Season 2, Episode 12: Voice of a Father

Join us in listening to Michael Hall illustrate the importance of fatherhood, which is an angle we don’t normally hear from in the maternal health realm. Cindy McMillan asks Michael about his experience as a father through the whole process of bringing new life into the world. He discusses the importance of practicing “Hands on Fatherhood,” and how this change can make the birthing process and postpartum healthier for the mother and the child. If you want to hear more about Michael’s personal experiences as a father, tune into “Voice of a Father!” 

TED Talk on Trauma and Resilience by Charles Hunt   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qELiw_1Ddg

What are ACEs?  https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/aces-and-toxic-stress-frequently-asked-questions/

Generation 2 Generation (G2G) Facebook Page: 

https://www.facebook.com/G2GMDTMT?mibextid=ZbWKwL

My Daddy Taught Me That Website:

https://mydaddytaughtmethat.org/

Community Doulas

Trinity Methodist Church, Asheville, NC  https://trinitywavl.org

Podcast Survey: 

https://redcap.mahec.net/redcap/surveys/?s=XTM8T3RPNK

Just Us Podcast Social Media:

Facebook: Just Us: Before, Birth and Beyond Podcast 

Instagram: @justus.podcast.wnc

Please provide feedback here:
https://redcap.mahec.net/redcap/surveys/?s=XTM8T3RPNK 

Transcript

Intro [00:00]: Hi everyone and welcome back to just us before Birth and beyond. We're so glad to have you with us today. My name is Caitlin and I am a nurse in Western North Carolina. Been working as a nurse here for 10 years now. I'm also one of the hosts of this podcast and I'm here today to introduce our episode. So today we have host Cindy McMillan and she is interviewing Michael Hall and they are discussing fatherhood. We're getting a man's perspective on fatherhood. Michael is so kind to share his birth story with us and we are very excited to hear from him. I can tell you it's a really great conversation and an angle that we often don't hear from in the maternal health world, and we really should because our men are just as much a part of the birth experience as we are a lot of the time. Without further ado, let's get into it.

Cindy McMillan [00:58]: Welcome everyone to just us before birth and beyond. I'm so happy you all could join us, and today I want to welcome a special guest. Michael Hall. How are you?

Michael Hall [01:15]: All is well thankfully. No complaints.

Cindy McMillan [01:18]: No complaints. That's what I'm saying. Would you mind introducing yourself today? I want everybody to get to know you a little bit.

Michael Hall [01:25]: So, I guess good to meet everybody. I celebrate and salute everybody that hears this podcast. I'm Michael Hall, currently a native of Asheville, North Carolina for six years. Originally from Baltimore, Maryland. Spent most of my life in Baltimore. I'm currently executive director of two fatherhood organizations. One the City Works USA, which focuses on community economic development through workplace model. We have along with an organization titled Generation Two Generation GDG for Short, which is a model that I've created and brought under my daddy taught me that a local youth organization here in the city. Decorated Pass, I'm a business owner, own a handyman and property management business along with a number of other things that I do. I'm talking with sisters, caring for sisters to target a community here in Asheville that just brings some support from fathers along with the doulas. I will like to say that Nikita Smith, who is an A doula with sisters caring for Sisters was the a doula for my wife and our two daughters, which was phenomenal. So I'm just on board to support and bring some attention to the issues that typically address our families. But oftentimes dads have no idea, no education, nor know how to address the situation that transpired our families.

Cindy McMillan [02:53]: Oh wow. I love it, and I think one of your most important roles is you a father

Hall [02:59]: And a husband and a father, and I got four girls.

Cindy McMillan [03:03]: Wow. Four girls. That's amazing. Four girls. Can you tell us the ages?

Michael Hall [03:11]: So, my oldest two who our relationship is in the process of being repaired they are 32 and 31, and my wife and I is current 2 0 4 and 2 years old.

Cindy McMillan [03:23]: Oh wow.

Michael Hall [03:24]: Yes.

Cindy McMillan [03:24]: I'm curious how you enjoying fatherhood first and foremost

Michael Hall [03:29]: Now or before?

Cindy McMillan [03:30]: Let's say now because the older ones are or can you remember back?

