There's going to be some effect in the future by all

this positivity and limiting failure that kids are facing. If

they don't overcome things, they're not going to get to that next level of growth.

You can't just be parents. You need to remember that you're a partner too, not

just a dad and a mum. The number one thing that I tell boys in

the group is Everyone sees in movies that as soon

as your child's born, you've got feelings of like just attachment and you

feel all this emotion for your child. Some people, you

need to grow those attachments and grow that bond with your child. That's probably the

Welcome to the Better Bloke Podcast. I'm Matty. I'm Rob. And

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

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

We're not like most parties when it comes to advertising, but with the events on

the horizon, we are working with the partners who share a vision and support the

better blokes to make this happen. The blokes over at Boutique Business House

believe in the cause and have been day one is helping us navigate the

business and financial side of the whole charity endeavor. They

are a full service business advisors, offer business accounting and

bookkeeping, can help you sort out your personal insurance for life,

income and personal disability, and also have you sorted for mortgages

for either residential or commercial. They can be an outsourced CFO for

your business or as fully certified as personal financial advisors.

If any of that might be of interest to you, find the link to Boutique Business

House in the description of our website to support the blokes who support

us. Boys and girls, welcome back to the fifth episode

of the Better Bloke podcast. And on this one, we're going to jump into a

topic that I know Bugger all about, and that is fatherhood. But

before we get stuck into that, what do you reckon? Five episodes in,

we've given the set a little refresh. How's the feedback and

Feedback has been very positive. It's

also been very critical, which has been good. That's what we want. We want constructive

criticism. I appreciate everyone that's

reached out and told us what we're doing well, what we're not doing well. There's

been a lot more doing well than not doing well

though, but like we've said the first few times, it's

gonna take a little while for us to find our feet. This is a new setup

for us, a new way of going to the

How good is constructive criticism? I've got a comment the other day that

I mean... Is

it true? This is the platform to do it. Do you want to tell

Like I would, I'm assuming they meant a

woman that is now a man, but I would be a very big woman

to become a man or vice versa. Or is it that you're a

pretty bloke? I think it's because I got long hair and they're very, uh,

maybe. Confused? Confused.

That's completely up to them. Yeah, I mean they can do what they want to

do. They can. Fatherhood. Fatherhood. Let's jump in. Some think transsexuals

It depends

I don't have any kids. So I'm going to throw most of

this over to Rob and we're going to talk about his journey going through fatherhood,

the ups, the lows, the hard bits and the good bits as

well. So let's kick it off. Like tell me what's your

situation? Kids, how long you had them? How old are they? How long have I had them?

Yeah. Not something you buy. How do

you get them? How do you get them? So, when a mummy and a daddy

love each other very much and are financially stable,

So, you got two kids. How old are they? Two kids. So, I've got an eight-year-old boy

and a two-year-old girl. And they

are total opposites of children. So,

little B, the two-year-old girl is A

firecracker would be the best way to describe her. So,

she's very, very tiny but carries herself in

a way that you would think she's six foot tall and bulletproof.

Yeah, very quiet until she's not. And

So, like how long were you with the missus before

you sort of had kids? And then how old were

Okay, when Hemi came along I was... 24? Yeah,

just before my 25th birthday. And we had been

together for... Shit, now

you're making me do math. I'm no good at math. Jess

is gonna be real mad. She's not gonna be happy. Since

2009? So what's that? You're making me do maths. Yeah, I'm just offloading it

onto you. A few years. A few years. It had been a while. So like,

it wasn't just as if it was wham, bam, thank you, ma'am. Hey,

I've got a shit pull out game. There

was a time that we'd been together and you

know, we'd, we'd planned it all as much as you can.

Yeah, so do you recall sort of those feelings when you're like, oh

shit, she's pregnant, this is happening and

So because Hemi, like we'd had

those conversations and we thought we were ready and

all that sort of stuff, it doesn't

happen straight away. That's probably something not a lot of

people talk about is you can plan to, yep, okay, sweet,

we're ready to have kids. And then you're

pretty much gone by the month, like, oh shit, it didn't work this month. And you sort

of feel a bit bummed. And if it's like been a couple of months that,

you know, the seed doesn't sow itself, you

get, I don't know, this little bit of a dark

thought in the back of your head. You're like, oh shit, you know. maybe I've

got shit swimmers, or maybe

eggs aren't good and all that sort of stuff, which it's not, just

sometimes things don't work out exactly how you plan it.

So obviously this all worked out, but it wasn't bang. Yep.

