There's a high divorce rate in the fifties and it does align when kids

leave home. And now you have mum and dad sitting there looking at each other and

they have to reassess who they are to one another. And sometimes it

When you've got a dependent, everything you do with your partner is

It's almost unfathomable to imagine what

your team looks like if the kids aren't there. What do you talk about at night time? What

do you do? So I went through like a stable jobs, house, everything.

Perfect environment to have children. If I was going to have children, I probably would

That's something that everyone tries to set up their life when

it comes to kids. There is no right time to have kids. You think you're

ready and then bang. just hits you

and you're not fucking ready. Something that we see in our group of

300,000 men is guys saying that they want to have children, but their partners don't

And we're just a pair of average blokes on a mission to try and be

We're going to speak about all things highs and lows of what it feels like to be a bloke,

plus speak to some legends along the way about what it takes to be a better bloke. Let's

Welcome back to another episode and we're diving into the world of fatherhood.

If you've been watching this thing for a while, you know that I am not a

father and Rob is daddy material. So we're gonna jump into, I

guess, I wouldn't even say the pros and cons, the ups

and downs of fatherhood, why you may or may not decide

to have kids and all the different topics that come up or the questions asked

by other people and yourselves sometimes if you're deep

I think this is gonna be a really good perspective for One

for me, because you're not a father, but

there's a lot of things that we both obviously share the

same ethos and values, but we have very different views

Yeah. And that's going to be, I guess the crux of the conversation, like

two sides of it and neither is wrong or right. Like it's life

choices and that's the same for everyone watching, but that's

what it comes down to. So I get eight hours of

Yeah. I have no idea. No, I'm, I'm pretty good. I'm

pretty good with my sleep, but there, there is that common

misconception that once you have kids, you just tied

It makes it a... No, it's, it

is difficult in the early days, like

Nine and three. So, yeah,

they sleep, sort of. But he's

I hear a lot of stories about, you know, waking up at 6am because the

Yeah, they do that. But that's because, like, we've got reasonable

bedtime. So you put them into bed at, say,

7 o'clock, 7.30. They're going to be up early. So

Interesting. So I guess

now I'm not just at a stage where I haven't had kids

yet. I've made a pretty clear decision in my life that I

I remember when, when we first met and

well, not when we first met, cause it's not something you just come out and say, hi, I'm Matty. I

don't want to have kids. It doesn't work like that, unfortunately, but

like the closer that you and I got and we started having like these, deep

and meaningful conversations about just who we are as blokes and all

that sort of thing. That was something that you said not wanting to

have kids. I didn't believe you for a fucking second. My instant reaction

was to go, yeah, okay, you say that now. You

No, genuinely, I don't want to. I used to want to have kids,

but I think as my life evolved and I kind of figured out,

you know, what makes me tick and all those sort of things, I've gone through changes in

my life and I've been able to reconcile

what kids actually mean probably more than you think about when you're 22. And

I'm very certain that

See, which is to me, because I'm the

complete opposite end of the spectrum. Like

I couldn't imagine my life without kids. So it's, it's

still rattles my brain trying

I think it is kind of like an outlier position because

obviously more people grow up white picket fence

family and the kids that's kind of I guess a common cause

so a lot of people rightly so make the assumption that people are

going in that direction because that's what most people do I

think in the last definitely in like my generation more

people are growing up both women and men that are actually

making that decision that, hey, maybe I'm not going to have kids.

So it's slowly getting more common to hear that.

like factually correct though. I'm not going to go saying statistics

because I don't know them off the top of my head, but I was looking this up previously with

a whole bunch of graphs and whatnot. And they, in

the last, I think it's the last 30 years, I know

it would be 40 cause it was since the eighties. There has been a decline in couples living

with children as opposed to just couples like childless couples.

Yeah, and that's, I mean, that's contributing to our aging population and

all sorts of other stuff going on. But it's still very

much like... People

think what you think, like, oh, he just hasn't met the right girl. He

hasn't got to the stage in his life where he's ready to have kids. They don't

actually think it's a decision that you've really purposely made.

