← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
'Daughters' Documentary Wins A Peabody
00:25:02
A documentary tells the stories of four young girls preparing for a 'Daddy-Daughter Dance' with their incarcerated fathers.
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- [00:00]
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Alison Stewart
This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. Peabody Awards were announced yesterday. WNYC Studios won for the podcast Blindspot about the early days of the AIDS crisis and the woman who bore witness and became accidental activists. Kudos to them. Another winner was a poignant documentary called Daughters. It's about the commitment between a group of daughters and their fathers. The fathers are incarcerated. The film centers on a dance, Father Daughter Dance. We meet four girls who cope differently with their father's absences. We also followed their fathers through a 12 week program to help them prepare for what might be the only chance to be with their daughters and a chance to make a memory. As we learn in the film, an increasing number of prisons in person contact doesn't exist. It can only be made through a video screen. And now, not to spoil the film, but the participants in this program are overwhelmingly successful. 95% of the men in the programs remained out of prison after their release last summer. We spoke to filmmaker Natalie Ray and Chad Morris, the fatherhood coach who helps the incarcerated men prepare for the day itself. Angela Patton, who co directed the film with Natalie, she's also the CEO of Girls for a Change, the founder of a Camp Diva Leadership Academy, which is where the idea for the Date with Dad program originated. I started by asking Angela to explain to me about where the idea for the Date with Dad program, where it came from.
- [02:09]
Angela Patton
I think that when you allow girls to be in a space that allows them to affirm their voice to be seen, heard and celebrated, and it's not only a safe space, but a brave space. And they really feel that we are actively listening to them. You know, anything could actually come out of their imagination. And so at Girls for a Change, we pride ourselves in creating such spaces. And I'm fortunate that I'm in a position to do so. And so with this particular program called Girl Action Teams, we allow girls to think about issues in their community that they would like to solve. And the girls really wanted to address these stereotypes and negative narratives around black fatherhood and how it actually showed up in their lives. And the girls realized that it was something that they needed to do differently and that was really celebrate their fathers in their own way. And so at first it was just a community dance that was going to be facilitated by the girls in Richmond, Virginia. And as they were planning this dance, they realized that one of their peers, unfortunately could not attend because her father was incarcerated. And that really bothered those girls. And that's when they decided to think about how they could be creative and making sure that their friend had the same experience that they were about to have with their fathers on the outside. And they decided to write a letter to our sheriff at that time, the former sheriff, now Sheriff C T Woody, who was really leading the Richmond justice center, and asked him if they would allow them to bring a dance of their own inside the city jail. And then he graciously accepted the invitation. And this is why we're here today.
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Natalie Ray
Natalie, what were some of the things you were hoping to communicate through the documentary?
- [04:18]
Great question. I really wanted people to connect with these girls, connect with how they were feeling, what they wanted, how they changed over time, and really be on this journey with them. I think I didn't want to come into it with really my own set of what. Where the story was going or really what an audience should take away. I think it's more always about the girls experience and spending enough time with them so that what they would share and how they would feel and how we could adapt the filmmaking style and the editing style and everything around them to just allow people to connect to their experience has always been the most important thing.
- [05:02]
I'm not going to give away too much at the end, Chad, but there's a Note that says 95% of the incarcerated men who participate in this have remained out of prison. You've been doing this family stabilization social work for more than a decade. What about this program makes it so successful?
- [05:20]
Chad Morris
That's a great question. I think it's a unique synergy of all of the components. This isn't just an approach to try to mobilize men. That's part of my job, is to mobilize them and help them find the lessons that are in their own stories. To help them reflect and practice a type of accountability that for imprisonment, it's not always embraced when they're in a space that's not. It's a brave environment for very different reasons. Let's just say that. That they have to be brave. But this type of accountability is something that is very necessary for them to have the conversation to reflect and find the values in their stories. I also think that it's because of the work that Angela and girls for a Change have been so intently doing with girls to unapologetically not tell those girls no and find solutions and support their mothers. Because for their family units to reconne or strengthen their connections, there's gotta be an agreement on everybody's parts to turn their hearts towards each other. And I think that's what makes it unique. It's not just a program that's succinctly and only for the girls, or only for the dads or only for the moms, but it's a combination of working with their entire family unit because families look different, they communicate differently, but that child is who those parents wish to be on board for. And all parents want the best for their kids. I inherently believe that. And I think that these parents wanted to turn their hearts towards their children. It causes both parents to practice some accountability and some. Some consideration of each other, but also keeping that child at the forefront of the consideration. I think those are the things that make this program unique.