Michael Hall [03:34]: Oh, yeah, I can remember it, I'll never forget that because it was a time in my life when I was, I know we typically like to use this word in our society today, but I was a fool. I didn't have no idea. I didn't have an identity. So, I didn't know who I was, and as a result of that, I didn't know the responsibility of was laid before me with my two older children. But now with my two younger children, not regaining lost time with my first two, but I'm given the opportunity to show that though you may have started out one way, you can finish differently.

Cindy McMillan [04:12]: That's beautiful.

Michael Hall [04:14]: They call me the Hands-on dad, which I be like, what is that? What am I supposed to be doing?

Cindy McMillan [04:19]: I've heard that label before, like you have sometimes been in this birthing world. You label men like the hands-on fathers or the fathers. That's what they call deadbeat. So, how would you identify the hands-on father?

Michael Hall [04:35]: The hands-on, I think what comes with that is they see the father fully engaged in the life of the children. From a health perspective. A lot of fathers are fully engaged, but is it healthy? My mindset with my older two, even though our relationship is healing, but even more so what my current two is, I'm the first man they going to fall in love with.

Cindy McMillan [05:00]: That's true.

Michael Hall [05:01]: So, I need to set a standard. Now, here's something Ms. McMillan, I begin to set the standard with my first two by the way they see I treat their mother and then other things fall in line. How care for their mom and care for them, and just like you are important.

Cindy McMillan [05:21]: Yes.

Michael Hall [05:23]: And you are not an image of your dad. You are created for something different so I'm here to help harness what you are created for so you can become it.

Cindy McMillan [05:32]: That is beautiful. Yeah. I a hundred percent agree as a, knowing that that father figure is so important, especially when you are younger and you're moving through life and experiencing different obstacles as a young lady, and forming into a woman. I'm curious, like from your standpoint you are identified as a hands-on father and I know you and I know you move at a different pace than I've seen in our society when it comes to black fathers, the labels that's put on black fathers and I think probably in fathers in general who doesn't fit the checkbox of what society thinks a father should look like. They put these things on TV and they put these images and verbiage out there of what they think a father should be. But knowing you I noticed something about your story that really stood out to me was supporting your wife and supporting your partner through not just the coming of another life, like the life is here. You were also that one that supported throughout the whole process of the pregnancy. You stood by and you had the patience and you stood there. Can you like tell us some of the things that you experienced supporting your wife during the birth of your children?

Michael Hall [07:07]: I realized, like when my first daughter, again, thanks for Nikita being there because it was tough. We went through; my wife was in labor for some hours and over 10 hours and her only dilated two centimeters. So, washer now due to lack of knowledge and education, it began to stir me emotionally to the point that I begin to entertain thoughts because I'm like, the mother of my children is ..., but again, thankful for Nikita. So, I stop, I said, wait a minute, if I react in an unhealthy way then what is that going to do for my wife and our daughter who's still in her womb? So, settle down. Thanks again for Nikita, for some knowledge, for some wisdom she gave me. And I put that to the side. I say right now the focus has to be on my wife being comfortable. So, our daughter will come out. Because she came out, hadn't been in labor for so long, she had swallowed her own poop, I forget the technical term for that.

Cindy McMillan [08:20]: McConnell.

Michael Hall [08:21]: Yes. So, when that was being known to us and we saw a daughter come out, still wanted to make sure my wife was healthy. Now, that I ignored how I was feeling after seeing my daughter and them having a suck out so she could breathe. I said, baby, it's going to be okay. She's, Annabel is fine, and that set a standard for me. So, when our second daughter was born, your mom Cindy, when my wife found out she was pregnant again, you're like, oh no not again. Then comforting her because she was real adamant about she wanted to have birth naturally, but she had to have two C-sections. So, even now compliment your beautiful, that scar you have and that little extra you did that to bring our children into the world. You sacrifice your life for the time you were in labor and the time, and during the birth to bring our seed into the world. Not my seed, not her seed, our seed. So, I look back at it now it's like, man, if Daze knew how to manage their own emotions and evaluate the moment and say, you know what? Right now I need to be there and support the mother of my child or children emotionally so, this transition goes as smooth as possible. What it did for me say is next thing I begin to settle down because caring for her gave me comfort.