On the, on the day that we decided it didn't eventuate

from there. So I don't know. I think it's, that's

probably a good thing to mention to a lot of boys that If

you are planning to have kids, it may take a little while. It

may not, but yeah, don't go

thinking that because it doesn't happen straight away, yeah,

So you were in, I guess that kind of good position because you

were actually trying. We were. So when the news came along, it's

like, Hey, we did what we were trying to do. So it's less,

Oh shit. And more like, okay, it's happening. Yep.

And then did it sort of change from there? You're like the times on,

we got eight or nine months to like, get some stuff

sorted. Or did you have to, I don't know, make any big

Not. Not really. You sort of, I

mean, like you do, you obviously you got to do your planning and you

had to get all your baby stuff and whatnot. But I feel

like in that time there wasn't a big amount

of change that we did. So I

think I didn't actually know a lot. I did, I ended up changing jobs. So

yeah, it was a big change. Why did you change

jobs? I think it was just with all

the changes that were happening, something in my head went, you

need to change what you're doing. There was no big

financial reward from it. It was literally just a career change. So

maybe that was something subconsciously in my head maybe

go. Oh, perhaps you need more stability or

you need a job that's not just driving a truck, carting furniture. Not that there's anything

wrong with that. As long as you've got a job that's paying the bills, it's all good. But

yeah, that's when I moved from driving

trucks, carting furniture, doing deliveries and pickups to

sales. So I think that perhaps

I saw that there was more of a life work balance. in

that field, perhaps? Yeah, I'm not totally sure. You're making me

actually think about why I'm doing stuff, which

I just do it. We've been telling people to think about their actions.

We have, so. Preferably not eight years after the fact. No.

Yeah, I think the time factor probably might have played

into it a lot because you do sort of... I imagine

that you have to think about where your priority is

going to be and you know priority is going to shift to the family because

obviously there's the wife which already takes time but you know

there's this whole baby that you got to look after and you want to spend time and

I think that with that Now

knowing after you have kids, you go, yep, sweet, you know, your priorities change.

Leading up to it, you have it in the back of your head, but

you don't actually realize that there is

going to be changes. So you can plan for it as much as you want. But

when it actually happens, it's like a switch flicks. And you go, okay, I

need to do this, this, this, this, this now, which that may just be me because

I'm fairly unorganized. Yeah.

I think as soon as Hemi came along, it was just like, bang. Okay. Like

priorities change. I need to do this now. I need to do this. I

need to do this. And it

Yeah. I don't think you're alone in that. Cause we see posts

quite a lot where guys have like a one week old or like

under a month and they're just like, holy fuck. Yeah.

Boys save me. Give me some advice. Like, is

And that is so normal. Like, I think they

are probably my favorite posts that we see because not

only have I felt that, but so

many boys feel it, but they don't, they probably don't speak

about it or voice it as much as like women probably do. Like

mothers are very vocal in how they feel and whatnot. And this probably takes us

back to the way that blokes operate is we

sort of just get through it, how we do it. So

whenever those posts do arise, it's really good to see a whole bunch of boys come together

and go, hey, shit, I felt this way. This is what I did.

It got me through that. And everyone sort of just leans on each

So you kind of were playing it pretty cool and collect like,

oh yeah, there's some change and you deal with it. But you

did go through some sort of moments where you're like, oh

Definitely. Everyone goes through those moments where you

go, What the fuck do I do? Can you

recall any of them with Hemi? Not so much

with Hemi. Hemi was, he was chill as shit. He still is.

Like he's so chill. But definitely,

probably definitely maybe a couple of months after, but it wasn't really so much with relating

to Hemi. It was probably more relating to Jess. Is that

obviously when pregnancy happens and childbirth happens and

whatnot, Like, hormones just run wild

through women. And a lot of the boys don't know how

Most of the boys don't have a good idea of how to deal with women

It's not easy. It's not. There's no book. I

think a lot of women don't know how to deal with all the ways that are going on, but I

What's your top bits of advice for, I guess, being

Child aside, which is probably the number one thing that I

tell boys in the group, is you need

to remember that you're a partner too, not just a dad and

a mum. You can't just be parents. Once you

just become parents, you forget pretty quickly that

is have to maintain that spark essentially. So I plan date

nights, do all that sort of stuff and just keep the spark alive

because that's probably the priority to

keeping a family together, not so much just being there as

mum and dad. So that's probably my top

tip for the boys that are listening that haven't read me

comment that about 3 million times already over the last couple of years. I've seen

If we fast forward a few years to sort of when Bea came

around. Yes. Right? Cause that was probably a more character testing

That, that one was chaotic. Very,

very different way to come into the world for Bea and probably very much why

she has the personality that she has. So Bea came into

the world at just before 28 weeks.

