Is to possible to break the generational trauma? Let’s discuss breaking the cycle after growing up in abuse.
Or listen to the full episode here:
This episode is a little personal. It may be a little dark, and if that’s weird, I’m sorry in advance. But when I get to thinking about something and I peel the onion about it, I feel like that can be interesting to people.
Trigger warning: This post contains mentions of domestic abuse and domestic violence. Please take care of yourself first.
My Dad’s Story: How Generational Trauma Shapes a Man
A while ago marked 30 years since my biological dad died. He was 56. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer at 53, which is how old I am right now, and his life was, in many ways, a sad story created by the patriarchal structure of his era.
He suffered hideous abuse at the hands of his violent and controlling father. Regular beatings, constant fear, and a mother who was hospitalized frequently because of the violence in their home. My dad was born in 1939. The British stiff upper lip, tough it out mentality was not just a cultural norm. It was survival.
The Night That Changed Everything
At just 13, my dad and his two younger brothers decided they had had enough. Living with normalized violence and no way out, they planned to take out their father with fire pokers while he was passed out drunk. It didn’t go as planned. Their father woke up, beat all three of them, and the boys were sent away to a home for delinquent boys run by nuns who specialized in cruelty.
The brothers were separated. They could only touch each other’s fingertips through the bars at the top of the room. They were scrubbed raw with wire brushes and boiling water. My dad, as the eldest, could hear his brothers screaming and calling his name, and he was powerless to protect them.
Trauma upon trauma, layered on everything he had already lived through.
What Unprocessed Childhood Trauma Does to a Person
My dad left school at 15 and joined the army. The rage that had built inside him had nowhere healthy to go, and it twisted into something that looked a lot like the monster he had grown up with. Cruel, controlled, full of bravado. He found himself in an army prison for violence. He won boxing trophies. He was insubordinate and had a serious problem with authority.
By 1961, he had met my mom. She was 15. He was 22.
He saw it as his right to have a young and pretty wife. A wife, in his eyes, was not a partner to share and grow with. It was more like an indentured servant, a baby maker, a compliant presence. He cheated throughout their entire relationship. He shut down her career when she was offered a significant promotion. He was emotionally distant, verbally and physically abusive, and violent in front of his children.
And here is something I want to say clearly, as both an advocate and a survivor:
Children do not just witness abuse of their parent. They are also being abused.
The Moment I Stood Up to Him
I was 11 or 12 when it happened. He was drunk, dragging my mom over the counter by her throat and hair, attempting to strangle her. I was standing right there, panicking.
In that split second, I had a moment of instinct and clarity. I picked up a stemmed Irish coffee glass, raised it toward his head, and said, leave her the fuck alone. I brought it down and at the last second diverted it, smashing it on the counter instead.
It worked. He let go.
There was a tiny flash of recognition in his eyes when he stepped back. What I didn’t know then was that my actions mirrored his own attempt to protect his brothers as a child. He had lived that exact fear. And I think, in that moment, he saw himself clearly for what he had become.
Generational Trauma Is an Explanation, Not an Excuse
When my dad was diagnosed with cancer at 53, I became one of the people involved in his care. I drove him to oncology appointments in central London, roof down, sun streaming in, music playing. I asked him the hard questions about his life and his behavior. I learned more about his past. And I watched him sit with some of it, even if he never truly did the work.
His trauma was real. His childhood was horrific. And that context matters.
But it is an explanation, not an excuse.
It would have been entirely possible, even for a man of his generation and background, to have made a different choice. He could have gone to a doctor, a library, a therapist, a friend. He could have used his own experience as a cautionary tale of exactly what not to do. He did not. And his continual pattern of abuse was a choice, upheld and normalized by a system that rewarded it.
Raising Boys Differently: What I Learned From Breaking the Cycle
I now have five sons, ages 13 to 26. And I can tell you with no hesitation that what I witnessed raising them completely dismantled everything I had been taught about boys.
Boys Are Not Born Hard
Before every subtle and almost unconscious influence gets to them, from TV to families to institutions to marketing, boys come out empathetic. Every single one of my kids was and is empathetic. They feel the feelings of others. They cried at sad things and happy things. They had soft toys they called their babies. They had their own sense of justice.
Empathy is not a feminine quality. It is a human one.
One afternoon, we visited a shelter together. We spent a couple of hours talking with unhoused young people, listening to their stories, handing out blankets and clothes. Every one of my boys held it together in public. When they got back into the privacy of the car, they all burst into tears. And they agreed to go back and donate the things they had saved up for or received for Christmas.
They do not come preloaded with hardened hearts. That bias and cruelty is conditioned. It is learned in patriarchy, in misogyny, in racism, in elitism, in supremacy. It is learned, and it can be unlearned.
What Raising Empathetic Boys Actually Looks Like
Breaking generational trauma in raising boys does not mean raising boys who cannot handle themselves or who avoid hard things. It means raising boys who:
- Understand the system they are operating in and how it harms everyone
- Respect women, people of color, and anyone different from them as equal humans
- Stand up to their peers when they witness casual misogyny or racism
- Call out harmful behavior when they see it
- Use their privilege to advocate for people whose voices are not being heard like theirs would be
- Can be physically capable and emotionally present at the same time
Those things are not mutually exclusive. Strong men are men who do the right thing. They are vulnerable. They are caring. They can hold someone emotionally as well as in every other way.
Why Men Are the Only Ones Who Can Solve This
The statistics on male violence against women and male violence against men are not up for debate. And this is not about all men. It is about a system that rewards harm, that keeps some people down for the gain of others, and that makes it actively beneficial to participate in the abuse of power.
When you are aligned with that system, you are not only not punished. You are rewarded.
But here is what I also know to be true: hurt people do not have to hurt people. The majority of people who have experienced harm vow not to inflict it on others. The difference is whether the system offers a payoff for the harm.
In this information age, there is no shortage of support available. Phone lines, therapists, books, websites, communities dedicated to men doing the real work of deconstructing their conditioning. The men I know and work with who have done that work are not diminished by it. They are better partners, better parents, and they live more connected, more fulfilled lives.
Why I Do This Work
My dad’s life was shaped by forces he did not choose and was never helped to understand. Toward the end of his life, in some of the deeper conversations we had during his treatment, he was tearful about his mother and the chaos he had caused. I think, had he lived to see my sons, he would have reconsidered a lot of things. I think it would have been quite healing for him.
I share all of this because you cannot fully understand the work I do without knowing where I come from. Generational trauma is real. Patriarchy is real. And breaking the cycle, whether you are a woman rebuilding her sense of self or a man choosing to do things differently, is some of the most important work any of us will ever do.
It starts with awareness. It starts with honesty. And it starts with refusing to let the system decide who you are.
If any of this resonated with you, I would love to hear from you. Submit your questions via the form on the website and I may answer them in a future episode of The Messy Middle.
Connect and follow for more on Instagram @theerikaleon
