dare you disrespect me, I'm your dad" kind of thing. And so I had to have a look at all of my rules and expectations and rewrite them and let go of a lot of them, and do the work around that.
Tony Cooper 32:35
I think it's really important to acknowledge that part of it, because people meet you and they see you as this serene, peaceful person, and they must think, "well, you must have it super easy." But what I know is men, is that we're all, at some level, doing the daily job of controlling a bottomless pit of rage. I don't know where that comes from, but it just feels like that's the work of being a man. And so to be someone who's not that, who's not so susceptible to it, I just know there's just a lot of work that went into that to get there.
Jem Fuller 32:58
Yes, there is. There is. I mean, I've been meditating daily for decades, which really helps. My boys, their mum and I separated when they were about 8 and 10 years old, and then they were week on, week off, so I would have them every other week, single parenting, going to work and getting them to school and packing lunch boxes and ironing school uniforms, and, no, that's a lie, I never ironed their school uniform, get them in their clothes and get them off to school. But for some reason, one of my bugbears was that even if I said to them, "boys, make sure you're ready 10 minutes earlier than you need to be, because then we can have a nice relaxed drop off to the bus, relaxed, and we're like, have a great day guys, and we're all relaxed," do you think they could get that memo? No. Every single morning we're racing to the bus, I'm screaming down the highway to get to the bus in time, and I'm stressed and I'm like, "boys, it's happened again, seriously." And then going, "Jem, who are you, dude, you just did a half hour meditation and now you've lost your—" minutes later. What's the point if you're not integrating the ability to stay calm. Anyway, so yes, I'm human, and that's there as well. But because I work in human behavior, I've done a lot of contemplation and learning and research and study and practice around why do we get so triggered, and what can we do to become less triggerable. And the hardest place to be good at it is in your parenting relationship with your kids, funnily enough, and also with your partner. But that's also the best opportunity to practice the work.
Tony Cooper 34:50
Yeah. So I want to go back, because something that you said that parents say a lot, which is, "I didn't know that this kind of love existed." I grew up in a loving environment, I have a lot of loving relationships. Then you get to be in relationship with your children, and you're like, "I didn't know about this kind of love." So I would love to hear how you got there, and maybe, like, through the becoming of a father, as your children are being born, where you're, what's your state of mind, what's happening in your life, and then how becoming a dad impacted you.
Jem Fuller 35:18
Yeah. Well, Jedi, when his mum was 22 weeks pregnant, we had our first scan, because we were pretty relaxed hippie folks. And at 22 weeks we said, "oh, we should probably go get a scan." And we went and got a scan, and it was a horrible experience, because we found out at 22 weeks that he had a series of rare heart deformities called tetralogy of Fallot. And on that first scan we found out that he may or may not live, there may be other complications that come with it. Anyway, long story short, they said to us, as long as he goes full term, then there's a pretty good chance we can do the corrective surgery and rebuild his heart, kind of thing, and he should be okay as long as he goes full term. Well, he was born 10 weeks premature. And so when he came at 10 weeks prem, it was like watching a movie, but you're in it. He was three pounds when he was born, he fit into the two palms of my hand. He was born naturally, but he went straight from his mum into intensive care, and he spent the first five weeks of his life on machines to keep him alive, in a little humidicrib. And we would put our hands in through the glove holes to touch him, and he was tiny, and his whole hand would wrap around my little finger. And I quit my job to care full time and to be there with his mum. And we spent a lot of time in hospitals. And then, when he was 10 months old, he had six hours of corrective heart surgery, and again we were back in the intensive care units in the hospitals. He's very lucky to be alive, happy to say he's a healthy 22 year old now. But to answer your question, when he was born, every single part of me was only focused on him and his mum, and him surviving and his mum surviving emotionally. And she was incredible, by the way. But that was my whole world, I left my job. We're lucky here in Australia, we get government support, I somehow had enough government support to just pay the rent. That was my whole focus. And so my whole world became so micro focused, and it was just my son and my wife, and the love was insane. We got these photos of him as this tiny little prem thing hooked up to all the machines on my bare chest, and his little hands grabbing on, I've got a hairy chest, and grabbing onto the hairs on my chest. And I remember his mum saying, "oh, aren't the hairs annoying him, he's got his face in your hairy chest." I said, "no, that's like animal, you know, he's like grabbing onto the bear, he's just nuzzling." And in that moment, just having this little human being holding onto my chest hair and sleeping on my chest, and me singing to him because I knew the vibration of my song was soothing, was soothing him. I used to sing to my boys a lot. And in that moment, nothing else exists.