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Alison Stewart
Yeah. And just to say that some of the moms have very different ideas about this. What do you say to a mom who's just not sure about the daughters seeing their dad?
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Angela Patton
Yes. I think it's the same thing that Chad is doing with the fathers. We think about the fact that they are raising the girls to really prepare for womanhood, and we want to stop some of these vicious cycles that have really disrupted our community, which starts with our family unit. And so I have to help the mothers really find, you know, their way. And thinking about what was your relationship with your father who actually, you know, told you or whispered things in your ears? Were you able to have these honest, unsettling conversations with your dad, and if you could go back and change anything, what would it be? And as the mothers start to think about their childhood and maybe their wounds and, you know, maybe the scars that had been put upon them, they start to sometimes think differently about what they want for their daughters and understand that the father is significant in making sure that she seems to have a. That she has a relationship with both mom and father and understand that even though the father may not have shown up the way you want him to, you know, maybe the father and the daughter will have an opportunity to heal on their time and they develop their own relationship that's going to be positive for the both of them. And so just doing that heart work, which is hard work, but it's necessary work, is how we kind of get the mothers to see that you are a champion of what you want your daughter to become, you know, and we Wanted to have, you know, voice and agency in her relationship with her father. And how do you get out of the way and allow that nurturing, you know, to happen and kind of not always play the mama bear? And I know it's hard. It's very hard to do. But I also commend the mothers and continue to celebrate them, too, because you never want them to feel like, you know, that I'm saying that what they're doing is wrong. It's just that what can we do differently to have better, healthy family outcomes? Because this is all for our daughters.
- [09:19]
Alison Stewart
Chad the Date with Dad program lasts over two months. It started in Richmond. The documentary follows dads in D.C. chad, honestly, what do most dads who show up think is going to happen?
- [09:31]
Chad Morris
You said, what do most dads who show up think is going to happen? I think in the beginning, I think they are. I think that, not to give the film away, but what some men have shared, those particular men and other men, they look at it as just another opportunity to have a touch visit, a contact visit, because it's counterintuitive to think that I'm going to go in this group and open up and in 10 weeks, I'm automatically going to be a better dad. Who is this guy? What is he going to tell me about being a parent? And I think that's an honest and fair assessment. And so the approach in working with them is always to meet them as who they are outside of the sentence that they're carrying or the trial that they're wearing or the jumpsuit that they have on, to meet them in the space of your man and your father and that we have in common. And by finding those common threads on, in getting their agreement to understand they're in that room and chose to be in that room before they met me because of the love of their child and wanting to see their child. That's the space that we start from. But I think it's some healthy skepticism in the beginning about what the process will be like, because no one, most of us don't want to be taught about fatherhood, nor have we ever. Most of us haven't had someone intentionally saying they're going to teach us, which is why my moniker. I'm not a teacher, I'm just a dad. And I'm figuring things out just like you are. But through our collective parenting experiences, I asked the question, what can't we figure out? And I think that starts the turning point for their thought process.
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Alison Stewart
Natalie, you're the director. You're in the prison. How do the men feel about having.
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Natalie Ray
A camera in their face?
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I think that I was pleasantly surprised. They were quite relaxed about it. I think there's these environments can be heavily surveyed and have a lot of people and security guards and things like that. So it didn't seem like the camera brought another big element that was taking them out of the moment. But also I think what Angela and I were really intentional about was whoever was bringing in cameras or behind the camera could connect it to the fathers. And our cinematographer, cameo Michael Fernandez, he had a similar experience growing up and had a parent that was incarcerated. So there was lots of moments where he could just put the camera down and join the circle and have the conversation with the fathers. He's a father himself and Angela. I would usually just stay out of the room and allow the men to have their own space and time. So I think that was really important to achieving that unawareness and just openness whether the camera was on or not.
