As someone who is passionate for men in the context of mothers, fathers and children, I looked through my rather large collection of books about men and fatherhood. These books have different reasons for being on my top ten list, but they are all classics.
Warwick Marsh
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 ...
Warwick Marsh
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 ...
Warwick Marsh
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 ...
Warwick Marsh
By JENNIFER ORIEL https://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/jennifer-oriel/harassment-of-christians-is-a-blind-spot-for-ruddock/news-story/05a151d60e067228910a442909ff8287 Editors Note: Jennfier Oriel is probably one of Australia most most eloquent and passionate defender of faith, family and freedom. This is a copy of a very good recent article in the Australian Newspaper. The government has proposed a religious discrimination act to protect the right of Australians to live in accordance with their faith. Its response to the Ruddock review is preliminary and will face further ...
Warwick Marsh
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 ...
Warwick Marsh
EDITORS NOTE: This is a very good analysis reproduced from the Australian of the current attack on religious freedom in the last week of Parliamentary sitting for 2018. Deadlock on religious freedom is a shamblesPaul Kelly Attorney-General Christian Porter during question time. Picture: Kym Smith. 11:00PM December 7, 2018 596 Comments The progressive transformation of Australia has brought the Liberal and Labor parties into fundamental conflict on the philosophical but practical ...
Warwick Marsh
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 ...
Warwick Marsh
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 ...
Warwick Marsh
“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 ...
Warwick Marsh
The unknown soldier was buried in the ‘Hall of Memory’, at the Australian War Memorial on 11 November 1993. Twenty-five years and eight days since that solemn occasion we celebrate the life and death of the unknown father on International Men’s Day 19 November 2018. How did this happen? Just last week I received an unexpected video message on my phone from my friend, Rob Day. Video Message from Rob Day ...
Warwick Marsh
The past few years have been an amazing journey for me, promoting International Men’s Day around the world. I have met some amazing men who are profoundly committed to the betterment of men, families and their respective nation’s societies around the world. International Men’s Day 2018 Promo I have had interactions with men from Canada, USA, UK, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Malta, Israel, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Hungary, Singapore, Zimbabwe, ...
Warwick Marsh
Our children are waiting for International Men’s Day on 19 November 2018. Now there are only 15 sleeps to go. Why are they waiting? Our children are waiting for good leadership from their Dads. To be a father is to be a leader. Men are leaders and must accept the responsibilities of leadership in society. Women are leaders too but if men don’t lead in the right way along with women, ...
Warwick Marsh
“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men”, are the insightful words of Frederick Douglass. These words are very relevant to our mission to support and help men. International Men’s Day on the 19 November is now only 22 sleeps away. The team at Dads4Kids are proud to announce the release of the new IMD website celebrating this year’s theme of ‘Positive Male Role Models’. See our ...
Warwick Marsh
André Maurois said, “Marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day”. No truer words were ever spoken. André’s full quote is even more revealing. “Marriage is not something that can be accomplished all at once; it has to be constantly re-accomplished. A couple must never indulge in idle tranquillity with the remark; ‘The game is won; let’s relax’. The game is never won. The chances of life are such ...
Warwick Marsh
As a young boy I lived at one time in an old red brick home in Sydney in a suburb called Croydon. Every night, before bed time, my little brother and I would rush dad and sing him a song: “Tell us a story, tell us a story, tell us a story before we go to bed. You said you would, you know you should, we are ready now, so please ...
Warwick Marsh
Sometime ago the whole nation was moved by the story of a brave and resolute father who set out to find his little boy lost, or should I say, abducted? This same father cycled 6,500 kilometres through eight different countries throughout Europe to find his son. His son, who had been secretly abducted by his mother on 24th April 2008 and removed from Australia under false pretence. For 2½ years Ken ...
Warwick Marsh
We stepped into the gym office where my wife and I work out most mornings between 6AM and 7Am. The young vivacious 22 year old gym instructor was visibly shaken so we asked her what was the matter? She poured out her tale of woe. Mary (not her real name) is a fourth year trainee teacher. She was at the tail end of a traumatic prac experience at a public school ...
