“Tradition and culture are really at the core of who we are. It’s how we heal.”
by Claudia Boyd-Barrett
For much of his early adulthood, Mike Duncan, a member of the Round Valley Indian Tribes in Mendocino County, wrestled with unhealthy ideas about masculinity that devalued women and child-rearing. Among Duncan’s chief regrets from that time are how he behaved toward the mother of his oldest children, and the negative example he presented to his kids.
“I was … trying to be right, trying to be masculine, you know, ‘I’m the man, listen to me,’ type of mentality,” says Duncan, speaking during an online workshop on parenting he’s held regularly during the pandemic. “It was all just part of the sickness, the belief system that I grew up with.”
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To Counter Domestic Violence, Some Native Americans Embrace Tradition
Mike Duncan, founder of Native Dads Network, a nonprofit focused on promoting healthy parenting and relationships for Native Americans, is photographed at the Cache Creek Conservancy in Woodland, California. The conservancy is within the ancestral territory of Duncan’s Wintun forebears.
Photos by Martin do Nascimento / Resolve Magazine
“Tradition and culture are really at the core of who we are… It’s how we heal.”
Apr 7, 2021
For much of his early adulthood, Mike Duncan, a member of the Round Valley Indian Tribes in Mendocino County, Sacramento, wrestled with unhealthy ideas about masculinity that devalued women and child-rearing. Among Duncan’s chief regrets from that time are how he behaved toward the mother of his older children, and the negative example he pre