Related Articles from the Daily Dad
Christmas for My Daughters
Joe is a mate of mine. “Mate” hardly describes our connection, yet the sporadic contact belies a relationship that holds strong meaning for me. Joe is pretty much anonymous to most, but that is of his own making. He is humble at a time when indulgence and opulence seemed to be currency. For a long time, he struggled as an ...
Real Dads are Dragon Slayers
Paraphrasing the great G.K. Chesterton, novelist Neil Gaiman wrote, “Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” His words summarise the essence of an obscure essay from Chesterton called The Red Angel, written in defence of the ordinary hero, who is set against extraordinary ...
Making Marriage Last is All in the Intention
No matter how easy it may seem to fall in love, staying in love requires attention and effort. We all start out in marriage bright in hope and full of brimming love. Yet rarely do those wonderful, euphoric experiences of early love persist unabated; for many of us, disillusionment creeps its way into our consciousness as our natural selfishness and ...
Restoring Hope in Life-Long Marriage
There’s a curious thing that happens when a divorce touches a community. Where once parents, friends and siblings believed in the power of love and the permanency of marriage, confidence gives way to cynicism and uncertainty. Instead of believing that children do best when living in the same home with both their parents, we find ourselves saying: “The most important ...
What Pixar Taught Me About Dreams
We all have dreams: to start a business… volunteer in a third-world country… write a book… Dreams are important. And then God answered: Write this. Write what you see. Write it out in big block letters so that it can be read on the run. – Habakkuk 2:2 (The Message) I’ve recently learnt a valuable lesson -- to not get ...
Too Hasty to Judge
In the age of instant news, judgment falls hastily. In marriage also, we are often quick to judge each other. Like most couples, over thirty-plus years of marriage, we’ve had quite a few misunderstandings. Sadly, many of these escalated to painful arguments where hurtful things were said, and our unity was damaged. The reason? We were too quick to judge. ...
How to Raise Generous Kids
If I wasn’t there when she said it, I wouldn’t have believed it. When my boss asked his 7-year-old daughter what she’d like for her birthday, she said she didn’t want any gifts. Could everyone make a donation to the Leukaemia Foundation instead? Excuse me? After a lengthy conversation, she convinced her parents to have a ‘gift-free’ birthday party and ...
LIFEMARK: Must-See Movie
LIFEMARK is one of the best movies I have ever seen. Furthermore, it is definitely the Kendrick brothers’ greatest movie yet! That’s why I am writing to you to encourage you to see LIFEMARK at the movies this week before it disappears from the big screen. Thankfully, LIFEMARK has only dropped down from 74 screens last week to 54 screens. ...
6 Key Leadership Tips from Queen Elizabeth II
Queen Elizabeth II is a wonderful role model for strong and steady leadership. Her life bears lessons for all parents, who must lead their families. If you are like me, you will have been staggered by how many people loved the Queen. I have always admired the Queen’s leadership, humility, faith, courage, and commitment. I thought I was one of ...
How Senior Couples Make Marriage Better
In a culture that glorifies youth and sanctions the euthanising of the sick and elderly, it’s easy to lose sight of the gift of seniors. Here are three ways that senior couples make marriage better for all of us. Earlier this year, Pope Francis released a series of homilies on the elderly. Each one explores a theme based on a ...
Men’s Summit a Magnificent Milestone
“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” is a saying by the famous Greek philosopher Aristotle in 330BC. The fact that he came up with it must mean he attended a Men’s Leadership Summit. I am still buzzing two weeks later and still trying to figure out why the Summit was so good. The speakers were brilliant, ...
New Western is a Fitting Tribute to Dads in ‘Hostile Territory’
Hostile Territory, the latest offering from actor, director, and writer Brian Presley, has all the right dads-for-kids ingredients. Set in Missouri in the mid-1860s, the 2022 film is an award-worthy western with a crisp contemporary edge. The well-thought-out script follows battle-hardened Union army Captain Jack Calgrove, who, at war’s end, finds his kids gone and his wife dead. As he ...