So for those, that aren't

A standard pregnancy is 40 weeks. So, 28 weeks

is fairly early. That then all

started the week beforehand when, you know, Jess went into hospital and some

shit wasn't going right, which resulted in going

back to Lifeblood. And while I'm a big supporter of Lifeblood, Jess needed transfusions

and obviously that Helped keep her alive and keep Bea alive. So,

shout out to all our Lifeblood donors. Appreciate them.

But yeah, she came into the world with so

many doctors around us. Emergency C-sections, all that, which

is the same as Hemi, but it was a very different scenario being

with how early she was. So, that is

sort of, and I think this is probably something else that I talk to a

lot of the boys in the group about is, because of how she

came into the world, I didn't have that

emotional connection with her straight away. Like my entire,

my entire worries were about Jess because I was like, shit, you know, nothing's

going right here. How are we going to get through this? Blah, blah, blah. She

came in so early. So I don't know if it was part of me just going, Jess

is my priority because I don't know what's going to happen with B. But

that bond that B and I got, that formed

over time, it wasn't like an instant thing that, say

me and Hemi got when he was first born. So that's probably something

to tell the boys listening and even for

the mums, like everyone sees in movies that as soon

as your child's born, you've got this automatic feelings

of like just attachment and you feel all this emotion

for your child, which that's not the case. Like not for everyone. Some

people, you need to grow those attachments and grow that bond with your child.

That's probably the biggest experience I'll get out of that. But

yeah, that, the way that she came into the world was chaos. So

Yeah. So we're not talking about a 30 hour labor,

like this was extended periods of you having to sit through, like

I think, so overall it was 71 or 72 days. We were

like back and forth from the hospital. So, which we've, we've

given them a shout out a few times, but shout out Queensland Health. The

Was she sort of having to stay in some intensive care type unit

Yeah. So, so Niku is like the neonatal, I

guess like intensive care unit. So she spent, Jess

will probably kill me for this one, not knowing the exact dates. But we

were in Nikku for a considerable amount of time and then came

out for the last few weeks into special care unit, which is then not

in like the little incubators and all that sort of stuff. But both

of those units were unreal. And

we've seen a few boys posting up about their time in Nikku and

special care. And some boys, just by seeing

other blokes in shirts, gotten around each other and caught up

and I think that's a big thing and not a lot of boys will

talk to each other about that sort of stuff. But, I

mean it's hard for blokes to go through too, not just seeing your child in

that situation but there's nothing that you

can really do during that period that

you can help your missus with. And it's pretty, it's a pretty hard

thing to go through because you're like, oh shit, all I want to do is help and you can't. So,

I think it's good to lean on other boys in that situation that you can sort of

share like, oh, hey, I did this, I did this, I did this. And

they can go, oh, okay, I haven't done that. Or I've done that, but I did it this way,

this might work better for you. So I think that's a pretty important

Yeah, I just cannot imagine trying

to go through that with a kid. Like, I don't have a kid, I

don't know. I know if I got heavy stuff going on, and

I'm talking about like, the

podcast is going off tomorrow morning is the thumbnails, right? It's

not even comparable, but... But even then, I'm doing that now too.

So it's once you go through it, it's like, it just goes to the back of your

mind and it becomes a story that I'm thankful

that we're having to fuck around with podcasts, thumbnails and whatnot,

because it gives us a platform to be able to speak

to everyone about that. So that... guys

But in the moment, like you lay up in bed and you, you

know, you got the thoughts training about what

if this happens? What can I do to make this better? I

can't do anything. How does that make me feel? Obviously,

like if you've gone through 70 days of this intensive care, like That's

a pretty prolonged time to be dealing with all those feelings. Like,

what were you sort of doing to manage that? And

like, I don't know, keep yourself farther

sort of position. I imagine you were like pretty adamant on

Definitely doing that was probably See, it was more so Jess

did a lot of that, like a lot of the going up to the hospital daily and

all that sort of stuff, where we're lucky that we've got the

support network around us that we do, because that made it so much easier

for, you know, getting him picked up from school or, you know,

dropping him off if Jess wanted to go up to the hospital early and all that sort of stuff. So,

because obviously I was still working at that point, so you've got

to put food on the table, you've got to do what you can do, and I'd just stop in after work and

read B.O. books and whatnot, but you need to You

need to keep your composure there, but not just push

it so far down that it just affects

you in a way that you don't know how to deal with it. So, and

that sort of goes back to what I was saying before, if you see anyone

that you know is in that situation, like you may not know them personally, but

if they're in that same situation as you, like

reach out and talk to them, like have, have the balls to go up

to someone and go, Hey, you know, G'day mate, I

see you're in this, you know, that's my daughter, son over there going

through it too. Do you want to go downstairs and have a coffee or something like that? Because

