The New Rules of Fatherhood

I'm writing a book!

Some personal news: I’m writing a book.

I’m working on it right now. Actually, I’m sending out the newsletter on a Friday when I should be working on the book, but that’s another story entirely. It’s tentatively titled The New Rules of Fatherhood and will be out for Father’s Day 2026.

Why The New Rules of Fatherhood? Well, I’m glad you asked. It’s because the old rules, the ones we grew up around, the ones we’ve learned to follow all our lives, are no longer fit for purpose. It all used to be so easy: work hard, provide for your family, don’t complain, get on with it. Go to work, come home, and dad with whatever was left in the tank. Because that’s what dads always did. We’ve internalised these rules and allowed them to ossify into absolute truths. Some of them are helpful. But most aren’t. Because we’ve begun to accept a common narrative around fatherhood: whilst it opens the aperture of your heart, it limits your career, increases your stress levels, makes your relationship with your partner worse, distances you from your friends, places you further from your goals, divorces you from your passions, and turns you into a shell of the person you once were.

But what if the opposite was true? What if the ground truths we’ve accepted are crumbling beneath our feet and undergoing a once-in-an-era change? What if the transformative effects of fatherhood might be measured in more than just love? That this newfound empathy could see you hitting new highs in your career, or provide you with a fresh perspective to forever alter what concepts like ambition and success mean as you head into the second half of your life. That your relationship with your partner could become stronger than ever and that some friendships—not all of them, but a significant amount—might become deeper and more meaningful. That the act of raising a child can bring you face-to-face with the man you are today and the boy you once were, and provide the opportunity to weave these disparate elements of your personality together, making you more connected with your ideal self and allowing you to grow in ways you never thought possible.

I’ve realised over the last decade—and the almost four years I’ve been sending these weekly missives to you all—that fatherhood is a hell of a transformation opportunity. And the biggest driver of whether it will transform you for the better or worse is your mindset. Becoming a father is the most significant shift in your life—better than a promotion you’ve been chasing for years, bigger than relocating to a new city or country—and an experience that unlocks life’s possibilities like no other. Raising children may break you into a thousand tiny pieces, but dads are learning to build themselves back stronger, with their children becoming the glue that makes it so more beautiful than before—like the kintsugi pots from Japanese ceramists of old, where the imperfections give them their true character. Over the time I’ve been writing here, I’ve learned to show my own cracks, my scars, my struggles—major battles with mental health and minor conflicts with the triggers that children bring into your life—and display them for others to read in the hope we open up more of these types of conversations with each other.

A book can do this at scale. But getting here wasn’t easy. One thing that came up with publishers I spoke with was the belief that men don’t buy—and read—enough books. And dads, as busy as they are, read even less. But I constantly called bullshit on that, with the numbers to back it up. Dads are reading—thousands of you read this newsletter every week. You might not be reading fatherhood books. My pitch was: What if we didn’t blame the audience and instead shifted the focus to the books themselves? Are they good enough? Interesting enough? Are they compelling, with emotional depth, and moving? Do they transform how you see the world and how you place yourself in it? When was the last time, if ever, that you loved a dad book enough that you couldn’t put it down?

Most fatherhood books are caught in a dichotomy. On one side, you have the how-to books filled with practical advice on what you need to learn to be a dad. On the other side of this divide are those littered with bad jokes and observations that don’t quite hit: “Hey, isn’t this all a bit mad? I was just in the pub with my friends a few weeks ago.”

I’m not talking about parenting books here. There are phenomenal books that make it all mercifully easier. The Whole-Brain Child is one I return to regularly; its framework is never far from mind in a fiery parenting moment. Your Baby, Week by Week is an absolute must during year one, a period where you could time baby milestones almost to the minute, providing daily reassurance that whatever our precious bundle was doing RIGHT NOW was normal, and we had nothing to worry about. Philippa Perry’s The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read may be the most accurate book title I’ve ever encountered. And I’m still mad that Emily Oster didn’t write Cribsheet in 2014, before the birth of my first—that might have saved significant time, pain and general anxiety.