Cindy McMillan [09:59]: And what do you think?

Michael Hall [10:00]: Yes.

Cindy McMillan [10:01]: I'm curious when you said that the last piece she said about if fathers could actually like slow down and put their emotions in a different space, what do you think some of those barriers are? Why? I know you can't speak for all men. No one can speak for all people. But in your male expertise, what do you think some of the barriers are where it's hard for a male to connect with their partner during that childbirth experience?

Michael Hall [10:35]: From my experience, we're not told as dad's, husband's, boyfriends that the care for the mother is essential and it's detrimental to the health of the child being born. A lot of dads, you can ask a lot I've talked to that might do a fatherhood group talk to dads about postpartum and so forth and so on, and most dads are like, and I didn't know that, you know how many dads don't know that. So, here's something, I present this to ask you a question. The average male that you talk to think that the physical relation he has with his wife or girlfriend is just, we know, most of them don't know that, hey brother, you can help the birth go easier. 

So, using that to convey the point that most of us just don't know, just don't understand that if you help the mother of your child rest as much as possible, we will never know what it's like. I won't, it's not happening. But to support her emotionally as she transitions through those nine months, if she goes full term and have along she was in labor, if you could come alongside her emotionally, it will work. It, it's almost, to me, this is the best way I can relate to Cindy. Cindy I thought that isotosin was just for the mother and the daughter and the child. I had no idea that, oh, so, if I prefer my wife doing her pregnancy and labor, even then there's no statistic for this, but Cindy, I've experienced it. There is an energy that's released from her to me as a result of me comforting her, and what happens is that comfort comes back to me and the whole situation goes easier.

Cindy McMillan [12:26]: Like a powerful connection. Sounds like a connection. Like magnetic.

Michael Hall [12:30]: Oh yeah. She my, yeah. You know, I'm a pastor when God may eve, he made my wife no offense, and rest of you all; I don't know how y'all got here.

Cindy McMillan [12:38]: I love it. I was brought by the stork. Okay.

Michael Hall [12:45]: Alright, you are revealing our age now real.

Cindy McMillan [12:51]: No. So, I like that perspective that you just gave, tell me about, because like I said, I know some of your stories. So, what really got me was how you was able to identify postpartum depression or actually identify something that was postpartum going on with your partner that wasn't quite right, usually most men usually don't identify the fact that you picked up on it was amazing to me.

Michael Hall [13:23]: Right. So, what assisted me was when I went to prison. That's how my relationship with my older two daughters got broken even more. I was gone for 14 and a half years. They were in Baltimore. I was here in North Carolina during my time, got out communicated with their mother. This is a sidebar, not my wife, the mother, my older two children are married. Her husband and I are best friends. Cindy, I tell him you are Jessica and Adrian's dad.

Because he raised them so, talking with her name is Rhonda. Talking with her and then going back in time and having her tell me some of the things that she was going through even while I was there, and she be getting to instruct me about postpartum to the point that I started doing the research., and I found myself saying before my wife and is first daughter was born, I was like, I'm going to say this for you for laughter. Yeah, they crazy. But it ain't because they crazy. It's postpartum and beginning to see man, I had no idea. Typically men, the child is born, and that's all they think about. Is the child, A child? A child. A child. A child. But postpartum can be short term, postpartum can be long term.

Do I love the mother of my children enough to travail with her as she comes out of postpartum? No matter how long is it? How long it take? Go back to what I was saying before. Will I not ignore or suppress what I'm feeling? But will I understand that her need is greater at the moment and come alongside her. One through educating myself ourselves about what postpartum is. Learning, educating, and learning how to assist the mother of our children during this period of postpartum. Hey learning dad, y'all Daze, that hit us. Learning to give up the right to be right in midst of her, and then watching it. As I learned that and was able to assist my wife more, guess what it did. It helped in our raising our daughters since Ms. Cindy. It's tough when they six and nine months old.

Cindy McMillan [15:50]: Right.

Michael Hall [15:51]: So, you got to have that balance, and it's still times now I had to revert back and do some more research on postpartum. Especially considering how close my wife had our two daughters. It's still some; I can still see remnants of the postpartum. So, I don't yell, if I'm feeling some type of way, I step out the house for a minute.

