Tēnei te mihi. He uri tēnei nō Tauranga moana.
Ko Mauao te maunga, ko Takitimu te waka,
ko Ngāti Ranginui te iwi, ko Paparoa te marae,
ko Pirirākau te hapū, ko Phillip Borell tōku ingoa.
Yeah, I'm Phil, that's me.
I'm a lecturer teaching Māori and indigenous studies,
Footy coach, gym coach,
dabble in a whole lot of different things, bro.
But yeah, that's kind of who I am.
I'm a father, got two beautiful young boys,
Aarama, who's 11 going on 31, and yeah,
he's is my stepson,
so I've been in his life for eight,
coming up nine years now. We've got a recent addition,
Werahiko-Paul, just over a year old
and he's my first biological son.
I was born and raised here in Christchurch,
raised by my mum.
We lived in the same house, well she lived
in that state house for 32 years.
My biological father,
I don't know a whole lot about him.
He left when I was about 18 months old
and I never saw him again
until I was 10 and he was in the casket.
So that was the next time I saw him.
He had passed away.
That's when my personality started to
change, might have became a real asshole to my mom,
like probably for a decade after that.
So I think, you know
that had a profound impact on me. Obviously,
it's not until you get older and you start to
unpack these things and you realise how much
of an impact this sort of abandonment can have on you.
I'm not gonna come up here and try and talk
about a model of perfect fatherhood in any way and,
and, and talk about how to be that.
Cause I don't know.
I don't know, but I know
that we can accept what we've done
and we can move forward and try and be better.
Part of me always wanted to be a dad
and probably cause I didn't have one, you know, like I just
for me that was like the pinnacle
of what it means to be a man is to be a father.
You know, I'm really anxious about doing this
because I'm not gonna be able to tell a great dad story.
I'm getting like mad imposter syndrome talking
about being a dad, you know.
I take any opportunity to sort of whakamana my mum.
And so, you know, when I look at who I am as a father,
I'd probably say I model myself on her.
I think all of the good things about me are from her.
She gave me the template, you know,
of how to be nurturing, how to be caring,
because I'm just a dude who just wants to pick
up his baby and just cuddle and kiss him all the time.
I think to me the most important thing
is just being present.
You know, like that's one thing that doesn't
cost you anything, you don't have to have any skill set.
You don't need anything to be there.
My sole goal is to be present.
You know, just if I can be there,
I'll be there because I know what it feels like,
you know, when they're not there.
I think once we can accept who we are,
warts and all, you know
then we can make moves going forward
and doesn't happen overnight. Like I truly believe
that the healing process for anyone is a lifelong journey.
If you can do better than what you had,
I think you're doing great.
You know, if you can overcome something and become better
than you were six months ago, I think you're doing great.
And that's kind of how I see my journey.
It's just a constantly trying to improve
upskill, it's like education and it doesn't stop.