CARMIE OLOWOYO: Good afternoon everyone, and thanks for your interest in our story, in our discussion. But in understanding a little more about what everyone’s talking through today, I would think the topic of this conversation would be ‘Still don’t know’, and there’s an opportunity here to explore communication lines between fathers and sons in multicultural families, and opportunities to encourage others to develop those conversation lines.

I’m a 43 year old man, sitting with my father, going through a series of questions, some of which probably should have been asked a long, long time ago. And when the opportunity by the Centre for Stories team was presented to have my father on a stage, with witnesses, to be able to ask any questions that I wanted, it was a little bit too good to pass up, so I’ve scaled back from that to a middle point of something that I think will let you know a little more about us.

Dad, I just want to understand a little bit about your growing up in Nigeria, and some of the key things that led to meaningful youth experiences that helped make you the man you are today.

SEGUN OLOWOYO: Good afternoon everyone, thank you for being here. My name is Segun Olowoyo. What made my childhood interesting in Lagos, Nigeria … I’m from a working class family, with parents who moved from the countryside into a commercial city center to better themselves. My dad worked as a contractor, as a real estate rent collector, building construction organiser, and we were raised with values of, we need to live according to our means. So that was drummed in by both my dad and my mum, but essentially my mum did all the rearing, the counselling, the raising, and us children fitted in, knowing that we needed to contribute and help Mum make the life we want to live.

We were happy not to have lived in a slum, because slums did exist in and around us. Drugs, simple as might be today. Marijuana was regarded as a heavy drug that was in common usage in my time, in the 1960s, ‘70s, in Lagos, Nigeria, but with our affiliation with the Methodist Church, or the Uniting Church as it’s known in Australia, I felt we were kept on straight and narrow. My mum and dad married and produced six of us, two boys and four girls, and then we all went to mission school, both primary and secondary schools. Values, participating, belonging to the church, belonging to the community were strong foundations of how we were raised and formed, and we participated through the church, ferried our couriered food items prepared by my mum, both at home and during harvest. At food celebration times, we couriered, prepared food to elderly members of the church, to their homes, as part of connecting within communities.

We grew up in that neighbourhood with a little hint of privilege, which we did realise while we were growing up. We grew up in the environment of the parliament house, recognising what a parliamentary building could be like, government officials going to and from in flash cars. We recognised or witnessed western contractors who were residents and representing their foreign countries within my suburb. We had a couple of embassies, both African embassies and non-African embassies. So I, as an adult now, recognise that as a measure of privilege, when I look back to see the memory of others who lived in slums or who lived in the countryside.

While a teenager, another formative aspect of myself was being a member of the boys’ brigade which is a church organization for youth. We were regarded as soldiers of Christ, both registered in songs that we sang, and in practices and activities that we engaged in. We didn’t get the opportunities to go to camps and things like the boy scouts did, however we were entrenched in bible studies and community service, be of service to the community. So they’re very strong foundations to my upbringing.

CARMIE: Sounds like a very positive environment to be part of. My first time going to Nigeria was on business, when I was maybe 35 years old, and I remember on the plane ride there, as we were landing. I had a conversation with some of the people that were next to me, and let them know that I was the first born son of a Nigerian returning home for the first time, and the rows around me started singing, praying, and congratulating me on coming home. I always wondered, and always felt, if there was a hesitation on your side to expose us to Nigeria, being based here, and to expose us to Africa. Was there any reasoning for that, be it protection, be it financial restrictions, be it focus on what was here? I just wanted to understand a little bit more about that.

SEGUN: Growing up in Nigeria hearing stories from older people than me, I knew of cliches such as brainwashing, cliches such as racism, cliches such as the African person is less intelligent, and non-intelligent at times, in verbalizing, vocalizing, within the western world and blah, blah, blah. Consuming that before I reached T Level, I formed a mind of – I being the first of the six children – I set my mind on where my place was going to be in the world.

I saw the unfairness of it, I saw the ignorance of it. And I knew that I was to be built strong, and I was not to allow myself to be walked over, even though in my own local, social, and cultural environment, we knew of the trading of barbs going on between boys. We knew about bullies, we knew about defending yourself, standing up for yourself, and growing up in a notable, not a notorious, but a notable suburb called Lafiagi, we needed to stand up. And that set me up well, having to settle and live in Balga, what is called Balga in Perth, Western Australia. I knew I was all set up, so to be able to fend off people who were quick to berate and denigrate a socially economic, cliched, assessment of what people who live in the working class domain were to be like, and to be treated like.