Cindy McMillan [16:16]: Okay.

Michael Hall [16:16]: And come again and explain, hey, I'm dealing with this right now, and again, it goes back to education.

Cindy McMillan [16:24]: Can you tell me some of the signs you had picked up on as your wife was going through the postpartum period?

Michael Hall [16:33]: The sorrow she dealt with when neither one of our daughter, especially with our first one when she had to have a C-section, I sat back and I looked at her, I'm a skeptic and I'm a real observer. I looked at and I watched her body language and I said, baby, whether you did it through naturally or C-section, you did it. I began to watch her eating habits. So, I would make stuff and say here I would cook so forth and so on so she wouldn't have to deal with the headache or I really don't want to eat this so because I don't want to eat this. I don't really feel like cooking. I would take our daughter to the clinic with no. So, she could get some rest because I ain't went through labor. I ain't been pregnant, I ain't went through labor. Identifying, looking and seeing, okay, when she all of a sudden out of the blue she's feeling sad and there is a reason but there's no apparent reason just coming alongside her, and I think one of the big things that help is like we didn't have childcare at the be at the first six to nine months of our, both of our daughter's lives I kept them.

You know what I mean? Just, and I'm still learning. It's still stuff I learned. I watch her say okay. I'm like, okay baby, go take a break. I got them. Know you can put the time together. Our daughters are four and two. So, you know that it wasn't a whole lot of time between the birth of our first, and the birth of our second right now. I say, and you know the platforms that I have, I said, baby, take all Saturday for yourself because though we love one another, you need some time for you.

Cindy McMillan [18:27]: That's brilliant that you was able to sit back and observe and watch the transition after delivery until the postpartum periods, and you also identify the closeness in the age of your daughters, how it can actually transcend again, and was paying attention to that. I'm curious what did you do for yourself outside of taking the time to breathe and process sounds like self-care. In our community how we do with self-care is not something that's real easy to do or easy to grasp the concept because we have so much going on that it would just be a fight just to live day to day take care of these bills.

Michael Hall [19:14]: Right.

Cindy McMillan [19:15]: On top of that, how have you been able to take care of yourself and were you able to find resources or support for yourself or is this part of the reasons why you started your organizations to support fathers?

Cindy McMillan [19:30]: Because this is important as a doula, we do our best to educate fathers, but we'll never be able to sit or those new dynamics. But we will never be able to understand, you would never be really able to understand what we go through in childbirth. So, we can shine the light that this is important on how to teach or educate or have a support system that could help you navigate the beginning of life. Because like you said earlier, like that beginning phase is even if you don't think it affects the` child, it does how the beginning is everything.

Michael Hall [20:10]: Absolutely. Yes. So, our first daughter, I didn't have a full grasp of self-care because though I was beginning to be educated both naturally and spiritually about my role as husband and father and I say it in that order on purpose because of the atmosphere we created in our home, part of it was still like, okay, I'm superman so stay with the baby, so forth and so on. So, and I be, but I began to feel myself dwindled away, let alone I was working the third shift job.

Cindy McMillan [20:52]: Oh, huh.

Michael Hall [20:53]: Do your science people, if you work third shift, do your research on and then you make your own conclusion. I'm not even going render my viewpoint. But you keeping, so, I work Saturday, Sunday, Monday night. My wife would work sometime she would work Friday day and sometimes Saturday day with our first daughter. You don't make a child go to sleep. It is damaging them. Anyway, that's a whole another story. So, when our second, as time progressed when our first daughter, then my wife got pregnant with our second daughter, I said, wait a minute. So, what happened was my wife told me and another friend of mine who used to be a nurse said, you burning in the candle with both ends.

When our second daughter was born, I learned, and of course we had two at that point, and I learned the benefit of saying, you know what, while my baby is asleep, I'm cutting the TV off. I'm not listening, no audio books or nothing and I'm going to just sit here even if I don't go to sleep. Because if I'm not healthy and I can't be healthy for everybody else and if I'm not healthy, then my emotions are off, and not just up to atmosphere in our home. Along with I learned to tell my wife what was going on with me.

