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 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 celebrate ...

Richard Branson said, “If happiness is the goal – and it should be, then adventures should be top priority.” It is the priority of adventure that makes being out in the bush with a bunch of dads and their kids really exhilarating. Wollondilly River Station, the place for our annual Dads4kids Bush Camp, is set in a deep valley not too far from the famous Wombeyan Caves in the Southern Highlands ...

Counting Crows had a hit in 2002 with Joni Mitchell’s famous song Big Yellow Taxi. Good songs never get old. The line that stands out in the song for me is “all and all it seems to go, but you don’t know what you got till it’s gone”. Such was the case of a good friend of mine, Mick Robbins. We had only met a half a dozen times, but he ...

“A merry heart does good like a medicine,” is a quote from the Book of Proverbs that is backed up by all the modern sciences. Raising a family can be exasperating beyond belief. That is why the team behind Dads4Kids believe you must never lose your sense of humour. I have often said that Dads must be the laugh leaders in my weekly Dads4Kids newsletters. To drive that point home, let ...

The phrase ‘I am Spartacus!’ was taken from the 1960 film Spartacus by Stanley Kubrick. Historically, Spartacus was a slave who trained as a gladiator under oppressive Roman rule, and who led a slave rebellion in 73 BC. He amassed a large army of fellow slaves and led his men to defeat the Roman legion on several occasions. Eventually, the Roman Senate sent Marcus Crassus to put down this rebellion with ...

Jordan Peterson has been called the “the stupid man’s smart person”, and, one of my favorites, “a Messiah-cum-surrogate-dad for gormless dimwits”. Tiago Faleiro believes “He is the worst intellectual of our time”. He is, according to the New York Times, “a patriarchal pseudointellectual, riding his devilish dark horse into stardom and corrupting everybody in his path, at best an idiot fraud and at worst, the most dangerous thinker in the West.” ...

Some time ago a friend invited me to meet the Founder & President of ‘Champions of Honour’, a significant men’s network from the USA. I quickly rearranged my schedule and headed over to Gloria Jean’s Coffee Shop to catch up with Chuck Brewster (Chuck being a shortened term for Charles in American terminology). I must confess that I have a tendency to scepticism for many things that come from America.  My ...

In a matter of days we celebrate Valentine’s Day by sending a card to the love of our life, buying flowers, chocolates, ‘candy’ or a host of other things to ‘prove’ our love for our one true love.  Some people hate the rampant commercialism whilst others among us go along for the ride.  I myself think that any custom that provokes us to keep the flame of love alive has got ...

Gillette has jumped on the #metoo bandwagon, and in the process has derogated masculinity. I have a lot of sympathy for the #metoo movement, because one in four women and one in six men have been sexually assaulted. From my counselling experience, those figures are understated.  It happens a lot more than people realise. It almost happened to me. I was a young naive man in my late teens with a ...

Mothers are important! Let’s face the facts. You cannot have a father without a mother. Dads4Kids was founded in 2002 with the main purpose to improve the well-being of children by increasing the proportion of children growing up with involved, responsible, committed and loving fathers. Whilst our main vision is to support fathers our broad vision has always been to empower families. A family is made up of a mother and ...

Most weekday mornings Alison and I get up at about 5.40AM, push each other out of bed, and go for our early morning ‘Gym & Fitness Walk Session’, at least that’s what I call it. We walk down to the gym about 2-3 minutes and hold hands as we walk. We work out together and then we take a longer route back to our home all the while holding hands with ...

I can always remember Dr Bruce Robson, Australia’s best-selling fatherhood author, telling the guys at the ‘Good to Great’ Fatherhood Course about Janis Joplin’s father. For those who don’t know her musical history, Janis Joplin was one of the great female vocalists of the late sixties. The movie ‘The Rose’ released in 1979 was based on her life story. Rolling Stone magazine has placed her in the top 30 female vocalists ...

The first week of the New Year always offers us a period of great promise. It’s like the afterglow of Christmas. As a child growing up, I was always in awe of Christmas. It wasn’t just the presents but more the mystical sense of God’s closeness or presence. I can always remember when I was about ten years of age, a rough and tumble farmer talking about how he sensed the ...

The New Year holds promise for us all. A fresh beginning, a new start, a grand opportunity to start over. We reflect on what we have done and where we have been and what we should do. Sometimes this self-reflection can be discouraging but it is an activity that should be pursued nonetheless for the greater good of all. Many years ago, after some time of reflection and prayer in the ...

To our children, Christmas is one of those special times of the year. When I was growing up it was the best time of the year and was always a long time coming. New Year was always an anticlimax, despite my Scottish heritage and the importance of Hogmanay in that country. When I was 6 years old, we lived with our mum and grandmother in Edinburgh, Scotland. Christmases were cold and ...

Recently a friend of mine told me he was going in for surgery into the hospital. I offered to pray for him. He looked at me with eager and hopeful eyes which told me about the joy of my offer to him and the fear of the challenge ahead. The prospect of going under the knife myself, sent a shiver down my back. It is downright scary. You are totally in ...

Last weekend I attended a three day ‘Wild at Heart’ Bootcamp with John Eldridge and his team at Stanwell Tops, NSW. I was joined by over 400 other men from all over Australia and all over the world. Men came from USA, England, Canada, Europe and New Zealand. In the USA, one can only get into a Wild at Heart Bootcamp by random ballot, such is the demand. I have been ...

The title of this week’s blog, “Secrets of the Superdads”, is taken from the ABC Science Show screened several years ago. It is even more relevant today than the day it was made.  You know that the fatherhood revolution is well underway when the ABC screens a great feature on fatherhood like this one. Very uncharacteristic but most welcome! The good news is that you can see most of it on ...

“The revolution will not be televised but you will see it on YouTube”. This adaptation of Gil Scott-Heron’s famous saying from the seventies might be the best way of explaining the recent November 19 celebration of International Men’s Day around the world. The colloquialism, “You can’t keep a good man down”, is coming to life as the grass roots celebration of good men comes to life in the hearts and minds ...