I listened when my son cried. When my father was in residential school he never had this
This is a first-person column by Alexander Redhead, a York Factory First Nation father who lives in Ste. Anne, man. For more information on CBC’s first-person stories, please visit FAQ. Warning: This story contains details of residential school experiences.
My son is six years old and he is my world. He’s never gone to daycare or kindergarten, so last year was his first real experience with school. Every morning is hard, but that one day in October was something else altogether.
When we reached the school gates, he paused. He won’t climb the stairs. He cried, pleaded and held me with everything he had.
“Please, Daddy… don’t make me.”
I took him to the office in hopes that someone could help, but the situation got worse. When the teacher came he started crying even louder. He fought, screamed, rushed at me and tried to run back into my arms while they held him. My gentle, sweet boy was terrified – and seeing him like this shattered something inside me I didn’t even know was breakable yet.
This was not a child who did not feel like going to school.
This was fear. Deep, real fear.
And I knew exactly where it came from.
Last summer in Calgary, a man tried to grab my son. Right in front of me.
It happened in seconds – seconds that I will replay in my mind for the rest of my life. We were on a family trip, trying to escape a day after the zoo turned us away due to overcrowding, so we went for a walk at a local park instead. My son was walking a few steps ahead of me when a man came from the opposite direction. I didn’t think anything about it.
Then he suddenly moved forward and grabbed my boy by the shoulders.
I can’t tell you what his intentions were – I’ll never know. But I can tell you what I felt: pure instinct. Fear. A wave of protective panic that I had never experienced before. My body went before my mind did. I immediately held my son back. The look that man gave me later still sits heavy in my stomach. It felt wrong. It felt dangerous. And it has been with me ever since.
After that, I was just concerned about getting my family out of Calgary safely.
We didn’t talk much on the way back to our home in Ste. Anne, man.
It didn’t feel right to any of us.
It changed my son.
It changed me.
Since that day my son has never been the same. He holds on tightly. He is scared of strangers. He constantly checks on me. And, to be honest, I’m not the same either. When he disappears from my sight I become worried. I scan every room, every door. That one moment – ​​that one man – stole something from both of us. And this morning, it all came back as if it had never gone.
As I stood in the school office, watching my boy cry and come to me while the adults restrained him, something else came over me – something I didn’t expect.
I saw my late father.
Now my son is also of the same age.
Being taken away from his family.
Terrified.
Reaching out to someone who couldn’t save him.
My father was a sixties scoop survivor who was sent to residential school in Manitoba. Like many survivors, he went through trauma he never asked for. Some of that pain followed him into adulthood – moments where he silently struggled with things he never fully healed from.
Still, those struggles never defined him in my eyes. He nevertheless became a leader, a musician, a father, and a man I deeply admired. They taught me pride, humor, and resilience, even when love required them to work harder than expected.
I sometimes felt a quiet emotional distance between us – not because he didn’t love me, but because he had grown up in a residential school without constant protection or affection.
There were times when he would physically shut down, especially in stressful or emotional situations. It wasn’t anger or cruelty – it was a kind of bondage, as if his body was protecting itself. As a child, I didn’t always understand it, but as an adult I can see it as the survival response of someone who learned at a very young age that the world was not safe.
Becoming a parent myself helped me see him not only as a person who sometimes struggled to show me affection, but also as a child who never got what he needed. A boy who was never given protection, gentleness or comfort when he needed it most. A boy whose fear never found love. This made me feel more compassion toward her, and it softened how I perceive our relationship.
And now, my youngest son holds his name – a connection that means everything to me.
So when I saw my boy coming to me in that school office, frightened and trembling, generational pain surfaced. Generations of children who didn’t get the chance to choose safety. Generations of parents who could do nothing to stop their children from being taken.
My father had no choice.
but I do.
So I took my son home.
Not to spoil it.
Not to avoid the tough days.
But because I don’t let fear, shame, or coercion become what he remembers from his childhood. I refuse to subject her body to fear the way my father did. I refuse to repeat this cycle – even in small ways.
At home, I held my son until he felt comfortable.
And then I cried – for her, for myself and for my father, who had no one to bring him back home even though he was scared.
If I could talk to my father today, I would tell him that I see him now – not just as my father, but as the little boy he once was – and I understand how much he has in common. I will thank them for the love they gave me, even when it was not always easy for them to show it. And I would tell her that I’m trying to honor her by giving my children the protection and gentleness that she never got.
That day was not about skipping school.
It was about breaking a cycle.
Choosing love over fear.
Humility over shame.
Security on silence.
It was about listening to the child in front of me and the child who was my father.
I’m grateful that I had the chance to be the kind of dad who listens – the kind of dad who brings his child home when the world seems too big.
This is something my father never had. And that’s something I will never take lightly.
A national 24-hour Indian Residential School Crisis Line is available at 1-866-925-4419 for emotional and crisis referral services for survivors and those affected. Mental health counseling and crisis support is also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week or via the Hope for Wellness Hotline at 1-855-242-3311. through online chat.
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