‘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 ...

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 ...

Running the recent Dads4Kids Instagram Photo Competition has been one of the most rewarding and emotional experiences of my life. Probably most of the photos were taken while dads spent time with their children. However many of the shots were taken in order to enter the competition – precisely the point of the exercise. The really good news is that we believe this competition has reached over 100,000 people with its ...

People, especially the media, are happy to talk about problems. Bad news sells! But very few people, especially the media, are happy to talk about the answers to domestic violence. Miranda Devine went to the heart of the problem in an article recently called Demonising Men Won’t Stop Domestic Violence: It is a grim portent that Malcolm Turnbull’s first policy announcement as Prime Minister was a $100 million gimmick blaming domestic ...

The mission of Dads4Kids is to improve the well-being of children by increasing the proportion of children growing up with involved, responsible, committed and loving fathers. You might well ask the question, “How do we do this?” This is a question the team at Dads4Kids asks themselves every day. Simply put, we have to inspire more love in the fathers we connect with. Again you ask, “How do you inspire fathers ...

The week from the 13 – 19 September is Marriage Week. This is a week that we can all get excited about because marriage and fatherhood are two sides of the same coin. Alison and I have always been passionate about having a good marriage and supporting and encouraging marriages everywhere. Our motivation, on my part, comes from the pain I experienced from growing up in a divided home: when Mum ...

Here we are, another Father’s Day, another year, and a big thanks to Sonora Louise Smart (1842 – 1919) from the USA, who was the founder of Father’s Day. Mother’s Day was formally initiated in 1908 by Anna Jarvis in the USA. Two years later Sonora, a devout women of faith, began to advocate for Father’s Day. In June 2010 in an address to the Spokane Christian Ministers’ Association, Sonora Louise ...

Inspiration comes when you least expect it. I went to visit my videographer is his studio to talk about various video projects, including the YouTube videos from the Voice 4 Kids Summit held at Parliament House, Canberra a few weeks ago. Sam introduced me to a young surfer name Adam. Adam said, “You’re not Warwick Marsh, the guy who is the founder of Dads4Kids and runs those crazy good ads on ...

Some time ago I had the privilege of organising a meeting with Pru Goward who was the then Equal Opportunity and Discrimination Commissioner based at the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in Sydney. It was an informal, round-table discussion over coffee where several men’s and father’s groups shared their dreams, frustrations and positive suggestions for the future. Pru also shared eloquently on the frustrations women feel in a male dominated ...

John Mayer’s music took the world by storm. Seven Grammy Awards out of a total of 19 nominations is surely  some kind of recommendation. The fact that the Beatles won 8 Grammy Awards and Simon Garfunkel won 7 gives some grounds for comparison. I must confess to being a bit biased for two reasons. Firstly, I am a ‘Blues aficionado’ and John Mayer is a really good Blues guitarist, and secondly ...

My good friend Wayne Butler from the Shared Parenting Council would contend, in his courageous and exhaustive article reprinted in part below, that A Sickness has Fallen on the Family Law System. The team at Dads4Kids would contend that a sickness has fallen on society at large and this sickness is now being reflected more and more in its institutions and laws. That condition is seen in the current push for ...

Some years ago our eldest son, 23 years old, got married to the love of his life. If the wedding was any indication, they would have had a great time together on their honeymoon in Vanuatu.  They came back glowing and it wasn’t just from the sun.  Young love is such a beautiful thing. For the record it is important not to forget it. The number of children living in our ...

I received an early morning phone call from a producer on 5AA radio station in Adelaide, wanting an interview with someone from Dads4Kids. They wanted a comment on the famous Adelaide Football coach who had been murdered by his son. I hesitantly said ‘yes’, and then quickly started a Google search to find out more about the horrific crime. It seems that there had been some form of confrontation in the ...

Every now and then something comes along on Facebook that is a breath of fresh air. Usually you are wading through rubbish but this is something really worth sharing. I will let Sam Judah from BBC Trending tell the story of an impromptu “How to not discipline your child video” that has been seen over 21 million times and still counting.

We all want to be happy but how many want to pay the price for true happiness. In an article called “Ten Keys to Happier Living” on the Actions for Happiness website it says, Helping others is not only good for them and a good thing to do, it also makes us happier and healthier too. Giving also connects us to others, creating stronger communities and helping to build a happier ...

Every Sunday morning, without fail, for the last 13 years, fathers across Australia have received the weekly newsletter to inspire fathers and encourage families. For many dads our weekly newsletter and our TV ads are an absolute joy but this week the joy is two days late. The reason: a combination of both overwork (lack of help) and electrical problems. Ron Hellyer who has faithfully edited the newsletter, found the pictures ...

This week Dads4Kids launches its annual end of financial year ‘Help the Children’ Appeal. One great reason to give to the ‘Help the Children’ Appeal is because Dads4Kids is helping dads live longer than in years gone by. Last year, on 6 November 2014, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released an important news item: “Aussie males born from now on could plan on receiving a ‘Happy 80th Birthday’ card, as ...