Happy Father’s Day with a Bag of Love
This Father's Day, may fathers everywhere receive a big bundle of love from their children. May healing and reconciliation take place where required, and may fathers step up to their calling as loving dads and role models for their offspring. The team at Dads4Kids wishes all Dads, all over Australia, a happy Father’s Day. It is always a busy time ...
Knowing What to Love
You can’t love what you don’t know. This saying has profoundly influenced our marriage and our faith. About once a decade, we book tickets to the opera in the expectation of a romantic date night brimming with artistic delight. We have to confess though, we usually come home vaguely disappointed. Not being particularly musical, we don’t understand the technical expertise. ...
Making a Change for the Better
Change is difficult. It can also be complicated. Despite our best intentions, sustained change often eludes us. We’ve had many spouses tell us that their husband or wife promised to change, and things were good for a while, but then there was a relapse. Their good intentions were not enough to sustain their energy for change. So what can we ...
Let’s Stick Together
“For an increasing number of long-term marriages, it’s no longer a case of ‘until death do us part,’ it’s a matter of until the children depart from the family nest,” writes Rachel Browne in a Sydney Morning Herald article, “Parents wait until children go, then do the same thing.” Suddenly finding your busy life full of activities attached to children, ...
My Baby Son – A Father’s Day Present from Heaven
It was 12:00am on Sunday, the 1st of September -- Father’s Day, to be precise. There I was, frantically gathering clothes and bits 'n' pieces according to my wife’s somewhat disjointed instruction. She was roaming about the house with a hot wheat sack across her rather overgrown abdomen. I couldn’t believe it. Had the moment finally arrived? After nine -- ...
8 Keys to Live through Divorce & Separation – A Layman’s Survival Guide
As someone who has been through the very difficult travails of divorce and undertaken various versions of shared care over the past 15 years, I understand all too well the confusion, stress and sadness these difficult travails bring with them. I have, however, learned a few things along the way that I hope might be of benefit to those fellow ...
Ask Your Children
Why does it seem so hard sometimes to have peace in the house? I have struggled many times over this. We pray every day, try to organise the day and set the course -- that is, we the parents. As a father, the head of the household, I should be steering the ship on the course I think we are ...
Finding Our Way to Heaven
We’ve been listening to Mike and Alicia Hernon’s podcast called Messy Families. One of their recurring messages for parents is: stop worrying about getting your kids to heaven -- parenting is about helping you get there! When we first heard them say this it stopped us in our tracks. Mike and Lisa go on to explain: the reason motherhood or ...
20 Famous People Who Were Homeschooled
Here is a more in-depth look into over twenty people who benefitted from being homeschooled. The flexibility and depth of home education can help your children go far in life, in pursuit of their passions. For a centuries-old tradition, homeschooling is still trending. Before, and into the 20th Century, the number of successful women who were homeschooled isn’t surprising. Often ...
Boys and Internet Pornography
A concerned mother reflects on how she can best protect her young sons from the lure of internet pornography. I don’t have a blueprint for this brave new online world, where just typing ‘breastfeeding’ into a search engine produces a minefield of lurid possibilities. Steve Biddulph, author of Raising Boys and Raising Girls, wrote an article in the Sydney Morning ...
Jordan Peterson’s Latest Bolt of Truth
Jordan Peterson issues a fresh challenge to men, to follow their highest impulses and become the strong husbands and fathers they are meant to be; to find and fulfil their purpose in life, in service to the community and the world. I first wrote about Jordan Peterson on 18 February 2018 after his breakthrough interview with Kathy Newman about his ...
Deep Impact Conversations
“How was your day?” It’s one of the most common questions couples ask each other and either leads to a dead-end response like, “fine” or “busy” (which usually means “I don’t want to talk about it”), or a long-winded description of meetings, frustrations, errands and other ‘busy’ stuff. It’s what we call a ‘data transfer’ conversation. Such exchanges are important ...
100 Famous People Who Were Homeschooled
May this list of brilliant homeschooled scientists, mathematicians, inventors, writers, poets, musicians, sporting greats and politicians throughout the centuries serve to inspire parents to take the plunge into home education. Homeschooling is parent-facilitated education. Gandhi once said, “There is no school equal to a decent home and no teacher equal to a virtuous parent.” His words epitomise the power, beauty, ...
