This is a First Person column by Alexander Redhead, a father from York Factory First Nation who lives in Ste. Anne, Man. For more information about CBC’s First Person stories, please see the FAQ. WARNING: This story contains details of experiences at residential schools.
My son is six years old and he’s my world. He’s never been 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 entirely.
When we got to the school doors, he froze. He wouldn’t climb the stairs. He cried, begged and held onto me with everything he had.
“Please, Dad … don’t make me.”
I took him to the office hoping someone could help, but it only got worse. He cried harder when the teachers came. He fought, screamed, reached for me and tried to run back into my arms while they held him. My gentle, sweet boy was terrified — and seeing him like that shattered something in me I didn’t even know was still breakable.
This wasn’t a child who didn’t 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 — the kind of seconds that I’ll replay in my mind for the rest of my life. We were on a family trip, trying to salvage a day after the zoo turned us away due to overcrowding, so we went to explore a local park instead. My son was walking just a few steps ahead of me when a man approached from the opposite direction. I thought nothing of it.
Then he suddenly reached out 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 I had never experienced before. My body moved before my mind did. I grabbed my son back immediately. The look the man gave me afterward still sits heavy in my stomach. It felt wrong. It felt dangerous. And it’s stayed with me ever since.
After that, all I cared about was getting my family out of Calgary safely.
We didn’t speak much on the drive back to our home in Ste. Anne, Man.
None of us felt right.
It changed my son.
It changed me.
Since that day, my son hasn’t been the same. He holds on tighter. He’s nervous around strangers. He checks for me constantly. And, truthfully, I haven’t been the same either. I get anxious when he’s out of my sight. I scan every room, every door. That one moment — that one man — stole something from both of us. And this morning, it all rushed back like it never left.
As I stood in the school office, watching my boy cry and reach for me while adults held him back, something else hit me — something I didn’t expect.
I saw my late father.
The same age my son is now.
Being taken from his family.
Terrified.
Reaching for someone who couldn’t save him.
My father was a Sixties Scoop survivor who was taken to residential school in Manitoba. Like so many survivors, he carried trauma he never asked for. Some of that pain followed him into adulthood — moments where he struggled silently with things he never fully healed from.
Even then, those struggles never defined him in my eyes. He still became a chief, a musician, a father and a man I admired deeply. He taught me pride, humour and resilience even when love cost him more effort than it should have.
I sometimes felt a quiet emotional distance between us — not because he didn’t love me, but because he had grown up in residential school without consistent safety 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 bracing, like his body was protecting itself. As a child, I didn’t always understand it, but as an adult I can see it as a survival response from someone who learned very young that the world was not safe.
Becoming a parent myself helped me see him not just as a man who struggled at times to show me affection, but as a child who never got what he needed. A boy who was never given safety, gentleness or comfort when he needed it most. A boy whose fear was never met with love. It made me feel more compassion for him, and it softened how I understood our relationship.
And now, my youngest son carries his name — a connection that means everything to me.
So when I watched my boy reaching for me in that school office, terrified and shaking, generations of pain rose up. Generations of children who didn’t get to choose safety. Generations of parents who couldn’t do anything to stop their babies from being taken.
My father didn’t have a choice.
But I do.
So I took my son home.
Not to spoil him.
Not to avoid hard days.
But because I refuse to let fear, shame or force be what he remembers from childhood. I refuse to let his body store fear the way my father’s did. I refuse to repeat the cycle — even in small ways.
At home, I held my son until he finally relaxed.
And then I cried — for him, for myself and for my father, who never had someone to bring him back home when he was afraid.
If I could speak to my dad today, I would tell him that I see him now — not just as my dad, but as the little boy he once was — and that I understand how much he carried. I’d thank him for the love he gave me, even when it wasn’t always easy for him to show it. And I’d tell him that I’m trying to honour him by giving my children the safety and gentleness he was never given.
That day wasn’t about skipping school.
It was about breaking a cycle.
Choosing love over fear.
Gentleness over shame.
Safety over silence.
It was about listening to the child in front of me, and the child my father once was.
I’m grateful that I get to be the kind of father who listens — the kind who brings his child home when the world feels too big.
That’s something my father never had. And it’s something I’ll never take for granted.
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 counselling and crisis support are also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week through the Hope for Wellness hotline at 1-855-242-3310 or by online chat.
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