- [12:09]
Alison Stewart
We've been hearing about the Peabody Award winning documentary Daughters, about a group of incarcerated men and their children preparing for an emotional daddy daughter dance. Our guests are filmmakers Natalie Ray and Angela Patton, as well as Chad Morris will be back to hear more about the Date with Dad program after a short break. This is ALL of it. Welcome back to ALL of it. Before the break, we were speaking about the Peabody winning documentary Daughters, about a prison program that aims to help incarcerated men connect to their daughters as a way to remind them that their rehabilitation is not just only important to them, but to the children who love them. We've been speaking with co directors Natalie Ray and Angela Patton, who also leads the organization Girls for a Change, as well as Chad Morris, the fatherhood coach from the film who helps the men prepare for the program. So before we dive back into the conversation, let's hear a clip from the film Daughters. The first voice you'll hear is Aubrey, an adorable, bright little five year old. When we first meet her, she's proud to show off her math skills or times tables. And we hear her puzzling through some really emotionally difficult math about how many years before she gets to see her father again. Let's hear a little excerpt of her talking to her mom in her bedroom. And the water you hear is a fish tank.
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Aubrey
My cousin taught me my 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 timetables, but she did teach me my 10 timetables and I know all my 10 timetables. I'm the smartest one in my class. My dad like rapping and I'm, and I'm Rapping with him, too.
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Alison Stewart
He had.
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Aubrey
He made up. He made a cool song. You miss him? When he says he loved me, I say I'm gonna say I love him more. He's coming home in seven more years.
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Natalie Ray
Yeah, I think so too, mama.
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Aubrey
First it was nine years, and then the police took away two, and then it was seven. So it wasn't nine or eight years. It was seven. Seven is a very close number to one, but it's gonna take a long time. Cause it's a year. I wish it was. I wish my dad was home already.
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Alison Stewart
I'm gonna get the try. I'm get my tears out now. Get my Kleenex. Natalie. What was striking to you about the different faces we see these girls put on through the film?
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Natalie Ray
I mean, it was really an organic process, sort of meeting all four. We started with six families, and a couple of the fathers had to go to other facilities. So then these four girls were so powerful as different types of ages, really, different personalities, different relationships with their fathers. Just to try to communicate like this. The range of experiences we have with our fathers, every single father daughter relationship will be different. So from that imaginative nature of Aubrey, with so much sparkle in her eye and optimism, but also, you know, blending her reality a little bit. She's so young that she's still sort of understanding life at that. At that time. And then, you know, you have Jayanna and Santana. Santana, you know, has a lot of resentment at that. When we first meet her, to her father, who's been out of her life for most of it, and then Diana, who actually would like to meet her father, she doesn't really remember him. She hasn't been able to go into the jail to visit him. So she sort of expresses this. This wanting to connect, but, you know, more apathetic. She doesn't really know him. And then Rosiah, who is a little bit more at a loss at that moment in her life, and, you know, is really sad and struggling with depression as she's 16, 15, 16, and processing it in a different way. And the mothers would always talk about this storm that the girls were in, and they were at different phases of. Of this cycle. And I think what's hopefully beautiful about the film is that you do get to see them come out of that. It's not and not anyone stuck in one place. It's moving. People have ups and downs. And a lot of the girls and the fathers do move through things together.
- [16:54]
Alison Stewart
You know, with Aubrey's father, Chad, we see how proud he is of her, how she's doing so well in school. But he also gets emotional about having all that pride and not being able to show it in the way that maybe she knows he knows that she needs. What are some of the other issues that come to the forefront for these fathers as part of the process?
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Chad Morris
I think the disconnectivity being, you know, they are separated from their families, and I think they register as well, especially with the changes in policies. Prisoners is not an easy. Or jail is not an easy span of time to spend away from your families. And I think they're registering so many different emotions that taking the time to become accountable for what they're feeling. I can't speak to their individual experiences per se. They're their own best actors, advocates. But what I can say is working with them is very intentional to start from a place of self reflection so that they can get those feelings organized. So part of what you see in the film is them just expressing themselves. It's not often that men who are in prison are in a place where they are encouraged to be sensitive, encouraged to be vulnerable, encouraged to relax, because this is not the face or the filter that they have to operate through when they're spending their time outside of that room. And I think they register a whole span of emotions because most every man that spoke expressed the want to be there for their child. They expressed the want for them to do something different and for their children to have different opportunities than they did and just being able to stay connected, which is already hard when a man is dealing with incarceration. And it's hard for the family as well, because they're in a type of incarceration by being separated from their families. So I think they're registering a whole myriad of emotions. But the goal is always to talk to them, to the place, by being accountable to themselves and truthful with themselves and renewing their commitment to show up as best they can because they do have varied, different circumstances. I think the film does a very good job of showing you in a short amount of time what the span of those emotions look like.