Even to the point of realizing we had a tough spot in our relationship because I was so tired not managing my time or myself that my wife begins the neglect begins to occur because I'm so tired. So, I'm like, it was just so pivotal because it was a tough time. Like I taught talking to somebody else. She started talking to somebody else, after we finally sat down and talked, I said, I realized that you needed something from me, and I was so wore out behind an imbalance that you sought some affection, not physical, but emotional for somewhere else, which triggered me. So, next thing you know, I go figure, I say, know what? This is my fault because you were supposed to be able to get something from me that you couldn't because I was doing this, that and the third that I didn't need to do at the time.

Cindy McMillan [23:08]: That's so real so, I could see the strain that it was putting. Not just as you're trying to balance and navigate, you also putting a strain on your relationship, and I've heard that like different spaces and places. That's hard, and you can see it just being real about it and being like transparent. Like this can happen. This is what's in jeopardy If we don't start creating a space where people can actually learn how to communicate what's really going on after you experience the birth of a child. Sometimes it's not, not saying this happens every time, but this is real. This is real life and it affects so much if you don't have some type of education or understanding of just the hormone shift after having a baby or just this whole transition of bringing a new life into the world. Like it's all good, and Daddy we say hey we, but it's.

Michael Hall [24:13]: So, old song. It was all good just a week ago.

Cindy McMillan [24:16]: Yeah. Yes, I love that transparency. Thank you. Because I'm sure that others that's probably listening just could possibly relate, and they probably in their relationship there's, that's no excuse your emotions and validating emotions is real. Validating how you feel at a time period when you probably feel the lowest and you're not really sure to be vulnerable. How to be vulnerable and how to communicate some feelings that you don't even really know what, why you're having them or why they're there.

Michael Hall [24:51]: Typically men not are setting black men on a pedestal for trauma. Were based on statistics in geographical setting it does the numbers do rank, rank higher. So, typically we don't even know how to communicate anyway, we've been told suck it up, you're a man da, do, da ironically you have emotions and you have them for a reason. So, as beginning to trigger, I realized one of the things that was going on, I was so tired and so forth and so on that I didn't talk let alone I got out of the prison March 26th, 2017. Met my now wife December, 2017, so I come out of situation where men did not express their emotions. But for then I was in the streets. But you really didn't, you especially emotion just didn't do it vulnerably. You especially do a firearm or whatever the case may be.

Michael Hall [25:43]: Or the false narrative with a bunch of goals so anyway what I realized is that, hold on, I have to talk. I have to communicate. Communication is essential and no matter what the relationship is, I have to communicate because I cannot manage my feelings so forth and so on by myself. Secondly, I come to realize, I said, so if the mother and father are in friction, watch this Ms. McMillan. So, what happens is, what happens is I grab my daughter in love with her, but know what I'm really doing? I'm trying to one up mom, you know, my daughter don't really get the real love for her and vice versa, mama or grab the daughter or son and one up dad. When that's robbing the child of the genuine love of the parent from the parent to them. So you work out your situation with each other. Listen as I, so I'm going to say something that's directly to men. Listen for nine months and however long she was a lady she was in, she was at the risk of losing her life to bring y'all child into the world. You owed a mother some honor if she was loose or whatever you chose her when she was loose. But I don't want to hear no when she or whatever when you chose her, now you got a child. So, you owe her some honor simply for the fact that she could have lost her life to bring your child into the world. You owe her some honor, don't tell me you a man If you ain't honoring the mother of your child, I don't hear it. Anyway.

Cindy McMillan [27:20]: Thank you. Thank you for saying that. Cause that's, you hear that as a woman. I agree. It's a two way street too because as a woman I feel like that's a vice versa thing too, it say be selective of who you have, but sometimes that's not always the case, and if that's not the case, then at least have the mutual understanding that it's not about you guys anymore. It's about y'all connecting for that, and I'm not here to be no therapist, but I feel that level. Back to that, what resources did you have? Did you obtain any resources or is this why you.

Michael Hall [28:01]: So, I got online first and started researching through WebMD and I'm a native of Baltimore so there's a little bias with me. So, I went on John Hopkins website because from Bmore so we begin to obtain some books. I drawing a blank right now but I still are in the story. She, but just started researching and listening the videos on YouTube. A therapist talking about, I'm telling you something. When I came in contact with ACEs, look at it from the lens of parenting, the early stages of parenting. I was like, so I know Ace is an adverse childhood experience. But the trauma that comes about for the parents when the child is born, it shifted; I'm like, oh man.