And you get that from everyone, like my parents,

right? I think anyone that has decided they won't have kids,

or even if they're in a relationship and they're putting off kids, they

definitely will be able to understand

the parents going, oh, when are the grandkids coming? You should make some

grandkids. That's a pretty common thing that I got in my

Are your folks pretty okay with the fact that they know they're not

Now, but they didn't for a long time. And like I

said when I was 25 I wanted kids. So

yeah obviously I had a break up so I went

through like a long term relationship. Stable jobs,

house, everything. Perfect environment to have children. If

I was going to have children I probably would have done it then. Like everything

was set and ready. I didn't. And I

think that was one of those situations where like all

your ducks are in a row, all the stars have aligned. If

I didn't make the decision in that scenario,

I think that there is, with what you just said, like you

had everything that you needed to tick the boxes about having children and

like the stars aligned and you didn't do it. That's something

that everyone tries to set up their life when it comes to kids.

There is no right time to have kids. You think you're ready and

then bang. It just hits you and you're not fucking ready.

Yeah, and that does happen to a lot of people. That

they just bang have kids unexpectedly. If

you are waiting for the right time to have them, everyone says there is no right time.

So just jump in and do it. But you do have to make a conscious decision if

you're doing that. I never made that conscious decision. There was no

a let's start trying. That didn't happen. So

yeah, I don't know. I think I'm just... have

a better understanding of what my life is going to look like without

With that then, so you don't want children. If

Well, this is the thing. Are children integral to

And they're not. You can have a relationship between two people. You

can have a marriage. You can have everything a couple

with children have. You just don't have the children bit.

I think what children provide, and I'm only talking about

me looking at the decision to make kids and me reconciling if I

want to go down that path, is that they do provide a

lot of purpose, a lot of value, a lot of fulfilment. Everyone

you talk to, they love their kids. It gives them a reason to go

out and do stuff on the weekend. And if you don't have them, I

believe it can leave a hole in your life. I believe,

especially as you get older, because I was thinking, I don't want to be lonely and sad when

I'm 50 or 60, because I made this decision. I

think you need something pretty bloody good to

fill that void. And I have things in my life, like I really

enjoy travel. I really enjoy my work. The

fulfilling stuff, like doing this charity. There's a lot of aspects to

my life that I derive immense amounts

of purpose from. And it inspires me to keep

going. I think if you lack those things and you lack the

direction to know those things are so, so important to you

that maybe they have a shot of replacing that hole that

not having kids might lead to, you might find yourself in

I think that's probably a very good thing to sort of say

with even listening to

you talk then and myself having kids, that's

still something that you've made my brain think

about with what happens when I get to 50 and 60 am I going to need to adopt

that purpose to not to replace like

my kids being my purpose but there's going to come an age where

like they're going to fly the coop and there's not going to be that interaction

where they need to be sort of looked after and they're

relying on me so much that Yeah,

that's something I've never really thought about is like, what am I going to replace that with? Because that's something

that everyone has to think about, whether they're parents or not.

Yeah. And there's been a lot of discussions… …and

I think there's been studies on this as well… …is there's a

high divorce rate in the fifties. And it does align when kids

leave home. And now you have mum and dad sitting there looking at each

other. And they have to reassess who they are to one another without

the kids. They have to reassess what that purpose and value is. And

sometimes it doesn't align anymore. The kids are the glue. I'm

all about people being happy, so make it work, make it not work, whatever

you want. But that probably speaks to there

is going to be a purpose that has to come in later in life. But

it's not saying kids are your only purpose. You can have multiple things in your life

I've got a fair few purposes. Kids are obviously the big one.

But then, like, my kids are my purpose, my missus is my purpose.

This, what we're doing now, not this specific

podcast, but... This one podcast, this is where you started it? This one

podcast is why we started it. No, this is just a

vessel for what we're doing. Look into it. Betterplayproject.org to

And while you're at it, we are trying to have these conversations to, I

guess, give men more ideas about

what to think about, how to guide them through their life so they can

We do this in real life at events. These are

sometimes professional seminars run and led by professionals because

we're not professionals. What else do we do? Community barbecues because

we believe that creating a local community around you actually helps

So if you want to support that and support the rest of the stuff we're doing, you can

go to betterblokeproject.org and donate because every cent does

go directly towards helping the boys. Back to parenthood.