So therefore, looking back with this story telling session, I had structured and built myself to be prepared always, to argue and defend myself, and to uphold my knowledge, and my total awareness of where sociology or society of my culture is and where it’s going. The reason why I make that as a preface to what I want to say is that I raised our children, my children, to be of a firm mind and not to be shaken at all as to what their psychological status is of their identity, what their social status is as in where they lived, not to be robbed of their self-agency, privileges that might be provided and afforded by the country that we live in, as in Australia. So I made sure that my children were raised strong, so that from the colour of their skin to what school they went to, my children were not to be berated or be denigrated, and they needed to be able to stand up for themselves, individually and collectively, and that is the essence of, not necessarily talking about taking them or returning them to Nigeria, I did sink in the knowledge that they were born here, they drink the water here, they’re provided with schooling and fresh air here. They’re Australian.

I didn’t buy into them being biracial. I reckon that is part of a brainwashing cliché. I didn’t buy into when they say you’re ‘crossbred’. That is just science doing its own thing. If we were to be segregated and if we were to be manipulated in any psychological or sociological ways, we wouldn’t have been given the cognition, or the brain power, to be able to see each other as humans. So, I put into my children, I said, we are one race. It doesn’t matter the colours of the skin, the colour of our skin is just a cover. Beyond that we are completely the same. So, my family does not buy into all of these other aspects of human life that wants to set the scene for who is higher class than the other, or who is to play the role as the slave lord and who is the play the role as the master lord . And coming to Australia puts us very well, because Australia allows us to be able to make our opinions raised without being violently disenfranchised as we may see in some of the western environments. So, this is the reason why we didn’t really talk about, in my family, going back to Nigeria to get any culture.

And the backstory before this is just that myself and my wife had three children, but my wife died very, very early in the course of things, when the third child was four years old, and I ended up having to raise all three children by myself. And thanks to what my mother had indulged us in, myself, the next two sisters, we were part of making the home, cooking, laundry, going shopping, helping to carry load, to bring the shopping home, it came in good use for me as a single parent. And I’m so glad my children turned out the way they have, and what they have gone on to establish in their own rights today.

CARMIE: That makes more sense, so thank you. You mentioned my mother, your wife. We’ve never had a conversation, I don’t think, about her passing. As in importantly, we’ve never had a conversation about you meeting her. I still don’t know where and how you met. I still don’t know how you fell in love with her, why you fell in love with her. You are an African man from Lagos, one of the biggest, most dynamic cities in the world. She was a white lady from Bridgetown, one of the smallest country towns in Australia. Can you please tell me how you met and how you fell in love?

SEGUN: The front end of that story, not the backstory, the front end of that story is that I was studying agriculture in the countryside, in Northam, about 100km from here, in the City of Perth. Once a fortnight, I went to a nightclub, which was on the northside of Northbridge, met a couple of ladies there. Took me home. She shared a house with some nursing friends, she was a nurse. She shared a house with some nursing friends in Nedlands, Hampden Road. Cooped up for half the night before returning to Northam, and then kept in touch and all that. And so whenever, the future let us, we kept in touch and returned back to Nedlands. The person putting me on the hotseat was conceived and my head was full of work, study and future. I was raised like that, hard from Lagos. And I didn’t consider love, I was so dutiful professionally, dutiful socially and domestically. I didn’t think of love factor in the realm that I grew up to know better. At twenty two years old, twenty four years old, I was all about duty and work or study. Because I was setting the foundation in the future that was not allowed to fail. I was not allowed to fail. I had that sense of myself.

I was accepted as such, and what’s difficult to explain myself is similar to the earlier stories we had today, raised in the church, in the church tradition, I wasn’t supposed to do anything like that before marriage, and the rest of it. I couldn’t communicate any of it to my mum at home. And we had the first child, and then a year and half later, we then decided to marry.

Both our parents accepted it, even though they were filled with fear of what I was going to do with that new responsibility on our hands. And I was not a close resident in Perth, close to where she was living. Things were in the air for about a year and a half, and then we decided to marry. So that’s the difficult bit that we hadn’t talked about.

CARMIE: Yeah, that’s one of them. And I’m hopeful of many things will come out of today, one of which is an open forum. I know we are short on time and these aren’t conversations that can be squeezed into anything, let alone a public forum. However, I did want to understand, my mother died when I was seven, leaving you with a seven year old, a four year old and three year old. I can’t imagine how hard that was. What was the hardest part about it for you?

SEGUN: The hardest part about it was the future you just don’t know. Having the children in front of me, in my hands, all over me, was something I could handle and deal with. And I’m thankful and grateful to both church raising and my mum.

CARMIE: What couldn’t you handle?

SEGUN: Balancing that future – what to do. I, as a dutiful person wanting to achieve, wanting to set my foundation, strong foundation for my future. How was I going to do it? I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t have any network in Perth, or Western Australia. I spoke with my parents-in-law, they assured me, guaranteed me their support. And then I was referred to Wanslea Home, which then provided a foster arrangement. Not a day-care, but a foster arrangement.

