We celebrate International Men’s Day on Saturday 19 November 2016, but the next day, on 20 November 2016, we celebrate World Children’s Day. If you ask me which day is the greater I would say the second one because as Roland Leonhardt said, “Children bring us a piece of heaven on earth”. If you don’t trust Roland maybe you might listen to Carl Sandburg words of wisdom when he said, “A ...

What is it about us men? But maybe I am just talking to myself here. So sorry for bringing you into it. I have always had this attitude. It’s called ‘separation of duties’. Sort of like saying to my wife, “You do your job and I will do mine”. My wife only worked for the first three years of our marriage and so we tried to share home duties a bit ...

Many years ago I made a speech with my wife at a function in Parliament House, Canberra on the importance of mothers and fathers. Our goal was to encourage both the Liberal and Labor parties to value equally mothers and fathers after divorce, and not to follow the politically correct line that devalues fathers because of anti-male feminist ideology. The function my wife and I spoke at was the The National ...

Alison and I have always been passionate about having a good marriage and supporting and encouraging marriages everywhere. That passion is not getting weaker but it is getting stronger as we get older. Maybe my main motivation is the pain I experienced from growing up in a divided home: when Mum went her way for many years and Dad went his way. The trouble of course was that my brother and ...

Humour is usually the intersection of reality with the ridiculous. This can take many shapes and forms, but what I have noticed is that really good comedians are usually very good social commentators. I should have realised this the night I was doing a Fatherhood Seminar in Launceston. The title was ‘The Seven Secrets for Success”. I use the acrostic SUCCESS for the Fatherhood Seminar. When I first did this seminar, ...

By Sheila Wray Gregoire http://tolovehonorandvacuum.com/2012/07/men-heres-what-i-wish-i-could-say-to-you-about-sex/ Editors Note: This is probably the first time I have ever printed an article on my blog by a woman. But if you want to give advice to men about sex who better to ask than a woman. Only half the article is included so please go to Shelia’s great blog site to get the rest of this very timely information that will guarantee you more ...

Mark Latham, The Daily Telegraph May 31, 2016 12:00am Editors Comment: Mark Latham is a passionate father who does not suffer fools gladly. He is a very adroit commentator and his warning  at the end of the article that we are fighting for the future of civilisation is more than true. WHEN John Maynard Keynes declared “Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some ...

They sell books sometimes at the gym my wife and I go to. The other morning, always on the lookout for books for me, our readers and our grandchildren, my wife excitedly called me across to the gym book table. Look at this, she said, holding up a book of illustrated dad jokes by Katrina Germein called, “My Dad Thinks He’s Funny”. Whenever I say, “I’m hungry,” Dad says, “Hello Hungry. ...

Some time ago I came across a Tim Hawkins’ video on YouTube. Tim Hawkins is a musical comedian with a difference. He made up some very interesting new words to the Green Day song, “Time of Your Life” and renamed it ‘Things You Don’t Say to Your Wife.’ The second verse goes like this: I planned a hunting trip next week on your birthday. I didn’t ask you ‘cause I knew ...

Firstly I and the team at Dads4Kids wishes you a Happy Father’s Day! Secondly, we thank you for your support and encouragement to produce and get the Dads4kids ‘Love your Children’ Community Service Announcement adverts out to TV stations all over Australia. We have heard many reports of people seeing the new advertisement so far. Even people in Timor have reported seeing the Dads4Kids ad on Australian TV, broadcast from Darwin ...

Elizabeth Svoboda, the author of What Makes a Hero says, “New research is lending texture and credence to what generations of story tellers have known in their bones – that books, poems, movies and real life stories can affect the way we think and even, by extension, the way we act. As the late US poet laureate, Stanley Kunitz puts it in The Layers, “I have walked through many lives, some ...

Putting together the Dads4Kids Community Service Announcements is always an exciting time for me. It is an honour to film fathers in their natural habitat with their children. It is both an inspiring and humbling experience for me. The previous TV adverts would be hard to beat! In an eight-day period we videoed 24 fathers and their families in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. Twenty fathers made the cut. Those ...

Editors Note: We congratulate  Anthony Albanese on his courage to share this powerful and personal story with the people of  Australia. We reprint the full article for our readers interest. It is ironic that Anthony Albanese can share such a commanding story with Australia that shows the desperate longing that each child has to know and beloved by their biological mother and father and yet deny that same right to children ...

Each week I try to be encouraging, but real. The trouble is the ‘real’ part has a way of whacking you in the side of the face when you least expect it. Many men have been whacked so many times that they just don’t want to get up off the floor and sometimes they can’t. Teaching men how to endure the fire and the rain of life is one of the ...

Several years ago my wife and went on a family research trip to the USA. It was a rich experience on many levels. Firstly, from video footage shot on the trip, we created our first documentary on marriage and fatherhood called the Marriage Revolution. We even built a website to promote it.  Secondly, the place we conducted a lot of interviews for the documentary was the Smart Marriages Conference in Florida. ...

The title of this week’s Dad4Kids newsletter is taken from Dr James Dobson’s ground breaking book Dare to Dicipline which was published in 1976. I did read parts of the book in the early eighties but I had already formed my opinions on the need for proper boundaries and discipline for children, even before I had my own. Fortunately both my wife and I had roughly the same ideas and that ...

They say that there are two things you can be sure of in life – death and taxes. Most of us run from them both for good reason. Death is the scary one, but I guess one gets more used to the idea the older they get. But it still seems to catch us by surprise. Several years ago I was surprised to learn that my good friend and colleague Jack ...

We racked our brains for weeks without a breakthrough! We knew we had a good story, but we didn’t know what to call it. Getting the name of your child right is important, but so is the name of a high impact life changing documentary. Once you have a name, you are usually stuck with it. In the world of documentaries and movies, getting the right name is everything. Think ‘Jaws’, ...

In 2009 we flew into USA on the day of Michael Jackson’s memorial service on the 7th July. It was a surreal feeling. There was a sadness on the plane that it was hard to put your finger on. Looking back I suspect many on that flight were actually going to the memorial service. Michael Jackson was extremely popular here in Australia, as he was around the world. Over 17,500 people ...

We are constantly bombarded about fatherhood and family myths by a media who live by the maxim, “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story”. The end result? – the exotic and the statically minor always grab the headlines. The stories of the ordinary fathers who are providing, nurturing and caring for their children and their families are forgotten. What is even worse, fathers are maligned for ...