So we spoke about a lot about my, I guess, reasoning why

I'm not going to have kids. Do you have a reason why

you had kids, or it just sort of unfolded? Because it did happen when you

It did. Well, see, this is, funnily enough, I didn't think I

was that young when we had Hemi. But looking back

now, and so I was 24 when I had Hemi. And

me looking at 24-year-olds now, I go, fuck, that's

young. Don't have kids at 24. But I was

in that position, and I felt like we were so ready. So I think it's obviously

it's all up to personal preference and where you are in your life to do that. But

I don't regret having kids. at

that age now, because I'm still fit and healthy enough now that like,

Hemi does his boxing. I've started doing his boxing with him. Jess

is now boxing. Bea's going to be boxing soon enough too. Like

it's sort of just, we're still young enough that we can be active

with our kids and, and do all these fun

100% because I'm looking at it now, right? If I had kids,

these kids are gonna be teenagers when I'm in my fifties,

right? That is not the idea I had for me being

a parent. So I'd have to readjust. Not that there's anything

wrong with that, but by 50, I'd like to be retired. I'd like

to be traveling the world. I'd like to have my little things going on, doing all

sorts of whatever I wanna do. Financial freedom, time

It is in today's economy. I don't think I'd ever retire,

retire because I like work so much. But the ability to

pick and choose rather than having to do this, having to do

that, having to do that. I think that's kind of my goal. I haven't

set at 50 I want to do this. But I

really got to look at it and kids would be a major disrupt

I think kids can, I wouldn't say disrupt your

goals. See, I don't know if I would use that terminology. Kids

definitely change your goals because what

your goals may have been before kids, those

goalposts change completely once you have kids. Like you

said, that's your purpose. So everything that you then

do in life is about creating the best opportunity for

your kids, as long as you're not a shit parent. Like you should always put

your kids first. But yeah, it's, I

don't know. I don't think disrupting your goals is the

Yeah, I guess. A

lot of people might look at what I

say and apply it to their own kids, but I'm talking about hypothetical

kids. So it's not, you know, it's not selfish of

me to not have kids because those kids don't exist, right? We're

not talking about, I'm going to like do something and

So we don't wanna project like your thoughts about your kids onto

someone who isn't having kids, their perception of

it. Cause you're gonna figure it out. Like most

of my friends have kids. I don't have a problem with

Yeah, I like hanging out with kids, playing with kids, chilling

It's fun. You just like not caring for them. Then you get to give them back to the parents.

We spoke just before this and a lot

of the memes going around socials is you

have a kid, you got no money. You're going to be broke. Do

You don't agree? No. So, let's dive into that because well,

Well, like, it all depends on how

you live as a person. Where, like, babies,

not expensive. It's expensive on your time. But

financially, no, they're not expensive. Nappies, formula

if they're not breastfed. So like both of

us were breastfed, so Jess is a very big advocate for

that and I'm all for it, if she is.

It's not until they start going to daycares where it starts to get expensive, but

obviously there's some very good things in place with government subsidies and

whatnot that depending on your wage, you get subsidized significantly

for, or not significantly. So like daycares

where it starts to get expensive, but by that point, you're usually in

a routine and you know what's coming up that like

Would you say, you're saying it's not expensive, but you're

just figuring out a good way to manage it. Because regardless

of how you kind of cut it, there's

a bunch of expenses coming out of your bottom line that aren't coming out of

Oh, look, okay. So if

we weigh it up, when you put it that way, the price

that we pay on daycare, probably

Yeah. So like our, our weekly daycare rate, we

could have had a second house and been paying rent on that. Obviously the mortgage rates

are a lot more now, but a couple of years ago, yeah. Daycare

And you're going to have, um, you know, school fees and stuff in

No school. So Hemi goes to a private school. It's

Yeah, definitely. It's Bray Park private school

Yeah, but it goes up and up as they get through to year 11 and 12, it

gets more. And by the time Hemi's, you know, year 12, you know,

B's gonna be older as well. So there's a whole bunch of fees there.

So I think we have to admit it

is a more expensive of the two options, but

When you put it like that and you make me think about it, it's

not such a bad decision that you don't want kids. Like if that's, if

that's the price you have to pay, that's the price you have to pay. I see it

as, I've got no issues in paying that because it's, that's

what we want. That's like, yeah, my kids are everything.

And on the flip side of it, kids are

your legacy. You're big on legacy. You've

built your potential legacy. I am saying

Yeah, that, I couldn't do that. Like

I'm trying to make my bloodline the strongest that it's ever seen out

of my children. And I

can't comprehend that you would want, it's

not even like the surname thing, it's just like you're happy

Look, if I could press a button and it lives on, yeah maybe,

but I just don't care enough to sacrifice 20 years

Mind you, what we're building here Like,

I mean, there's so many things other than that could be

legacy other than Bloodline. Like, I guess it's

great. But in three generations, four generations, you're forgotten anyway.

Unless you're Steve Jobs and you've changed the whole world. You're

And it's going to be forgotten in a hundred years. So, I guess I'm

I'm just like in a hundred years, everyone, no one's going to care anyway.

