I started this once.
Then life got loud.

I'm Alex. I'm a father of five.

In 2009, my marriage ended. It wasn't dramatic. It just stopped working, and one day she'd had enough, and the life I thought I was building wasn't the life anymore. I won't pretend I handled it well. I didn't.

I spent the next two years reading everything I could find about being a man, a father, a partner — the kind of stuff most blokes don't admit they're reading. Some of it landed. Most of it didn't. The bits that did, I started writing down. That became BetterDads, in 2011.

Then life got loud.

More kids arrived. A business to run. The early version of BetterDads went quiet — not because the work didn't matter, but because there were nappies and school runs and electricians to manage and a hundred small things that pulled the oxygen out of any project that wasn't urgent.

For fourteen years I told myself I'd come back to it.

In April 2026, I did.

This time I came back with five kids, more grey hair, the same set of questions, and a clearer view of what actually helps. I came back because the bloke who needed BetterDads in 2009 is still out there — at 11pm, in the kitchen, after the kids have gone to bed, trying to work out how he got here and what he's supposed to do next. I was him. I'd still be him without the work.

So this is the version of BetterDads I wish had existed when I needed it.

From the archive

The conversations this was built on.

Peter Sterling

The moment fatherhood changed everything

Gus Worland

Growing up without a dad

Nigel Marsh

How your actions shape your children

More from the archive →

What this is

Over 250 filmed conversations with men I respected: Olympic medallists, a Victoria Cross recipient, NRL legends, comedians, psychologists, blokes who'd lived through what I'd lived through. A separation toolkit checked against official Australian sources. A ten-minute guide to the five things your kids need. Four 28-day programs. One honest email a week.

It isn't therapy, and I'm not a therapist. If you need one, get one. It isn't a program for kids. It's for the man doing the parenting. And it isn't a brand pretending to have it figured out. I'm a bloke who's got plenty wrong, and the reading and the work helped. That's all I'm bringing.

The archive

Men who've sat down and told the truth.

Since 2014 — sportsmen, authors, soldiers and everyday blokes on what fatherhood actually did to them.

Peter SterlingRugby league great Mark Donaldson VCVictoria Cross recipient George GreganWallabies captain Gus WorlandGotcha4Life founder Matt MoranChef & restaurateur Mark GeyerNRL premiership winner

Browse all 250+ conversations →