Warwick Marsh
Scott Morrison speech: I believe in a fair go for all Australians (Pray for Rain) Prime Minister Scott Morrison delivers his Menzies Research address as Simon Birmingham, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, Kelly O’Dwyer and Mathias Cormann look on at the Mirambeena Community Centre in Albury, NSW today. Rachel Baxendale 2:54PM September 6, 2018 Scott Morrison has seized on Sir Robert Menzies’ declaration that “No party seizes the imagination of the people unless ...
Warwick Marsh
Today we give you advance notice of an exciting development with Dads4Kids. As a faithful reader/subscriber to the weekly blog we also want to give you access to a very special introductory offer, but more about that later. Courageous Online Fathering Course promo The Courageous Online Fathering Course is being officially released today, Sunday 23 September 2018. The team at Dads4Kids has been working on the Courageous Online Fathering Course for ...
Warwick Marsh
Life is a journey. So is being a Dad. I know so much more now than I did when my children were young, but I am still learning. People often say, “How did you raise such great children?” My wife and I look at each other with a look of amazement because we both know the many mistakes we made as parents. We reply quite seriously that our children make us ...
Warwick Marsh
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Top 10 Classic Books on Men and Fatherhood
As someone who is passionate for men in the context of mothers, fathers and children, I looked through my rather large collection of books about men and fatherhood. These books have different reasons for being on my top ten list, but they are all classics.
Child Support and Deadbeat Dads – Myth Versus Fact (Part 2)
(continued from part 1) The next question then becomes, why doesn't this hard core group just pay up? Well of course, just as there are some taxpayers who will go to any lengths to avoid paying taxation, there will always be some who will adopt a similar attitude towards payment ...
Child Support and the Deadbeat Dad – Myth Versus Fact (Part 1)
It was fascinating to watch the media recently making a complete botch of facts (as per usual) in order to generate reader interest. This mangling of fact in favour of 'readability appeal' (fiction) happens all too frequently in our media -- something that is costing us dearly as a society, ...
A Harsh Statistic: Child Support and Unemployment
A harsh statistic, which should be sobering and alarming to both legislators and their advisors, but has been largely ignored, is that about 40% of all payer clients held captive by the Child Support Agency (CSA) are effectively unemployed. Another statistic that appears to have also made no impact on ...
When They Are Very Young
I was 27 years old when, on my first day of teaching, I was presented with a class full of ten-year-old children. I remember thinking that I hadn’t seen or spoken to a ten-year-old since I was ten. I felt equally inadequate a few years later when I was handed ...
Teachers versus Fathers
The observation that separated couples rarely get along with each other would come as no revelation to anyone. It is generally relationship problems that lead to the separation in the first place. Yet these relationship difficulties are often used by the Family Court as the basis for refusing shared parenting ...
A Black Day
I arrived home from school at about 4 pm one afternoon to find that my pigeons had been stolen, and one of the new chicks had been killed and was dead on the floor of the cage. I was 10 at the time. It was 1952 and we were living ...
ANZAC Day: For the Fallen
While attending ANZAC Day dawn ceremonies just now, I was reminded of how little people understand the unknown/absent/single father from the poems that are read on ANZAC Day. I have re-written the originals slightly below, for those who are battling and those who have gone before, and for those who ...
Choose Your Friends Wisely – Even When Young
When I was five years old, I lived at 302 Dryburgh Street, North Melbourne, and on Saturday mornings my Grandfather, William (Bill) Coyle would look after me while my mother worked in the city. My grandfather was about 162cm (5’4”) tall, and about as wide. His grandfather, a lawyer, had ...
Inspiring Single Dads
Here we go again -- my second Single Dads article in almost 1½ years of the FathersOnline newsletter. I always said the first article wouldn’t be the last. What has brought on this sudden burst of ‘single father inspiration? Read Peter Duncan’s email in the News & Info section before ...