Cindy McMillan [28:51]: Wow. Really?

Michael Hall [28:52]: I never, oh how many mothers and fathers really look at it like mama has just went through a traumatic experience. If I really care for mama as the dad did, so have I because I watched it and at times all I could do was comfort because there was nothing I could do because it just, it has to go through its process.

Michael Hall [29:18]: And then, oh man, then I'm began to look out into the community and seeing the effects of again, not knowing, not being educated, adopting false narratives that if I'm the breadwinner then that's enough. We live in downtown where she don't typically really need you as a breadwinner. She can pay a bill by herself. But there's some things that you can render, render that she can't give herself. Can you be that? So, I would like to shout out a sister friend of mine named Carla, she trained me in trauma resiliency and it was essential calling Nikita from time to time. I don't know what to do, Mike settle down and just, yeah it is, and even now reflecting back Brine Brown and some things that she said through TEDx, I have some friends in the trauma resiliency world. Michael Hayes, a book he recommended to me forgets the name of a grandmother's, something about.

Cindy McMillan [30:19]: From my hands.

Michael Hall [30:21]: Yes, and looking at that and then looking back through history and seeing the disconnect. Oh wow. It was more than just slavery. So, if you know anything, our family union was stronger though we were slaves because we were all, we had.

Cindy McMillan [30:39]: So, that's major and I hope like anyone who'll get to maybe tap into the trauma resiliency and definitely ACEs you bringing up ACEs is huge because that's not something our community has probably been able to tap into that resource readily. Or even though it's available to like even understand the effects that it can have on like generational effects. I think we know some of the things, but to actually know that this is documented, this is live case studies, this is real and how can we circumvent some of this damage that's already occurred, and bring our family units back together to help our children, help our families thrive, and just society in a general, I know we put a lot of emphasis on trying to understand the effects, and the effects it's had on communities. But historically knowing the effects it's had on like in a whole and how we all need each other no matter what color. Like we all need each other. We all interconnect so you harm one, you really harm it all.

Michael Hall [31:58]: Yeah, and then our society as a whole begins to crumble because watch this so in my organization I adopt a quote from a gentleman by the name of Dr. Tony Evans who wrote a book called Kingdom Man. So, if you got a dysfunctional man, you have a dysfunctional home, you've got a dysfunctional man in a dysfunctional home, then you got a dysfunctional community, you got a dysfunctional man in a dysfunctional home and a dysfunctional community. Then you got dysfunctional city or county, and it trickles down to you got a dysfunctional man in the dysfunctional home. Eventually you have a dysfunction in the world. So, we like to blame society on this, but it all of that trickles down back to a person. The world just didn't become this way. Just because, homes are not destroyed, just because, and I know some people don't change.

If you go, you ever been fishing you don't catch everything in the pond, the creek or the ocean, you catch what you can. So, if you reach one, you reached a thousand because it's like a domino effect. So, in my work that I do is say, okay, if one dad will listen and just stop and have the strength and humility say I never knew that when, no my strongest point came Ms. McMillan, when I was like, man, I had no idea black men go to work. I was trying to do that really wasn't making enough, and I never knew that. I didn't understand that about myself emotionally let alone the mother of my children, and then since I didn't know that about myself emotionally or the mother of my children emotionally, that mean I didn't understand my daughters, and I took that back to history and said, no wonder how ancestors whooped us all the time because they didn't understand. Cindy, my daughters look at me now and I say, oh you all better stop I'm going to get you, they look at me like you. Hey Jones too. Oh you ain't nothing.

Cindy McMillan [34:02]: Oh wow. Well I appreciate you sharing this with us today, and I guess I'll leave the last comment up to you. Is there anything else you would like to say about your journey or the journey that you have experienced in fatherhood or the systems, or the processes that you've set up organizational wise to support men navigating?

