Akinola Akinropo is the founder of Parenmark, a parenting coach with a focus on great fatherhood values. In this interview with Yetunde Oladeinde, he talks about his passion, how it all started, his early life in marriage, the costly mistakes he made, and how he converted this by helping fathers to raise great families.
What is the focus of this initiative, and how did it all begin?
It is about having a curriculum that benchmarks your activities every day. There are some churches and organizations that are buying into the idea of creating a curriculum for them and it would continue to happen. So, we created a school. I have been married for 20 years and I started preparing myself for the daunting task of fatherhood a year before I got married. Even though it was at a lower level. A lot of things that I put to use, knowledge, and avoidable and unavoidable mistakes that I fell into during the past 21 years are the things that I put together to create the curriculum.
Fatherhood can be an art or a science. There exists a school of fatherhood. Kenya has a university of fatherhood because they know the negligence that they have faced through the waywardness of their children and they carried out an assessment that pointed out the fact that these guys were not properly raised. They saw that was lacking and made sure that before you go into marriage, please go through the fatherhood university. It’s subtle, they have not really enforced it. You get a certificate that is provincial, meaning that if you come out of that place and you go back to your house misbehaving, they will withdraw the certificate from you, and blacklist you. That has put the men in Kenya in check. We may not have the capacity to start a fatherhood university now but we have the capacity to start the fatherhood online course.
In relationships what works for A may not work for B or C. Have you factored that into this?
We have factored it in and that is why we talk about assessment. Even our courses have assessments before any student attempts them. In a class, you would see the variation in scores and from there we put it in perspective. The course outline is generic but the application is not generic. So, what we tell them is how you can make use of what you’ve learned in your day-to-day fatherhood journey. As a father, you are a seed handler.
For instance, when a farmer cultivates the land, you have maize, beans, cassava, and other seeds. The amount of nurturing that you give them (beans, maize, cassava, or yam) would be different. So, we tell people that children are not the same. That is why we run psychometric tests for intending couples. It is important to know the personality trait of your spouse before you marry. Also, knowing your personality trait is not an excuse to bully your spouse. Your personality trait is not definitive, it is descriptive. We have a template but that template is not generic. It is not cast in stone, you have to apply it. We have a project and in that project, we would say go home and we will create a family constitution for you. So, the family constitution I created with my coach, for my home, differs from what other participants created. There is no one size fits, but any method you want to use at all must be with the concerted effort of everybody in the house. You will also review from time; the purpose is to raise a wholesome and adjusted family.
Some family starts off nicely but deviates because of some pressures. At that point, what should be done even if you have a constitution?
When pressure comes up the husband deviates to alcohol, the wife too takes solace in her friends and the whole house is not catered for. One of those things that we tell participants to do is to have all-encompassing training. There is an aspect of emotional intelligence in fatherhood training in the online course.
Again, we try to create family values. This is so critical and what that means is that if they crush me, they would still see anger in me. I have not dealt with anger issues. I am on a journey to rediscover myself. The awareness there is to know that this thing you have done, you are not supposed to do it and you call yourself back. Once in a while fathers would fall into shouting bouts or slapping their children. It is wrong but the way we have been brought up, subconsciously we do it. Those things will always come but the perfect thing for you is to call yourself to order. If I am engaging my son, the boy would just say ha, the coach is vibrating. Immediately he says I would say my friend would you keep quiet? That is part of the vulnerability; we have to be open to ourselves. But the manual is to put us in check.
Who are your targets?
Our message is for everybody, including the singles. And that is why in our class you won’t see us using Bible passages. If I would use a Bible passage at all, I have to ask for their permission. What I would use is not something that is discriminatory. It is not something that would put other people in jeopardy or think less of their religion. So, the target in that area would be non-denominational. So, we reach out to everybody but the real target now is mainly from 25 to 40 years. I discovered that the age range is 25 to 45 and those in the 45 range don’t really need it, they are my friends.
The reason why I said this is because some of them believe that nothing can change about them. Then those around 50 and above are just my cheerleaders, some of their children are out of school. But for those who are 25 years to under 40, some of them are either not married, just got married and those ones are just fresh. You can still say some things that you can catch up with. It’s so easy for them to retrace their steps and all the mistakes that they have made. So, those are the target audience. We go to churches, and mosques and if the Ifa worshippers have a center, make it open then we will go there. We have different curricula for these people.
There was a day we went to NASFAT, Ebute Meta. The guy that invited me was shocked that I picked a verse in the Quran and that verse prophet Mohammed said when you marry, the woman has every right to choose either her father’s name or the husband’s name to carry. They know and when they discovered that I know also, they were surprised. I cover every area. I know some parts of Odu Ifa that speak about parenting that speaks about patience. So, in case they invite me, I know what to do. I won’t go to meet Ifa people and be quoting Bible or go to NASFAT and be quoting Bible. If I have to quote any Bible in NASFAT, it would be Genesis where God spoke to Abraham. Some of those verses, you can find in the Quran.
Talking about your targets a lot of them are into drugs and other vices. Do you look at all this in your curriculum?
Yes. The fear of the future is mainly the reason why a lot of them go into vices. They came out of school and look around, see what the leaders are doing them and they also have their gadgets too. So, they just decide to let me live my life anyhow. We create hope for them and this is how we do it. We have a curriculum for teenagers. I also have a certification for Generation Z from Atlanta, USA. We did a lot of research before they gave us that certificate. I focused on West Africa, South Africa inclusive. So, what we do is present the future to them. When they see the future and we arm them with the necessary curriculum content to guide them. What happens to someone who is already embedded in drugs, and all manners of activities? That is not my area but I have colleagues who deal with them on how to bring these guys back to normal. There are therapists in that area. We have 6 different assessments for pre-marital counseling. We don’t ask direct questions but they will fill in innocently, then we review them and then call them for a meeting.
We have not been encouraged at all. Almost zero encouragement. My coach advised me not to get deterred and not to make it free. Maybe a 30-minute course, a webinar. But where you give them a curriculum, it should be paid for. Keep pushing, and keep gathering till you get your target audience. That is why we have a free WhatsApp group with fathers sharing experiences or if you do not want to share openly you can reach out to me.
I wasn’t like this at the early stage of my marriage. The belief system is that men must not cry and must not share emotions. As a man you must be strong-willed, you must not beg your wife even if you did anything wrong. Don’t look feeble to your wife. Those things had eaten deep into our lives and they had rocked the boat of some families. Even if you know that you are lacking in one area, instead of you to open up to people or your wife, what do you think I can do? They fight in silence and die in silence. Most times, what they are fighting is how to satisfy the home front. Up till tomorrow, some men still believe that they don’t need it. When some couples don’t have children, pastors would say women looking for the fruit of the womb to come out, not men. I have never seen any program for men looking for the fruit of the womb. The challenges are real. The first five years of my marriage were turbulent. Turbulent in the sense that I didn’t beat my wife, shout at my wife, or beat my children, but I was almost living a reckless life. I had a girlfriend then, and then I would always lie to my wife. I left banking on April 25, 2005, and moved to a financial brokerage. I was managing a client’s account in the bank and joined him. I was allowed to freelance and the money was coming and I kept using excuses. But my wife did not fight or doubt me.