‘Dinkum Dad’
Another piece of dad’s ‘irony’ was to allow me to do almost anything I liked (within the law), even take his new 1956, two-tone-green FJ Holden, registration GND 535 (that he would park in Kipling Street before leaving the keys on the ‘fridge’ and retiring to the lounge room to ...
The Lost Arts of Parenting (Pt 1)
I used to think that it was really tough of my dad to expect me, at age 18 (in 1958), to be home at 8:30 in the evenings on Thursday and Friday nights, so that my mother would feel secure in the house with my little sister. This had been ...
Equal Parenting
Letter to the Prime Minister from The Lone Fathers Association of Australia Part Two The best interests of the child With a legal presumption of equal shared physical custody, a clear message would be sent by the Australian community to the divorce industry that a child is a human being ...
Shared Physical Custody
Letter to the Prime Minister from The Lone Fathers Association of Australia Part One General comments The LFAA, as the national peak body representing separated fathers and their children, wishes to inform you of our extreme disappointment with the Report on “Shared Custody” by the House of Representatives Committee on ...
On Christmas Day
All going well, I will receive access to my children sometime on Christmas Day. I don't know whether for 1 hour, 1 day or 1 week. I have no court orders, choosing not to put my kids through it, and knowing by experience they are not worth the paper they ...
Holiday Joy
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea Joy to you and me! Here we come, into the holidays. My two independent elder children will be off with their friends. I will see little of them. My youngest will be at his mother's this Christmas. I am grateful it ...
The Heart of the Matter
Here's a nice message that comes from the Bible. It went the email rounds but was anonymous, so I can't credit the scholar. In the very centre of the Bible, Psalm 118:8, it says (I like the Amplified version translated by Jewish scholars): It is better to trust and take ...
Without Vision, People Perish
Recently, I have been pondering the relevance of this statement in my own life. It has been a number of years since I separated, but I still struggle with a lack of vision for my life. It doesn’t really matter how you come to be separated from your children and ...
Thrive, Not Just Survive
Plan some time out for yourself -- things you enjoy doing, with friends or alone. It maybe off to the sports arena, or the movies, or just a simple lunch at the fish markets. Try inviting some friends over if you can cook, or invite yourself over to some friends. ...
A Tale of Three Cities
A few years ago I was a happily married man -- a beautiful wife, three sons, a home that was well on the way to being paid off, a job, and settled in the community. We had just had our 10-year anniversary -- a night on the town for the ...
A Fair Go for Single Dads
As I walked up the main street of Wollongong one day this week, I heard a voice cry out my name. It was an old friend of mine, whom I knew was now a single dad. He had experienced the full brunt of the Family Court’s injustice. His divorce was ...
Not Just Cricket
At primary school, my eldest son was very keen on cricket. Big problem: the school was not connected into the local cricket team network. So he networked. Cajoling staff and friends' parents alike, he sweet-talked everyone into joining the competition. There were no teachers involved, little sports gear, no school ...
The Three ‘H’s
My wife and I are experiencing (as grandparents) a unique déjà vu. Twenty-four years ago, we experienced with watching concern and anxiousness our daughter's and now son-in-law's dating and relating. We are again going through similar ‘pain’ as our number two grand-daughter is living with us, as she undertakes tertiary ...
Whose Authority?
It is a well-known adage that evil triumphs when good men do nothing. The events of history testify to the truth of this saying. Yet, there are plenty of examples in history of good men accepting the authority of a tyrannical government. The apostle Paul was a Jew living under ...
Family Reports
Each year in Australia thousands of children are being mentally and emotionally abused by the Family Court of Australia by being forced to participate in an investigation of their parents’ competency. This process is called a ‘Family Report’. Many children are severely harmed by the experience. Family Reports are a ...
The Silent Epidemic: Suicide
In June, 2000, a 44-year-old father experiencing family separation killed himself in the bush in the Victorian Gippsland region. Greg Wilton had a five-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter. This event made national news because Greg Wilton was also a federal parliamentarian. Each year in Australia, more than 2,500 people ...