Michael Hall [34:39]: So, first, the evidence, one of my own personal decision based on the spiritual beliefs that I have and the community. I surrounded myself with that whatever traumatic experiences you may have had in your life, they are just a chapter in the story that you are writing for your little world. My life was a mess, but it didn't stay that way. So, now I'm a forerunner, not just of parenting fathers to become the fathers that we need in our community beyond the home. We're saying, hey, it doesn't have to end there. I was what they will call it dead beat dad, Cindy. It didn't end that way. I'm healing my records relationship with my older two daughters. We are in the process of healing, thankfully we are going to father-daughter dancing dinner next Saturday.

Cindy McMillan [35:34]: Oh wow.

Michael Hall [35:34]: For free once a month. Thankful for the honor of y'all allowing myself and some other dads to come alongside sisters caring for sisters in PVA once a month.

Cindy McMillan [35:45]: Yeah. Mother to mother, father to father.

Michael Hall [35:48]: Yes. If you do your research in history, the family unit was always the bedrock of every society, if you had strong families, you could have a strong society.

Cindy McMillan [36:03]: Yes.

Michael Hall [36:04]: You were doing an interview book reading almost like a Phil Donahue thing, April 20th of a lady by the name of Maryland Shannon, who wrote a book Hearing the Heart of Black Fathers. So, we're doing a listening session April 20th for that and some other things that do a podcast for fathers. It's called a fatherhood round table. Unscripted. Let's look at, let's talk about it. Do a fatherhood group biweekly on Saturdays at from 1:00 PM to typically 2:30 PM that my daddy taught me that, and just getting together and said, hey, I know what we've been told as dads and men, but hey, this is a safe place where you can come hash it out, release, get some answers, get rid of that negative energy and get some positive energy so you can carry that positive energy back home, and you begin to...Cindy, my wife told her dad, let me ask Mike first. I said I'm on the right track.

Cindy McMillan [36:59]:

Respect. That is amazing.

Michael Hall [37:05]: We're collaborating with some other organizations. Trinity Methodist on Hayward Road here in Asheville, North Carolina. I'm currently going to county jail every Friday to do a fatherhood coaching group for some young men. It it's is a lot to go on, it's a lot. Greg go to Raleigh in June to speak on the off about fatherhood and yeah.

Cindy McMillan [37:27]: That's a movement. I love it. I love it. Yeah. That's a movement. So, as anyone out there that's listening that may want to support this initiative, which this initiative is so important and it's so interconnected with maternal health. It's so connected with education; it's so connected with the buildup of our community. We got to get our foundation back solid and it starts with programs and organizations like yours, Michael, organizations that focus on family and helping disseminate this information. So, our community and getting it out there to hear it from the voices of individuals that are living it versus individuals that have studied it. You got to get the real from the individuals that have lived it purely so, I appreciate that.

Michael Hall [38:18]: You can find that on social media or go and Google and it'll pop up.

Cindy McMillan [38:24]: Okay, we'll put that at the end. We'll put it the link in the end for them for Torino added on if you share the link with her.

Michael Hall [38:34]: Okay. I'll email. Yep.

Cindy McMillan [38:36]: Thank you. We're going to close this out. Thank you again for your time and your perspective and we appreciate you.

Michael Hall [38:45]: Oh no, we don't have all the answers. So, sisters caring for sisters with our collaboration is teaching me more things like, I wish, can I say it? I wish I would've had the time to do the doula training, become a doula for dad. I just didn't have the time.

Cindy McMillan [39:00]: I know. It's okay. We're going to get you in the time, space, and place. It's all right. We're connected.

Michael Hall [39:08]: Absolutely.

Cindy McMillan [39:09]: Thank you. You're

Michael Hall [39:11]: Very welcome. Thank you all. All right.

Outro [39:19]: Another great episode in the books. Thanks again Michael for being so honest and transparent and having such a wonderful conversation with Cindy. We really appreciate it. If you are liking what you're hearing here at just us before Birth and Beyond, we would love to give you the opportunity to give us some feedback. There is a link to our feedback survey in the show notes below. If you want to take a click and tell us how we're doing, what you're liking, maybe what you have suggestions on for us to change in the future. And there's also an opportunity for you to give topic suggestions for future episodes and future seasons. Yeah, we'd love to hear what you all want to hear, and again, we really appreciate your time and your listens. Please give us five stars, subscribe, and share with your friends. And until next time, thanks.