Becoming the Kind Father
“Narrator Michael Puttonen expertly delivers every gut punch that the author experienced while growing up with an alcoholic father whose rage was a proxy for love. The audiobook highlights Sandborn’s painful youth, during which his father emotionally ruptured his soul, an experience every listener will find unforgettable. Puttonen’s performance is also remarkable for the way he projects the internal strife the author felt as a child. Yet Puttonen also conveys the hope that overtook Sandborn when he realized he could be kinder and far more caring than his own father. The result is both a depressing and an inspiring book enhanced by a performance that captures every high and low of a childhood from which lesser people might have learned the wrong lessons. A finalist for the 2015 Audie Award.”
AudioFile
The macho society that held John Wayne as a role model has created an emotional wasteland where eighty percent of men are unable to accurately express their feelings and where that same percentage feel estranged from their fathers. The stifled male, disconnected and out of touch, fills the void with apathy or anger, and the toll is staggering: short unhealthy lives, ruined relationships, and damaged children. This destructive behavior repeats itself in the next generation as the sins of the father continue the cycle.
In Becoming the Kind Father, Calvin Sandborn aims to break that cycle. His intensely personal story is heart searing and inspirational. Brought up to fear his father’s alcohol-fuelled fury and hateful put-downs, the author buried his feelings and fine-tuned his own rage. His father’s early death and the collapse of the author’s marriage provided catalysts for change.
Interspersing clever literary references with painful childhood memories, intense self-examination, and astute observations, Sandborn provides well-researched psychological findings and self-help tips, including how to:
- identify and share feelings,
- treat yourself as a kind father would,
- form trusting male friendships,
- break the anger habit, and
- forgive the world and yourself.
This guide offers helpful insight for the millions of men who want to become kinder human beings and is a “must-read” for every woman who loves an angry or emotionally distant man.
Praise