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How Hemingway Felt About Fatherhood

Ernest Hemingway was affectionately called “Papa,” but what kind of dad was he? In my role as Associate Editor of the Hemingway Letters Project, I spend my time investigating the approximately 6,000 letters sent by Hemingway, 85% of which are now being published for the first time in a multivolu

Train Your Brain To Be More Optimistic (You Need To For The Sake Of Your Kids)

COVID-19. Climate change. Your moribund sex life. The shrinking size of Cadbury’s family-size chocolate blocks… There are plenty of reasons to feel downbeat about the state of the planet. But such negativity is often exacerbated when you’re the sleep-deprived father of a toddler who’s currently screaming because you won’t let him push a half-eaten Tim-Tam into the power socket.

New Study Confirms Dads Need To Be More Like Bandit When Playing With Kids

Bandit, the blue-heeler dad in Bluey, is a creative genius when it comes to playing with his children. Sure, he’d rather be watching the cricket. But Bandit still allows himself to be roped into wildly imaginative games of “horsey weddings”, “tickle crabs” or “Rug Island” – much to the wide-e

TV Chef Miguel Maestre: “Prioritise. That’s The Best Advice I Can Give Any Dad”

I was a rebel growing up. I was a really difficult child – very, very problematic. I was always in trouble and the teachers had my dad on speed dial. But my father was very good at always letting me be myself and make mistakes for myself. When I was 18 I wanted to leave home and move to the UK

Real Talk, Inspiration & Baby Vomit: The Best Quotes From New Film, Dads

How do you make an 81-minute film that encapsulates the head-spinning enormity of the modern fatherhood experience? Dads, the new documentary on Apple TV, boldly fronts up to the challenge. The directorial debut of Bryce Dallas Howard (daughter of Ron) is a celebration of the joys and struggles of m

How To Avoid Becoming The Grumpy Dad

Your Spotify account is now hijacked by The Wiggles. You’ve become involuntarily celibate. Your three-year old has just got another pea stuck up his nose… Yes, fatherhood is wondrous and life-affirming and so on and so forth. But it can also prove a daily challenge. The bad news is that most men wil

Movember Conversations Can Help You Support A Mate Who's Struggling

“Mateship” is a concept that’s as fundamentally Australian as drinking cold beer or sniggering at England’s middle order. Long associated with the WW1 diggers, it’s an idea that suggests men providing support for each other during the toughest of times. And thinking up really dumb nicknames.

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Celebrating The Modern Father

“I Was Starting Fights With Bouncers” - Depression Can Look Different For Dads

Mark Williams is an unlikely mental health advocate. He grew up in a working-class community in Wales where his father and grandfather were both miners. “The attitude was very much – man up and let’s get on with it,” he says. “If we had a problem we’d go down the pub. We never talked about mental h

Parenthood Hammers Your Immune System. Here’s How To Fight Back

“Parenting is one of the most severe environmental challenges anyone willingly puts themselves through,” says Dr Adrian Liston. “It makes sense that it radically rewires the immune system.” Dr Liston, a researcher at the Belgian research institute VIB and KU Leuven, has found that having kids takes

James Bond No Longer Fits The Archetype Of A Modern Hero. That’s Why They’re Making Him A Dad

How should we feel about the fact that James Bond is set to be a dad? Rumours are rife that in No Time To Die, the world’s most famous secret agent will become a doting father of a five-year-old daughter, presumably swapping his Aston Martin for some humdrum SUV with the boot capacity to squeeze in

Use This Negotiation Tactic To Calm Any Row With Your Wife

“Their relationship consisted in discussing if it existed.” Sadly, that line from Thom Gunn sums up the miserable state that many couples find themselves in right now. Lockdown may have ended, but the strain has pushed an alarming number of relationships to the brink. China’s Wuhan province

What To Do If Your Child Supports The Wrong Team

“There must be many fathers around the country who have experienced the cruellest, most crushing rejection of all. Their children have ended up supporting the wrong team.” I shuddered when I re-read that line from Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch. For me, it wasn’t just close to the bone, it p

Feeling The Pressure? How To Become Stress Teflon

Fatherhood raises the stakes. You’ve suddenly got more financial responsibility and less time than ever before. Your sleep is invariably compromised and your relationship liable to shape-shift into some weird and unsettling new form. Fatherhood, in other words, can prove bloody stressful. But that’

12Rnd’s Gym-free Boxing Workouts Will Help You Fight Off Dad Bod

There was a reason for all those lockdown weight-gain memes. Gyms were shut, many parents started to drink more and, between the home-schooling and financial curveballs, there was no doubt a fair amount of stress-eating going on, too. Ultimately, though lockdown was just one more reason for dads to

How To Fix A Sexless Marriage: "My Wife & I Have Turned Into Housemates..."