So, I should live the life that I actually want to. I'm not too

I respect that like bloke to bloke. The sort of...

Like selfishness is not the right word, but it's sort of like, I don't mean to say

it in a, in a bad term. Yeah. You know what

Prioritizing yourself as number one, as we spoke about. But

that's independent to each person. Like some

people know that kids are gonna give

them so much fulfillment. They think of that as their purpose in

life. They think their job, the reason

they're on this earth is to bring up a family. And it

probably is. Like that's fine, go and do it. I

fully 100% support everyone doing that. But people are

different and that's pretty much what it

I think that's the main takeaway. People are different. Like some people want to have kids,

some people don't want to have kids. That's fine. If that's your option,

pull out. It's up to each individual as

to whether they want to have kids and that's completely up to them. You just have to ask

The big life questions. I would be remiss to

admit there aren't some things that I'm worried about during this whole thing I'm doing.

And one of the things is in like long-term monogamy,

a partnership between two people, you know, everyone you

talk to says a relationship needs work. Marriages take work, all

that sort of stuff. 100% agree. I

think there is something to it that having children between

two people makes that bond I don't

know if it makes it stronger but it gives you a

common space… …or a centralized thing to

Yeah. So trying to maintain a relationship with two

people… …without children and a family unit tying it

together… …I'm a little bit worried that that's harder

I can't comment because it's like Jess and I have been together for so long and obviously

the last at least nine years, almost 10 years, we've had

Hemi. But when

you've got a dependent, everything you do with your partner is

out of the best interest for your children. It's like

Yeah, which you would be otherwise, but the goal of

your team is centered around the children. So it's

almost unfathomable to you to imagine what

your team looks like if the kids aren't there. Yeah, like what do we... What

do you talk about at night time? What do you do? Like obviously there's

things to fill that in with and that's what my relationships look like now. But

what is the long-term effects of that?

And I don't know. This is like a question that I'm just posing out into the

Well, we actually... Jess and I had this chat. It was

only like a couple of weeks ago. We were sitting in the car and we like... just hopped in

the car last minute, had the kids and drive. And

she was like, Oh shit, we didn't pack a lunchbox. We

didn't do this. We didn't do this. We didn't do this. And we're like, we used to be

able to just jump in the car and drive without the

prep. When you have kids, like you used to be able to be super

spontaneous and just do whatever the fuck you wanted. You

can't do that with kids. Cause there's, there's a lot of prep that's required. Cause

if the kids get hungry, Meltdown. You

No. Freedom versus responsibility. Are kids

actually worth it? Because there's a lot of freedom

which comes with not having kids. And it pretty

much goes back to everything we just spoke about. For you, the trade-off on

every front is worth it. And that's the same for most people.

But like, there's so much freedom in not having it. And

so many more people, especially as economic times

get hard and people say the dating market's fucked and

they don't want to lock in for 20 years. There's more and more

reasons, I think, stacking up on the benefits

of not having kids, which is why we're seeing that

I think there's also something special about when this

is sort of going back a little bit, like backtracking to that whole, like

when you're in a partnership and you've got kids, the,

like watching your missus go

through literally the hardest fucking thing you can ever see a woman do, that

puts so much perspective into how strong she

is for the relationship. Cause like they're, they're doing so much for

you to create this family. It's

kind of, I don't know, it kind of builds

Yeah, I can resonate with that. And that's the

same, because essentially you're both making sacrifices for the

same cause. So, like, it might be, we've spoken about, you

know, when Bea was in hospital, when she was born, Premi. You

know, Jess was obviously at the hospital all the time. You had

to keep the bills sorted. You were doing that thing as well. You

were both making sacrifices in your own way. But

I think you could both look over at each other and know, we're

Yeah, definitely. It's like it takes, well, it's not even just together. Like it takes a village once

you're sort of raising children. It's not just... No,

it is. It is just the parents. But a lot of the time, if

you've got a great support network around you, it makes it a lot easier. But,

So, I don't know if there's any major takeaways from

this episode. Because we're not going to tell you to have kids or not to have

kids. But it's just kind of the two perspectives, I

guess. And there's no right or wrong answer. If you fall into

kids, you're probably going to make it work. Don't be a deadbeat dad. But

I think this is probably like a bit of a good episode mainly just to sort

of delve into who we are as blokes because

Like we mentioned, although we have very similar values and

beliefs, we're very different. Like

Great lives. Very different, but we both like what we do. So that's

Before we jump into our bloke of the week, I want to pose

one question and see if we're both on the same page. Cause obviously

it is two very different views on children. Having

kids to save a relationship. Terrible

And a lot of people do that. And I often

say this about my past relationship. If we had kids, we would

Is that, that's not the right? mentality to

No, that's why we're not together anymore. Right. But how

many people don't have the balls to have that conversation? Maybe

they don't have the communication skills. Maybe it's very uncomfortable, maybe

whatever. And they choose to fill some sort of hole with

That's usually how children are made. You fill some sort of

And then they stay together for 20 years and when they

should have broken up at the start but now they resent each other at the end of 15 years.