CARMIE: A foster home.

SEGUN: Yeah, at Kathryn McCauley which allowed the three children to be placed in a home with a husband and wife and their own children, and other fostered individuals. No more than six children. So, one biological child, my three children, and two other fostered children. In my situation, they accepted that my children will be there for the next couple of years if I want to, and I would have access to them as I returned to the city, and that was what we agreed on. But the process of achieving that home arrangement was that the Wanslea home was going to arrange me as a male to lose the children. Which means they were going to take the children, for me to relinquish the children. That was the proposition.

The nature of the care was that Wanslea home was proposing for me to lose the children, to relinquish the children, and I didn’t understand the English they were speaking, because it was just didn’t fit into my cultural understanding of this is me, the parent, and you are proposing to me that you want to take the children. What did we talk about before you reached that decision? How did you assess that you wanted to do that without preparing me for it? It wasn’t a case of not understanding it, the hairs on my back just went up. My crushing teeth just fanged out. I just assured them that I think we’re coming from two different opposing cultures here, because it is not what I would be expecting you to be talking about with me, so I put my wishes on the line, I do not want to relinquish the children, I am an able parent, don’t see me as a male who cannot provide a home and parenting for the children. For some reason, in the background they went to and from, had a discussion within their management, and they accepted me to go to Kathryn McCauley and then they will arrange a foster parent that will allow me to continue reaching my children as often as I wanted, every weekend and every fortnight in the future. At least the first two years if I needed it. It was just solved like that. But the proposition they gave me was that they were going to take the children. And I just told them this was not going to be possible by you.

CARMIE: I certainly didn’t know that. That you had to fight for us. I felt like you had to put us somewhere for a while, while you got things sorted out. It’s nice to know that now.

I would like to talk about African men and love. You can thank your daughter-in-law for this direction. I recall refusing to get on a plane to go take up an American college scholarship as a 19-year-old, until you told Lani, our sister, that you loved her. Which you did. Do you think it’s a cultural thing? I was always jealous of Australian fathers who would express, ‘I love you’, ‘I love this’, ‘I love that’. Is it a cultural African thing that makes it difficult for you to express love, whether it be to your wife, or not to your wife, to express love maybe verbally, I’m not sure. Is it a cultural thing, or is it a you thing?

SEGUN: Oh no, it’s not a me thing at all. We simply … we didn’t know that word when we were growing up. We were kept away from expressing ourselves as we grew up through the years of adolescence. We kept away from what your body is going through in development. Sink yourself in the education that you’re having. Being respectful in the community. Being active in the community. For those children who were not academically inclined, I wondered what trouble they got into if they were not keeping busy. Performing well in school, or sticking to studying their books, and they’re not doing much of housework and things like that. And likewise, we didn’t express ourselves, of what our bodies are going through. When you become a young adult, also I for one did not grow with television and I did not watch movies. I did have high school mates who watched movies, went to movies, who read novels and the rest of it, which I didn’t partake in, and they did talk about using the word love or talk about what’s written in story books and fiction novels. I just didn’t practice expressing that word love in my family frame, in my network of family and friends, we just didn’t use, didn’t know that word. It’s not traded in the society. It’s not used in the society of the Nigerians if you like. Because when I scan around, look at the Nigerians we know here in the last – I’ve been here for 43 years – we do not express that. What’s created a little bit of conflict in my mind is that we have an expression ‘mo ni’fe e’ which means I have love for you. But we never used that word. I have never used that word. I don’t know, when my friend used that word, he was more or less dragged into, forced to bring that into conversation by a female, a western female, here in Perth.

CARMIE: So, speaking of western females, did you tell my mum that you loved her?

SEGUN: This is another aspect that her dad asked me. He did ask me, and I did not. I was not confused. The truth could not … I could not put the truth into words but I could not defend, I could not defend myself from what I was. As in, we didn’t use, we didn’t know these words, we didn’t know these expressions, exposition of relationships. The word relationship is at an arm’s length, if you like, which is strange, you saying that here in the western environment and context.

There is relationships over there, but it is not physical. It is not like it is here nowadays, like how people say, ‘I’m a huggy person’. That’s still – I’m so distant. This a me thing, but many, many of the men, West African men, are distant from the huggy huggy. Up to this generation, I’m talking. So, I explained myself to my dad in law, that I did, but I didn’t say it. I did with my being dutiful. I did with being present. I did with being loyal. I did with not complaining about cooking. I cooked. I cooked.

CARMIE: Okay, well, I thought we’d finish this by saying I still don’t know, but now I do know, I just don’t understand. But I would like to finish this by saying I do love you, and thank you for everything that you’ve put into our lives.

Thanks for listening. To listen to more stories and conversations or to donate to the Centre for Stories, head to centreforstories.com