Henry Youngman, a comedian who was known as ‘King of the One Liners’ once said, “I was an atheist for a while but I gave it up, no holy-days.” Such a one liner about holy-days sums up the subject of this week’s Dads4Kids newsletter – Easter Family Holidays. Most of us celebrate Easter holidays but where did they come from and why do we celebrate them? Most countries in the world ...

The headline said, “Toddlers to be taught about cross-dressing in a controversial sex-ed program”. What really caught my attention was this nonsensical statement from Early Childhood Australia spokeswoman Claire McHugh. She said that the proposed sex-ed program would reduce domestic violence because ‘rigid views on gender’ were associated with violence and domestic violence. Let me paraphrase that piece of Orwellian double-speak just in case you don’t get it. People who believe ...

Brian Houston whom I would rate as a truly great leader, often says these words. “The best is yet to come.” He is relentlessly positive and is living proof that staying positive is the best way to ‘Love Live Lead’. The Warwick Marsh paraphrase of Brian’s words is there are “Better Times Ahead” but perhaps I stole them from the Black Sorrows. More on that later. If you are a father ...

Nelson Mandela said, “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.” If that is the case, our society is sick beyond belief. Not only are some of our retail stores involved in promoting the overt sexualisation of our children, but government-funded programs in our schools are actively indoctrinating our children in subversive sexual ideologies. We can choose where our children ...

Oscar Wilde said, “To live is the rarest thing in the world”. William Wallace agreed when he said, “Every man dies, not every man really lives”. Really living is one of the greatest challenges a man will face. In many ways this was the sole motivation behind last weekend’s INTENSIVE that I attended at Stanwell Tops. The pamphlet introducing the INTENSIVE put it well: Most men set off to change the ...

Last week I talked about one of the greatest decisions of my life, travelling Australia with my young family for 12 months back in 1990. Many of you probably thought that it was an easy decision to make. Others probably thought, ‘How do you make good family-friendly decisions?’ Hindsight is a wonderful gift. My decision to travel Australia with my family was quite hard to make and fraught with challenges. Many ...

Let me share with you the story of one of the best decisions I ever made for my family. Travelling around Australia was the dream of a lifetime. When you live out of your heart, you will never regret it.

Guest Post: A big thank you to Ben Pratt for helping out this week and sharing his wisdom to inspire and encourage Dads. Ben is a father of four and a devoted husband who hails from Armidale in rural NSW. He is currently studying ministry and is a keen advocate for men’s issues at a local, national, and international level. ____________________________________________________________________ I have a confession to make: I find it really ...

Guest Post: A big thank you to Ben Pratt for helping out this week and sharing his wisdom to inspire and encourage Dads. Ben is a father of four and a devoted husband who hails from Armidale in rural NSW. He is currently studying ministry and is a keen advocate for men’s issues at a local, national, and international level. ___________________________________________________________________ The last time I wrote for this Newsletter, it was ...

Phil Baker an author from Western Australia, was addressing a large group of high profile community leaders. He told them that if they really wanted to affect the community, they had to ‘stop being so boring’. Many of his audience were quite shocked at his comments. The same goes for us as fathers. We have to stop being so boring and begin go out of our way to engage with our ...

Last week I wrote about the stages of the masculine journey. John Eldredge released his book, ‘The Way of the Wild at Heart – a map for the masculine journey’ in 2006 and it will go down in history as a must have book about manhood just like “Iron John.” The “Way of the Wild at Heart” does not make the Art of Manliness 34 best books on manhood to read ...

The fact that manhood is a journey is not a new concept. Ancient civilisations recognised the various stages of the masculine journey for many thousands of years and the importance of having an initiation into manhood ceremony. In fact every tribal society in the world has a male rite of passage ceremony built into its culture. Every rite of passage into manhood ceremony is different but the underlying principal remains the ...

‘Pinkie and the Brain’ is one of my favourite cartoons. I used to watch it with my kids when they were young, and I don’t know who loved it more, me or them (but I won’t tell anyone if you don’t). ‘Pinkie and the Brain’ is the story of two enhanced laboratory mice. Wikipedia puts it well, “Brain is self-centred and scheming; Pinkie is good natured but feeble minded. In each ...

There is something really exciting about the Christmas – New Year period. It marks the start of a New Year and a whole host of opportunities for you and your family. New Year’s Day signals a chance for you to break with the past and start afresh. This is a day to be finished with discouragement from any past failure as a father and husband and move on to higher ground. ...

Christmas is a great time of the year for our families and particularly for our children. I remember as a ten year old boy, the year seemed to last forever before Christmas arrived. The lead up to Christmas went excruciatingly slow. Psychologists acknowledge that time does go quicker as you age. For me, the big marker of the year was Christmas, not New Year’s Day. Everything revolved around Christmas. John Lennon ...

Australia is the best country in the world. I know that Alison and I are biased, but we say that every time we come home from an overseas trip, and it gets truer every time. We had an exciting journey as we met with family and fatherhood leaders in the USA, Europe and Asia. I have visited nineteen countries as an adult, and eight more as a child. Nothing has given ...

Don’t go lookin’ through that old camphor box, woman You know those old things only make you cry When you dream upon that little bunny rug It makes me think that life has passed you by There are days when you wish the world would stop, woman But then you know some wounds would never heal But when I browse the early pages of the children It’s then I know exactly ...

It’s always an interesting thing, gauging how much people engage with an issue or an idea. Sometimes you’d think that one thing would be wildly popular and it flops, other times you think it’s an absolute stinker, yet it grabs people’s attention and becomes a runaway success. This is especially true on the internet, a place where pictures of cats seem to rate higher than stories about real life heroes much ...

It’s interesting the things that come to mind when you’re busy with life. Recently I was looking after my four children at home (the eldest is almost seven, the youngest is not yet two) and I had to break up an argument. It was your typical “he said, she said, he did, she did” sort of affair, and ended up with son number two apologising to his sister with all the ...

It’s here! International Men’s Day is the 19th of November this year, and it’s a day when men across the world are encouraged to speak up about issues that affect men. There’s no shortage of topics to discuss; from lower life expectancy and a higher suicide rate than women, to unfair treatment in separation and divorce proceedings in court. But the even bigger questions are… What is a man? How do ...