Tony Cooper 38:37
That's the love you're talking about, there's nothing else going on in the world and nothing else matters other than this moment with this little tiny human.
Jem Fuller 38:37
Yeah.
Tony Cooper 38:39
Well, I could feel that while you were telling that story. You were talking before about skin to skin contact, and how it's very well known that that's really important when the baby is born, that the baby sit on the mother's chest and have that skin contact. But one of my other guests said that he's about to be a dad, and he said he was reading up, and he said that there's studies that show that active dad involvement really helps with the child's perception of themselves, or something along those lines. I was like, "you needed a study for that? Are you kidding me?"
Jem Fuller 39:17
Yeah, but that's how ridiculous it is, it does think that somehow it's like, "oh, it's really only the women who need to be involved." But the masculine, the connection, our hormones, everything is very different, and you are born of both, and so having that contact is such an important thing. I didn't read books on how to parent, and neither did my then wife, their mum, we didn't read books, we just parented very naturally. And that's fine, if you do read books, that's fine too, whatever works for you. But I always felt to have a lot of physical contact with my boys when they were babies, I wanted to hold them more than anyone else did. And that was great for their mum, because she would get a break, she was breastfeeding, obviously, and tired. And so for me to be able to take them and comfort them and soothe them, and I would always be humming or singing, I did that just organically and naturally. But I think now, looking back, the vibration that happens when you hum, especially on your chest and around your vagus nerve and on that sternum area, there's a vibration from your own voice, and it just became the most soothing thing for my boys. So when they're really upset, I could hold them, and we still hug, our hugs are really important to us, really beautiful, and we still make music, we were sitting around the piano and the guitar last night, me and my two boys, all singing and making music together. But that came from all the way going back to that. I think it's really important. And then for me as a dad, because I'm quite a physical person, I was always reasonably athletic and gymnastic, and I love surfing and rock climbing and sport and that kind of thing, so when the boys were little, I was conscious of this at the time, I wanted them to gradually trust me more and more physically, so I would throw them around, and they got to the point when they were little, and I could throw them as high as I possibly could in the air, and their mum every time would cringe, going, "oh my, freaking me out, you're freaking me out," and I would throw them, as high as I physically could in the air, and I'd catch them, and I never once dropped them. I was very proud of it. Not once did I ever drop them. And that was important to me, because what that established was trust. My boys trust me. And I had to pull the card on them, I had to pull this card on them last night, actually, Tony, we're sitting around and we're going away to run a retreat in Bali and we're leaving next week, and I've asked my boys to be at home and look after the dog, we've got this other second house, I said, "you got to live at the house, look after the dog, we're away for two weeks." And they said, "oh, we can't be there on this day, we can't be there on this date," and they were distracted last night saying, they were kind of half committing, and I said, "boys, stop for a sec, you know how much I do for you, don't you?" I had to pull it out, and I went, "oh yeah, yes you do, you do a lot for us, dad." And I said, "I'm asking this one thing of you, I'm asking between the two of you, can you be there for two weeks to feed the dog and take her for a walk?" "Yes, dad, you're right, yes, dad, yep, we'll do it, don't worry about it, dad, leave it with us," kind of thing. But I had to pull the card out.