There are some phenomenal books by mothers for mothers: Mothers: An Essay on Love and Cruelty by Jacqueline Rose or I’ll Show Myself Out by Jessi Klein are two amongst many on my bookshelf; books that make women feel seen and heard. I’ve been reading fatherhood books for the best part of a decade and am still searching for one that provides a similar feeling. I’ve been encouraged by many of you who’ve sent emails and messages over the years to let me know this newsletter scratches that itch for you.

Too many of us have been burned by lousy dad books, so it’s little wonder that in the small windows of downtime we’re finding more joy in reading books we might enjoy—a temporary sweet relief from the thirty-fourth rendition of Baby Shark this afternoon—rather than trying to tackle another below-par dad book. Dads don’t read? Of course they do. One of the constant sources of conversation in The Dadscord is our ongoing attempts to work through personal tsundoku piles, and the various lessons we’re learning as we do so. I have a series of books I look back on who I was before and after reading: books like Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman, The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday, or Why Buddhism is True by Robert Wright. Those books? All were written by fathers after they had kids. A book can change the trajectory of who you are and who you can be.

But fatherhood books never approach the topic with this attitude. It’s some variation on “Here’s how you’re going to get through this.” Positioning fatherhood as a period to be endured, not enjoyed. To survive and not to thrive. This is a huge missed opportunity for the millions of men who become fathers each year and their partners and children who would be first in line to reap the benefits.

The bar for a good parenting book has shifted significantly over the last decade. Dads deserve better than what they can find on the bookshelves today.

Now I need to get my shit together and write this one. Wish me luck.

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“I don't mind what happens.”

Over the years I’ve been writing here, there remains a stubborn lack of predictability over what will resonate and what won’t. But I was delighted to see last week’s essay on Wholehearted Cooperation with the Inevitable hit the spot for so many. What seemed to me like an attempt to weave together random quotes, thoughts, and feelings really hit home. Here’s just one note among many:

“I was feeling down today after getting angry with my 6yo daughter and making her cry right before school this morning, for something that I could have let go or handled with much more grace. This has been a recurring pattern in the mornings (not necessarily the crying, but me getting ticked off when I don't need to be). Then, a few hours later, I receive the latest newsletter, and it's full of completely, utterly relevant wisdom reinforced from multiple cultural and historical contexts. I now have hope that if I can internalize even a little bit of this wisdom I can improve as a father.”

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Good Dadvice

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Last Chance to Get 1/3 Off The Dadscord

Almost everything you see in the newsletter comes from embryonic discussions in The Dadscord. Here are a few things happening there of late:

• Anton is running a book club on The Untethered Soul, and there’s a second book club on career and our relationship with work where dads can choose The Good Enough Job, A Company of One or Creativity, Spirituality, and Making a Buck. Both are happening in October, so there’s still time to sign up and read the book!

• The Strava community is filled with dads running, riding, and generally hyping each other up.

• After a deep talk on hobbies, Sam offered to take a a group of dads into the depths of D&D, and teach them how to build characters and play their first campaign.

• We’ll soon be starting our fourth iteration of the Music League. Adding downvotes and banning modern dad rock staples (LCD Soundsystem, Radiohead and The National) has mixed things up this time.

• I’ve been on health and fitness kick, which I’ll be sharing more on in a future newsletter. I’ve been leaning on the collective wisdom of other folks trying to tighten up their dad bods and keeping each other accountable. I’m now armed with a list of strength-training YouTubers to put my new dumbells and kettlebell to use.

• We’re sharing solid recipes for the school week (Keith's Smoky Sweetcorn & Feta Burger went straight into my list). I’m also attempting to convince more dads to join the Cult of the Air Fryer.

Like I said last week: our days are full, and our time is limited. But The Dadscord always feels like a worthwhile place to spend some of mine. I look forward to seeing you some of you there as I procrastinate when I should be writing.

Join The Dadscord. $39 for the year. Last discount of 2024.

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