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Alison Stewart
Angela, one of the other little girls, Santana, is about 10 when we meet her. Let's listen to a little bit from the documentary Daughters, and you get Santana's sense of frustration. Let's listen.
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Aubrey
I would tell him that I'm sick of saying myself cry because the stuff that you do, and it wasn't my decision, it was your decision to make and not mine. So next, when you get out of jail, next time you go back in jail, not gonna Even share one single tear. Dying, shed tears. He want to keep doing bad stuff that he shouldn't be doing. It's not okay. It's affecting me. Mostly me.
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Alison Stewart
Angela, you see the. Santana's really trying to tough it out, but then when she and her father get to hug each other, she lets.
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Natalie Ray
Out this big, exuberant daddy.
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Angela Patton
Yeah.
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Natalie Ray
Do you see that combination of feeling among the girls?
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Angela Patton
Absolutely. It's an emotional rollercoaster. You know, what I do love about Santana is that she wasn't allowing that to define her. And what you actually see in the film is even through her anger and her pain, she's found ways to cope through her best dance. She's coping by making sure that she's venting about what she's feeling. But that doesn't mean that she doesn't love this man. You know, she just saying, man, I need you to do better for me. Right. Because I know that you can. And so I just love the fact that this film actually gave her a space to be able to just share that. One of the things that Natalie has shared in some of our past interviews that I appreciate is how Santana said, I have more to say. And Natalie, you know, and our camera crew just stayed with her and just allowed her to just pour all of that out. She just needed to be heard. She never said she did not love him. She never said, I'm not gonna go to this dance. She just was like, I need for you to understand what I'm feeling and to be accountable for it. And then when she was able to see him, what you also captured is she is actually becoming, you know, this great burst of, like, leadership. She's asking him questions sometimes. She didn't want to dance because she wanted to have a conversation. The one that, a lot of times, unfortunately, we don't have a safe space to have. And so I'm always just, you know, in awe about her confidence, to be so honest and raw. And then I'm hoping that when her father hears these conversations, that he actually listens actively to his daughter and shows up and does the exact thing that Mark said that he was, and that was her superhero, and that's what she was asking him to become.
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Natalie Ray
Natalie, please correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't say why the men were in prison. Is that correct?
- [22:15]
Correct.
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Why did you make that decision?
- [22:18]
All of these girls deserve love and connection to their parents. And if these children are innocent and growing up, they shouldn't be suffering the consequences, no matter what their parents did or did. Not do. So the film really focuses on that father daughter relationship and through everything, through the way that Chad works with the fathers. They never talk about sentences. It's about them as human beings. This parent child relationship, that connection and everything else doesn't matter.
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Chad, we see the fam. The fathers and the daughters at the dance. There's this sort of looming idea that this is going to be over one day. How are you going to.
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Alison Stewart
How do you prepare the men for after the dance when they're separated again?
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Chad Morris
I think so. What you see in the film is a snapshot of the conversations that we've had. This was over the course of 10 weeks before the dance and then continue for several weeks after the dance. Just because of that one fact, that once you're on this emotional roller coaster we're building, we're building on each conversation that we had predicated on prior conversation because we're continuing to build trust, not just with each other, but trust within ourselves that we can be who we need to be to show up. And so while they're looking forward to that high, we. Conversations that you don't see do let the men know that, hey, I know the journey that we're going to be on. And while I don't know your individual reactions, I understand that your love for your child is as pure as you've professed and so eloquently shared that this is going to be an emotional high. And we use the word roller coaster intentionally because I don't think there's a more adequate word to describe it. This is why we have these intentional conversations. This is why we have those conversations after the fact, because each man registers it differently. And they don't. When they go back to their pods or their cells, they don't have a person, most likely, that they can confide in that they can talk to and process those emotions. And it's very necessary to process them because at times of high emotional, highly emotional activity, those are times when we can also make an imprint in our minds to try to register change.
- [24:45]
Alison Stewart
Yeah.
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Chad Morris
And that's the hope. So this is why it's very intentional, how we structure those conversations and how they build each one. And unfortunately, you don't see all of the conversations, but it was definitely an effort to make sure we help them understand that journey so that when they felt it, how you feel is a surprise. But knowing that you're going to do it, you can't brace yourself. But we're there to make sure we keep going.
- [25:08]
Alison Stewart
That was my conversation with Natalie Ray Chad Morris and Angela Patton, the team behind the documentary film Daughters, which won a Peabody Award yesterday. It's streaming on Netflix.
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