Tony Cooper 42:15
Yeah, I mean the good news is that they also had the same accounting as you.
Jem Fuller 42:29
Yeah.
Tony Cooper 42:29
Some kids are like, "I don't know what you're talking about, what are you doing, you don't do anything for us." My kids lovingly referred to me as deadbeat dad, they're like, "what do you even do around here?"
Jem Fuller 42:43
I'm recording a podcast, I'm recording a podcast for other dads.
Tony Cooper 42:49
So, wow, big scare then with Jedi, and then everything got well with him, and then, so what happened, what was it like then when Noah came along?
Jem Fuller 42:59
Yeah, yeah. So that was also a scare, but for different reasons. So Noah's mum had placenta previa, grade four, so the worst possible case of placenta previa, which is where the placenta is covering the exit, can't have a natural birth. And then she started having bleeds through the pregnancy, and then when she was still 15 weeks prem, she started hemorrhaging. And we were living, we didn't live in the city, we lived quite a way far away from the hospital, and we were making plans already to go and live closer to the hospital, because the doctors had said to us, "this is potentially dangerous, and you could bleed out," and not good, et cetera. So we were about to move up to the city and go be near a hospital, and she started hemorrhaging this one night, and thankfully, thank the heavens, there was an ambulance out remote where we lived that had just dropped someone home, there happened to be an ambulance there to come around and pick her up within 10 minutes, which was a miracle, we were very lucky. And so she went to hospital. So we had a two year old, Jedi, and now she was in hospital and she couldn't leave. So she spent the last 10 weeks of that pregnancy in hospital, because she was hemorrhaging on and off, et cetera. So the last 10 weeks, she felt fine, but she couldn't leave the hospital. So I've got the two year old, and I'm working full time and juggling that, and we're going in to visit her every day before work and after work, and just juggling that whole thing. And she didn't get the last 10 weeks with her 2 year old before the next one came, and all that kind of thing. And then at one point, when Noah was five weeks early, she started bleeding again, and the doctors just said, "look, we've got to do an emergency cesarean." So they did an emergency C section, and Noah came five weeks early through a cesarean, but it had to happen, because otherwise his mum might have died. So again, we got there, it was fine. And Noah came a little bit small and a little bit early as well. But both of the boys now are six foot and strapping young lads more than me.
Tony Cooper 45:04
And good. So, and then you got to experience a whole new level of love and depth that you didn't know was possible.
Jem Fuller 45:16
Yeah, I used to say the only thing better than a kid is two.
Tony Cooper 45:19
Oh my God, that's great. Not my experience when our second came along, because I was so used to having one kid, you're like, "yeah, I got to be super dad," whenever mom didn't want the kid, and I would take it for strolls around San Francisco, and everyone would interact with her, and then I come back and hand her back to her mom. But when the second came along, it was like my hand was never free.
Jem Fuller 45:37
The world came collapsing down. But yeah, fantastic, like, definitely having two and having it close, ours are 18 months apart also, very similar story with our firstborn and Noah. We took that whole hippie route too, so literally never had a scan done after, I don't know, the earliest of things, and she only found out she had placenta previa, like, 36 weeks into it.
Tony Cooper 46:10
Wow. Wow. And then we went from that day to finding out that information to having a baby by cesarean within hours. And it just happened that fast.
Jem Fuller 46:18
Yeah, yeah. And what do you do? I mean, all you can really do is surrender to the system that's in place at the time and hope that the bubs is okay. And with Jedi, we had all of these, we were going to have a water birth at home, and it was going to be beautiful and very, very alternative, it wasn't alternative to us, it was alternative to the mainstream system, but very natural kind of hippie birth to us. And that all got changed when we found out that he had the heart comorbidities, the whole thing got changed, and we just had to surrender to the Western medical system. And I could not be more grateful, the pediatric cardiologist who did his heart surgery, I will forever be indebted to, because he saved my son's life, and without that intervention, Jedi wouldn't be alive.
