When we were bringing up our boys in the eighties it was the vogue to suggest that boys and girls are trained to be the sex they represent by people’s expectations and gender manipulations. Almost anyone my age believed it. I carefully watched my own children’s behaviours and realised that I and my generation had believed a lie. I was both ashamed and angry at the same time. How could I ...

You don’t appreciate your own parents until you have your own children. The famous native-American quote comes to mind, “Don’t judge any man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins”. Maybe we could change the quote for Mother’s Day to something like this, “Don’t complain about your mother until you have changed two months of nappies and been woken up every night for 60 nights in a row”. Most ...

As I looked down the road into the sun, I saw the silhouettes of a man and a woman walking side by side. The man held a young two year old boy in his arms. The young boy reached and called out for his Mummy. Maybe I got it wrong though, because the next moment, when I looked again, I saw the young boy in his mother’s arms reaching out and ...

Editors Note: This is guest post from Ben Pratt good friend and a devoted father of four and adoring husband of the most beautiful woman in the world.   I love my family. Every day since my wife and I got married, I have told her that I love her. Every day since my children were born, I have told them the same. It’s a track record I want to keep ...

We as Dads have to savour the moments. My friend and devoted father, Greg McInerney, describes these moments; for example, your 8 year old daughter “at the end of the game when she sneaks in a hug, all your dad DNA does a happy dance too”. I call these moments “Dad’s Joys”. Greg calls them “Dads DNA happy dance moments”. Call them what you like, we need them as Dads; but ...

We must initiate the love revolution in our society by telling the truth. As George Orwell said, “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

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 ...