Inevitably there came a day when the ‘official’ part of my longitudinal research project came to an end and there was much professional satisfaction for me in that. On a personal level, however, I had long since realised that my encounters with these young men had affected and changed me. I had not just tracked these boys as participants in an academic research work. I had accompanied them on their journey as they transitioned from school-going boys to young men entering the world of work, forming solid intimate relationships (no more cherries, only regtes), getting married, having children and being fathers themselves. They had allowed me access to how their identities as young black men shifted and changed at key points in their lives. I got to know and care about many of them on a deep personal level.

My interactions with these boys and young men mobilised feelings in them as well, just as they did in me. At times I found myself over-identifying with participants’ feelings of anger and disappointment with their absent fathers, especially when a father was unknown as in my own case. I had to work through these feelings during this research project. I think being a psychologist helped me to manage my reactions, which I have never shared with the boys, nor with colleagues that worked with over the years. I used my journal to record the feelings, which I hope to share on another platform in the future.

In the individual and follow-up interviews, the boys stated that they felt the research questions touched on issues that were very private and personal, such as relationships with their absent fathers and the deaths of loved ones. As a result, there were instances when some boys cried during the interviews. This was a very difficult part of the research process. My professional training as a counselling psychologist helped me to contain their feelings and emotions, although it was not always easy to respond to their emotions as a psychologist while still fulfilling my role as a researcher. This was an unavoidable tension that I often had to manage as some of the participants had pressing personal difficulties that they wanted to share with me as part of their personal struggle to negotiate their identities. I thus became very involved in some of these boys’ personal lives.