Tony Cooper 47:08
Right, so very grateful.
Jem Fuller 47:08
My wife really drove that whole concept about natural birth out of hospital, and I had to be sold on it. And when I met with the midwives, they said, "look, this is a natural process, it's not a medical procedure." So if it's not a medical procedure, why are we in a hospital, I was like, "that's a really good point that you make." And so after that landed with, I grokked that, I was like, "yes, we are 100% full hippie land, out of hospital, we're having our baby." And then the next thing I know, we're in the hospital, and the midwives looked at me and said, "this is a medical procedure now, and that's what the hospital's for." And it just, I was so glad I had that grounding around it too, because it was the only thing that allowed me to figure out what was going on. It felt like life was literally falling apart, and they were just like, "no, no, no, it's just like, you had your idea of how it's going to go, and then it goes the way it goes."
Tony Cooper 48:04
Like life. Yeah.
Jem Fuller 48:08
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, 100%. And, you know, my brother and his wife live in a farmhouse right next to our farmhouse, we're on the same farm, and they had all three of their babies, their kids are now 7, 4 and 2, and they had all three of them in the pool, the inflatable pool, in the lounge room, at the farm. And when the third one was born, the other two got to come in and see mum just after delivery, they weren't in there for the actual delivery, but as soon as their little baby brother was born, they could come in and be a part of it. And that, to me, is healthy. Why do we hide this from our children? My boys have experienced death. When my brother died, my dad died, and we didn't hide it from them. They saw their uncle's body, they were at the crematorium, they actually got to help us push the body on the sliding thing into the furnace, and that was important for me, that they were a part of that, because if we try and put everything behind a closed door to protect our children, we're actually creating this detachment from reality, and they're like, "oh, it's bad stuff or something." Let's just be open about life and death and the hard stuff in careful ways. But, so, yeah, it was, I think it was just really healthy for them to be able to have them at home. It wasn't our story, it was what it was, but we've got our healthy kids here now.
Tony Cooper 49:30
And, amazing, amazing. Well, this has been wonderful, I feel like we could talk for hours and hours and hours. I want us to wrap up with just you thinking back to those early days, and the idea that you just learn the way you learn when you learn it because of circumstances. But if you had had some inkling or understanding or advice or a tidbit to help you guide through that, what would that have been? What would you like to share with a brand new father?
Jem Fuller 50:08
A couple of things. One, I hesitate to say this because everyone says it, and you're like, "yeah, yeah, I heard this all before," but it just could not be more true, cherish every moment when they're little, because it just disappears, and before you know it, they're young adults. So just cherish every moment, really give that quality time doing what they want to do. If your kids are ever acting out, having tantrums, or being naughty, quote unquote naughty, like drawing on the walls when they know they're not supposed to, they're crying out for your attention, that's all they're doing. Just give them attention and love in the right ways, and when their love tanks are overflowing, they're not writing on the walls. So just lots of love and attention and quality time when they're little. The thing that I mentioned before about the rules, I wish I hadn't, I wish I had known this when the boys were a little bit younger. When you get upset with your kids, it's because you had a rule around what they should or shouldn't do in terms of their behavior. So one of your core values might be respect, and maybe you've got a rule, and you inherited the rule from your dad, which I did, the three time rule: if I tell you to do something, if I have to ask you three times, you're being disrespectful, and that's not okay. So I'd come to my boys and say, "boys, it's time to go to football, get your footy boots, we've got to go," and they would ignore me, and I'm like, I haven't even walked into the room, and I'm like, and I would say, "boys, that was number one." I'm asking you a second time now, and I'm starting to get annoyed with them, "I'm asking you a second time now, if you don't do it by the third time, there'll be trouble, there'll be strife," blah, blah, blah, they'll be held to pay, kind of thing. And the boys are like, "yeah, yeah, dad, in a minute, in a minute," they're five and seven years old, one of them is in a world building Lego, and the other