you don't know if that person's been wanting to do that. They may not have the

courage to do it. So, I don't know, just reach out

to people in the situation that you're going through

Yeah. It's just, I'm sure there's a lot of guys listening that can

relate. Like we see posts quite a lot about, you know,

sick kids, disabled kids, or just hardships of fathers

dealing with kids. And it definitely seems like the

shared experiences back and forth gives them a bit of

And I think it's the, because

you've got so much emphasis on

like being the dad, you need to, you need

to find guys that feel like that too. So, and

that's why you see, like whenever those posts go up, they're usually some

of our most engaging posts that we have. Cause everyone just gets around it

and you, you can't help but feel proud for

having kids. Obviously it's not for everyone. Like you, you don't have any kids, but

No kids. So like, I don't know.

I just sort of, the only way I can sort of

relate to that would be that, I don't

know, if your dog does a cool trick or something, you're proud of

Yeah, because I trained it. Yeah, well, that's the same thing. Yeah, 100%. So

what you're saying, I'm pretty much one of those guys that does have

the fur babies. Like, I've

gone through stages throughout my life where I'm like, when

I was younger, I really, really wanted kids. down the track.

And then I got to down the track and it's like, do I actually want them?

Like all this sort of stuff. And it's like, I

still couldn't tell you that I don't want kids or I do want kids. And

maybe I'm indifferent about either way because I can see my life panning

out both directions kind of just fine. So I

don't know. And I think there's a lot of guys in my position as

I think there would be more guys than you would think that are in your position to

be honest. There's guys that,

for different reasons, they don't want kids or they have chosen

not to have kids yet. Like you said, it's just that you don't

There's a thousand reasons to have kids and there's a thousand reasons not

to have kids. It is one of those sort of

societal norms that, you know, you get married, you have two kids. So

people sort of like see that as the next progression. And if you don't

do that next progression, like you almost have

to justify it, which like, you know, I'm

30, no kids. I've done the other things, a house and all that. So

it's definitely something I've been asked about a lot. Like you're having kids, you're

Do you feel the pressure on you because of that? Like because you're getting asked

all the time because you've done everything else. And like you

said, there is that society norm that everyone

just go to get you do that, that, that, and then that's the next step. But

It used to, but like, like anything after it happens over and

over again, it's just sort of water off a duck's back. But I

think it's just a weird thing like asking why someone hasn't

done something. And it's not like it's selfish because the kid doesn't

exist. So it's not like I'm saying I'm not

where like sometimes it feels like that from some people. And

it gets trickier too as all your friends have kids. Because guess

Why doesn't he talk about his kids all the time? You talk about him punching people

out, which is a bit funnier. Yeah, look, he's pretty good at boxing. In

the context of boxing. Yeah. But yeah,

I don't know. It's just like shifting shifting

priorities in people's life. And I think as we all grow and get

older and older, people move in different spades. I got plenty

of mates that are 30 years older and have just decided and gone out and got

a vasectomy. Like they're just straight up. I'm not doing this. It's

not for me. I'm making the call. And I'm like, oh, that seems

like a big call from my perspective. So...

Are vasectomies reversible? I think they are. Yeah, they are,

It seems like a big decision. But then also like, You're

We should get Queensland Health on the podcast. Second time we've asked, Queensland Health,

Reach out, reach out. But, I don't know, I think it's,

it all comes back to that individual individual

want or need, not so much a need, because you don't want to bring kids into the world out

of need. You definitely want to bring them into

the world out of want. Because then you're setting yourself up to put

it out there as good as you can, I guess. So I think

the important thing about this is this is from my perspective,

anyway, when when I think of

how I'm raising kids, so Look, I came from, it

was always just me and mum growing up. So never had dad in the picture.

But now that I'm a dad, that was actually probably something that semi

scared the shit out of me before Hemi came. How

do you be a dad when you haven't really had a dad? But, I don't know,

it's just sort of bred into you. You sort of do what

you wish you had, have had, if that makes sense. But

then you also, You've got to, you've

got to sort of raise your kids in the sense that what

I didn't have as a kid, which I still had shit loads. Like mum did an unreal

job, shout out to the mums. Quick reminder that

Postage guys, it can take like a week. Order now, don't

Or actually, Not even just your mums. Do it for your

missus. Do it for the mother of your kids, whether you're around them

and together or whatnot, still shout out

And it doesn't have to cost you too. No. Like you can actually

just do something nice. Ladies love that. Like plan picnics, whatever.

