“A good father is one of the most unsung, unpraised, unnoticed, and yet one of the most valuable assets in our society.”

- Billy Graham

It is my firm belief that men and women, mothers and fathers are equally vital for a successful society. However, in my experience, men and fathers are not acknowledged or supported to anything like the degree that women and mothers are.

This is a disaster for both men and women but the main victims are our children and, in particular, the children of divorced parents. Hundreds of thousands of vulnerable and hurting children are being denied access to the fathers they so desperately need. In some countries at least, lawmakers and social policy architects are slowly beginning to wake up to the enormous damage their one-sided policies have done but fathering (especially after divorce or separation) remains a challenging and often discouraging business.

I feel tremendous anger at the way fathers are systematically undermined and impeded but I have channelled that anger into a fierce determination to be the best dad I can be and it has been incredibly effective.

I have been the divorced father of two incredible girls for almost 15 years now so I have first-hand experience of just how difficult it can be but I have also experienced the exhilarating joy of building a deep and loving relationship with them. Their decisions and attitudes have been just as responsible for our success as my own and I can only marvel at their courage and determination to keep me in their lives.

Our relationship is so well established now that I honestly believe there is nothing that could break it but, if you had told me, at the beginning of my journey, that this would be the case, I would have laughed in your face. I want your story to end up like that too. Your journey will be different to mine and our challenges will not be exactly the same but, at the very least, I can urge you not to give up, not to doubt that you can be a brilliant dad and to realise that your are absolutely essential to your kid’s well-being.

One of the great lies of the last 50 years is that mums are essential but dads are optional. Nothing could be further from the truth and the shocking statistics about what happens to children, who grow up without a father in the house, are ample proof that dads are ESSENTIAL. Every child deserves the best dad they can have and the best mum. Men like you and me can choose to ensure that our kids, at least, don’t have to go through life without an attentive, supportive and protective dad.

I don’t think that anything in life could be more essential, more honourable, more satisfying or more effective than that.

“Fathering is not something perfect men do, but something that perfects the man.”

–Frank Pittman