Plugging holes. I don't think it was the best choice of words now I'm thinking about

No, it's good. But yeah, no, like I completely agree for that

exact reason that it just... Look,

we see it time and time again with a lot of the blokes that we speak to, is

that's been what has pushed them into fatherhood. Not

pushed, pushed into fatherhood is not the right word because it's their choice to make. So

there's no, I'm being pushed into this. No, no, no. Like

you've made the decision to plug the hole, so to speak. It's,

yeah, bringing kids into the world to try and save a relationship. I

can comfortably, in my own opinion, say, don't fucking do it. Like it's,

Yeah, and I'll extend that from saving a relationship to

accepting this is what comes next. I've bought

the house, now we have kids. Have an actual think,

like about all the things we spoke about and maybe you do as

a couple resonate with some of the things I spoke about. If

you resonate with all the stuff you spoke about, okay, go and do the

kids. But don't like bring life into the world without fucking

Something that we see in our group of 300,000 men, the

inner sanctum blokes of us, is we'll get guys, I

won't say often, but it does reoccur, is guys saying

that they want to have children, whether it be because of the whole legacy thing

or whatnot, but their partners don't want to have it, where a lot of people

would think that it's usually roles reversed. What

would you say to a man that doesn't really seem eye to

eye doesn't really see eye to eye

with his missus that she wants, she doesn't want kids, he wants them.

Fantastic. You've laid out what you want in life and

it's different. Yeah, you might have invested some years into this relationship,

but having children is the direction of your entire life. If

you are sitting there and saying, I want this direction

and I want this direction, guess what? It's not the same.

And sometimes for lack of a better term, cut

your losses and find someone that aligns with your life goals. And

that happens on both sides, both directions. Cause like we just said,

giving into the pressure and doing it on either side when

you don't want to do it. It's not good. It's not the right way to do

No, it's definitely not the right world

to be bringing a child into. So don't bring kids into the world regardless.

If you're a man or a woman and the other party doesn't

want to have children, it's not going to save your relationship. And you're better

off just cutting your losses, find someone that shares the

same values and beliefs, which you should be doing anyway, if you're in

It's just because people have invested so much time and it's so hard

to end a relationship, which is pretty good,

Yeah, but it is. If someone doesn't want to spend their life the same way you do,

but 80% of it's good, but this major 20% is

not good. Guess what? That's a make or break

kind of situation. Let's get stuck into bloke of the week. What

As usual, our bloke of the week is an incredible bloke

in the community that is doing something amazing and

just helping out their fellow men. So this week's bloke of

the week is Gavin Butler. So Gavin put

up a post a little while ago, and he

was actually looking for work for someone that he knows, that

suffers from an intellectual disability, has been caring for their parents for a little while,

and he's ready to get into the workplace or workforce. So

obviously he's tried other methods, but he thought, where

else do I go when I want to uplift another bloke and try and find

And that's what it's for. I mean, like for a lot of things, but it's

pretty awesome that he took the front foot on

behalf of someone else. Like he's not asking for something for himself. He's

asking for someone who clearly could use a hand. And

yeah, for that reason, bloke of the week, we'll reach out. We've got a merch pack coming

Yeah, I'm actually really excited to find out how sort of the job

Yeah, it's a reoccurring theme on Blokes Advice is guys, you

know, looking for work. And we've, man, we've

placed so many guys in jobs along the, over

Yeah, actually that's sort of, a long time ago

there was a young bloke who lost his job for taking

Yeah. There was a dildo on a shower wall. And

a guy took a photo of it. He was a plumber. He was an apprentice plumber. He

lost his job because of that. But don't worry.

Thanks boys and if you are a tradie probably don't take photos inside

It was pretty funny. No one can know who she was she just chucked

the shits. Other than that guys thanks

for tuning in to another episode. If you want to find out more about the project

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