one's on a screen or something, right? And by the third time, I would be, I was getting angry now, and I didn't even know that I had this rule, and the rule was just a made up rule, the three time rule, someone made that up, that's not a universal truth, that's not necessarily true that they're being disrespectful, they're just kids, right? So when I understood this, they're a bit older, and I thought, "what about if I drop a whole bunch of rules, and I just make it mean something different?" Like when I come in and say, "hey boys, it's time for footy, get your footy boots," and they don't even react at all, they don't even acknowledge that I've walked into the room, how about I make it mean something else? They're not being disrespectful, he's in a world building a space station in Lego, his whole world right now is that piece of Lego and that little figurine, that's where he's at, he's not even hearing you walk into the room, and the other one is doing something Roblox or something. Rather than having a rule that they're disrespecting me, how about I just go up to them and get down close and go, "hey boys, it's time to go to footy, and if we get there late, the coach is going to put you on the bench, you don't want to be on the bench." "I don't want to be on the bench, dad." "All right, come on, well, let's get your footy boots and let's go." So I wish I had known that when they were younger. I found that out, thankfully, I found that out when I was still young enough for it to be helpful, and I wasn't losing my temper as much when they were teenagers, but before I knew that, I was getting upset with them a lot, but that was just because I had all these rules that weren't working.
Tony Cooper 53:14
I mean, if parents really understood that it was a choice to be upset, would they ever choose it? Like it doesn't seem like you're choosing, it seems like, "well, I have circumstances that are not going away, and therefore it requires my upsetness."
Jem Fuller 53:39
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or you're just choosing to be upset, and if you knew that you had other options, would you still choose the former? And I think that awareness is really important.
Tony Cooper 53:53
Yeah, and maybe, maybe to that, what you just said, then maybe someone might say, "yeah, but I didn't choose to be upset, I just got upset."
Jem Fuller 53:59
Okay, so being upset was a reaction, but you can choose to self manage and become un-upset again, that you can choose, you can choose, and there's ways to do it, we don't have time to go into them, but there are self management techniques where you can choose to calm down, to come back to being parasympathetic, nervous system activation calm, and then come back into, you can choose that bit.
Tony Cooper 54:18
Right. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I guess I'm of the idea that the only reason I'm upset about something is because of the interpretation that I chose about whatever the situation was, but that even feels like it's not a choice, that feels like it's an automatic thing, but when we can go, like, it's just happening, it's just neutral, whatever it is, until I make it mean something. And so much of what I make it mean, from at least my early days as a dad, was whatever my dad did to me, that was the rule, and therefore that was the filter through which I create the interpretation, and then I'm choosing that, and now I'm upset. But I'm making myself upset, because as you just illustrated, you can handle it, you can interpret it many, many different ways, and they'll cause you to feel different things.
Jem Fuller 55:12
So it's an excellent point, it's an excellent point.
Tony Cooper 55:12
Jem, thank you so much, thank you for taking the time and sharing everything, and it was just such an incredible opportunity for me to talk with you about everything, get to know you better.
Jem Fuller 55:24
Yeah, Tony, thanks for having me on your show, what a lovely way to deepen our connection.
Tony Cooper 55:35
Absolutely. All right, well, until next time, I just want to thank you for listening to this episode of The Dad Manual podcast, and for supporting dads to become the best version of themselves as they strive to bring healing and inspiration to their families. I'm looking to grow a community of fathers who are ready to change the world, but I need your help. It's super valuable to the podcast when you like an episode, when you leave us a rating and subscribe to our YouTube channel, when you follow us on Instagram, The Dad Manual Podcast, and maybe even the most important, when you share the podcast with the dad you love. Also, you can impact what we talk about here. If you've got questions or topics you want me to explore, email them to me at [e-mail]. I would love to answer your question on our next episode. And until next time, I'm Tony Cooper, and this is The Dad Manual Podcast.