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The resources section of the Dads4Kids website is a forum for Dads to be able to express themselves and encourage other dads. Mothers contribute resources as well. The opinions of the various writers in this section are not necessarily the opinion of Dads4Kids. Read More
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Related Articles from the Daily Dad
Make a Stand for Mothers
Next Sunday, 11 May 2014, is Mother’s Day. I was planning to do a big article in appreciation of mothers, but that plan was shelved on Friday morning after I received a breathless phone call from my friend Luke McCormack of the Australian Family Association. Luke wanted to tell me about the current government’s new attack on motherhood. I was ...
The Value of Fathers
In 2003 Counting Crows had a hit with Joni Mitchell’s song Big Yellow Taxi. The chorus goes like this: “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you got till it’s gone.” This thought is captured in a brilliant article by Amy Remeikis called, ‘Facing a father's death with laughter and tears’. Amy Remeikis battles with the ...
Snakes Alive
As a boy my dad used to tell my brother and I stories before we went to bed. We would even sing a song, “Tell me a story” if he was short off the mark. Our favourite stories were Dad’s Snake Stories, most of them real. They would always end with Dad killing the snake and putting the dreaded killer ...
Caramello Life
The term ‘Caramello Life’ is coined by fatherhood researcher and advocate Dr Bruce Robinson from Perth, Western Australia. Bruce was nominated for Australian of the Year 2014 and was high in the running, but lost to Adam Goodes, a well known Aboriginal Australian Rules footballer. Being a good friend of Bruce’s, I rang him to ask exactly what he meant ...
The Bank of Love
Some time ago I went on a retreat with a group of men. One of the subjects for discussion was the place of our families in our lives. Most of the men were professional, ‘middle management’, if there is such a thing. Most of us felt the intense pressure of ‘trying to keep the customer satisfied’. Many had put their ...
The Power of Thanks
I will always remember walking home from primary school at Blackheath in the Blue Mountains, NSW being annoyed by my mother and father’s constant insistence about saying ‘thank you’ and ‘please’. It seemed totally illogical to my egotistical young brain at the time. Looking back now, I am thankful for parents who insisted I say ‘thank you’ whether I thought ...
Christmas Time – Family Time
It’s that time of year again. You can go to the shopping mall and listen to carols while you shop. You can even get your photo taken with Santa. Christmas can be a very difficult time of the year for single fathers or for children who can’t see their mothers or fathers. Mostly it’s the children who can’t see their ...
The Musical Man
One of the joys of being in the men’s movement is meeting people on the journey. The men’s movement is filled with poets, artists, musicians and ratbags of which I am chief. My friend Noel Giblett is one of those many poetic minstrels and for the purpose of this newsletter, I am calling him ‘the musical man’. Before I tell ...
Life-Long Learners
It’s hard to hold back the tears when a man starts being really honest and speaking from his heart. This is especially the case when that same man has just finished the first Good to Great Course to be completed outside the Sydney-Wollongong region. It is even more exciting when that man tells you that his whole relationship with his ...
Win-Win Decision-Making
Life has its challenges, and being a father compounds those challenges. Someone has got to be the leader in the family. The buck has got to stop with someone. Herein lies the challenge. I believe that fathers are called to be leaders in love. Being a leader requires making decisions on behalf of those you lead that are open to ...