THE QUESTION: I love my wife, but somehow we’ve turned from lovers into housemates. Ever since our second kid arrived – we’ve got a four year old and a two year old – we’ve lost any sort of sexual spark. I was optimistic that being together all the time in lockdown migh

Parent of Triplets Shares Expert Tips For Drinking (A Bit) Less

Looking after small kids is a howling shit-storm at the best of times. Right now though we’re living through some of the worst with COVID forcing us to contend with a host of extra financial, social and domestic problems. So it’s hardly a surprise that a new study shows that more than one in four (2

The Covid Revelations – 4 Dads Share What They’ve Learned From Lockdown

For many men, the last few months have been like getting repeatedly smacked in the nuts by the mother of all curveballs. COVID-19 has shaken up relationships, derailed careers and cranked up the pressure at home. Here four dads share their private revelations from lockdown including hopes, fears and

We’ve All Become “BBC Dad” And That Might Not Be A Bad Thing

You’ll have seen the old clip already. Professor Robert Kelly is being interviewed live on BBC News about South Korean politics. Mid-sentence, just as he’s delivering hard-headed analysis on foreign policy, his daughter bustles in with the lunatic swagger of a typical four-year old. Manfully, the pr

Relationship Stress Under Lockdown? Here's Your 4-Step Emergency Rescue Plan

THE QUESTION: “My marriage is falling apart under lockdown. I run a small business that I spent years building up and that’s now on the brink of collapse. So I’m really stressed and I’m trying to do anything to salvage this situation. The upshot is that my partner who also works, has bee

“Family Is My Motivation”: UFC Champ Alex Volkanovski

Inside the Wollongong gym, Alex Volkanovski circles his trainer, throwing elbows and knees with beserk force. The 31-year-old is only just back from surgery on his right hand, after fracturing a metacarpal in his December victory over Max Holloway that saw the Australian crowned UFC World Featherwei

Navy SEAL Jocko Willink: “Your Kids Need To Experience Failure To Contend With The Vicious World That Awaits”

Jocko Willink is an intimidating customer. Weighing in at a 104 kilos of lean muscle, he’s a fearsome man-mountain with a freshly shaven head. He’s also a legend in the Special Operations world. The former Navy SEAL commanding officer led the most decorated special ops unit in the Iraq war (American

Novelist Tim Winton on Fatherhood - "Take It Seriously But Don’t Turn It Into A Fetish"

My old man was a motorcycle cop but didn’t really conform to the stereotype. When I brought friends home from school they  were mortified to see him watching TV in his singlet and uniform trousers while ironing tomorrow’s school tunics and blouses. I think the handcuffs and truncheon hanging off the

Sam Wood: How To Stay Fit At Home During Self-Isolation

Don’t be fooled by the photogenic lifestyle – the stunning wife, the magazine shoots, the social media empire. In person, Sam Wood talks with the sort of hard-baked realism only a dad with two kids under three and a teenage stepdaughter can. “I’m turning 40 in eight weeks,” the Melbourne train

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You“I Drink More Mid Strengths Now” - Young Henrys’ Oscar McMahon

You"My Anxiety Really Started At The Time Of My First Son’s Birth" - One Dad Shares His Story Of Post-natal Depression

LifeThese TED Talks Will Change The Way You Dad

RelationshipsPhotographer Harold David On Life As a Gay Dad: "I've Not Had One Person Say Anything Negative To Me. Not one."

YouState of Independence: Three Ways to Bring Up Resilient Kids

YouThe Indefensible Position: Why Alcohol-Free Beer (Sometimes) Makes Sense

You“Lately I’m making an effort to just put my phone away” – Chris Hemsworth on the modern challenges of fatherhood

YouThe No.1 Tactic For Long-distance Dads

YouCommando Steve: “When there’s a breakdown in a relationship and then there’s a blended family, yeah, it’s challenging”