Yeah. How much they appreciate, how much you appreciate them. All

Be seen and be heard. It is important. So jumping back,

Yes, okay. So we've got a bit off topic, but a very important

topic nonetheless. So you

sort of, the way that you want to do it is everything

that you didn't have, that's what you want to give your kids.

So you're essentially trying to set them

up for more success than what you've got. So it's, I

read a thing a little while ago is you want to, teach

your kids to be the strongest in your blood, like strongest bloodline. No,

what's the quote? Teach your kids to be

the strongest your bloodline has ever seen. So that

sort of resonates with me that you just want to

Well, I guess that's sort of like the compounding

effect of generations is that you need to instill all

this stuff that you've learned through experience into your kid and

that's giving them the good stuff but they hopefully have

to make less of the mess ups to get there and then

they're going to go out and do the same thing and take that experience and

hopefully they'll make less mistakes and then learn more on top of their

Kind of, obviously I'm not against letting them make mistakes though. I

guess it all comes down to parenting though, there's so many different types of parenting but like

I will let Hemi go out there and do something

wrong obviously if it's not going to injure him or

like severely let him down in whichever way that he's trying to attempt something.

But you need to let your kids fail so that they can learn that

it's okay to fail. And

it sort of helps build resilience. That's something that I don't

think too many kids have resilience these days. But

that all just comes down to parenting and just, you know, you teach your kids that like

shit gets hard. It's no different what we tell blokes, like shit gets

hard, it doesn't mean you give up. You just, you keep pushing forward,

keep pushing forward, keep pushing forward and eventually you'll

That's an interesting one. And I'm outside of the world of schools and

daycare and all that, but it does seem that there's

going to be some effect in the future by all this positivity

and limiting failure that kids are facing. Like

if kids, I know most of my strength has come

from a lot of failure, a lot of rejection, a lot of that

sort of stuff. It doesn't seem like the natural thing to do to

limit that in people because it's limiting growth. Like if they

don't overcome things, they're not going to get to that next level

of growth. Like how, how are you seeing that

happen? Especially for a kid that's like eight, nine years old, outside

For Hemi, he is fiercely

competitive. And he probably gets

that from me. I see everything in my life as competition. And

see, I'm trying to harness that in him. That's a trait that

you want all, not just boys, but all kids to have. You want

all your kids to be competitive because that's a

driving force to bringing the best out of them,

essentially. I guess it goes back to that whole, participation

award type thing where everyone gets an award. I'm

not a big fan of it. But at the same time, you

sort of do need to encourage kids to actually give stuff a go. And if a

participation award does that, good on them. don't

highlight the participation award kids,

highlight the first, second, third, and

How do you deal with when he experiences failure

or setbacks. Like you've sent through photos where you've sort of pushed him

into the ring at this boxing camp when he's first started

and literally like he's kind of getting flogged. How's he

dealing with that? Does he like get all sad and you have to give him a little pep

Always give him pep talks. So I will, whenever

he has a hard day, I will pull him

aside and be like, you know, how do you feel? And like during it

or before it, he will be shitting bricks and be like, oh, you know,

I'm excited to do it, but you know, I know it's going to be hard. I know it's going to be

hard, but we've sort of spoken. And this is probably a

conversation that makes it a little bit weird when you

hear that you're telling an eight year old kid this, like we've spoken about endorphins and whatnot. And

you know, once, once you push through something hard, He

knows that he feels good after he's just completed like a hard training session or something.

And he goes, Oh yeah, I feel, I feel really good after it. Like it sucked during

it, but I feel great. And I'm like, yeah, that's, you sort of explained as to why. So

even at eight years old, he understands that pushing

through that hard stuff gives him a good feeling afterwards.

So it sort of makes it, makes it easier for

him to do. So he still obviously has his hard days and you need to pick your kids up

and whatnot, but you don't want to just

push your kid in like at the moment he's sort of he's a bit overwhelmed

with everything that he's got going on so we're like okay look let's take a step back from it a little

bit and we respect that we can

take a step back from we're not going to be the parents that are like greatness greatness

greatness at the end of the day he's still a kid so you got to respect that

And that's going to do us for this one. So thanks very much for watching again.

If you have any advice on being a first dad, drop a comment below or

head over to our socials at Better Blokes and tell us what you think about sort

So many people take so much advice from what you guys leave

in the comments. So, you know, leave a comment for those that may not have

Be better. Thanks for tuning into today's episode of Better Bloke. If

If you want to learn more about everything we're doing, head to the description, hit

the links and follow us on the socials. If you want to learn more about the project,