Combatting the loneliness and challenges of Dadulthood

The network exists for dads to come together and chat – often dads who don't even realise they need support.

Currently it involves between 3,000 and 4,000 men and meets in Worthing, Brighton and Lewes, but Dan seized the chance to put it on a global platform when TED Global came to Brighton, looking for speakers.

“It was a new idea and they flew in the American team to Brighton. They put out a call for global talent and they had more than 600 applicants to be speakers. I was one of the applicants. I just saw the ad on Facebook and I thought I would give it a go. TED is something that is on a lot of people's bucket lists. I thought it would take me 20 minutes to fill out an application and just thought why not so I went through with it. There was a couple of page intro and a short video and I did the form and then I got an email to say that I had got through to the next round. And then I had an interview with five or six people in the TED team in the US via zoom. It was a sea of faces I saw and I found out a couple of weeks later that I’d been accepted.”

A small number of speakers were accepted and they were filmed for the 48 hours leading up to their talk: “It was two days of preparation. They gave us workshops on stagecraft and we had to practise our talk in front of the top team and receive feedback and notes which was terrifying. It was like being in a weird TV bubble.

“I was terrified. I think I broke the world record for the number of times a chap can go to the loo in two hours. The nerves were astonishing. I've never felt anything like it but when my name was called I was hit by a lovely sense of calm. I think that was because of the hours of preparation that I had put in. And I had got help from a hypnotist to get rid of my umms and ahhs and I also had an old photo of my dad with me on stage. He was a bit of a guardian angel. Plus the fact Brighton is very welcoming.”

It all went well, and the talks will be put together into programme for streaming or screening. Dan is still waiting to hear when exactly and where it will go out.

As for Dad La Soul: “It is a social enterprise that aims to get middle-aged men together to enjoy an invigorating social life and to get plugged into a network of support and get them talking about the things that they would rather ignore. There are 84 men under-45 being lost every week to suicide but we take a Trojan horse approach. If you put up a poster inviting middle-aged men to come along and talk about issues like that they wouldn't come so we put up posters about bushcraft and learning about stand-up comedy. The switch is turned and they get to talk and they find that they are able to talk about their struggles.”

As Dan says: “Fatherhood doesn’t come with a rule book, and, as some of the six million dads with school-aged children in the UK, we know from personal experience how difficult and lonely Dadulthood can be.

“We become trapped in very small social circles with little support, and it can feel like society has set us up for failure because we are useless buffoons that are nothing but fumbling and glorified babysitters. We know how hard it can be to find new friends as a dad. The older you get, the smaller your social circle becomes, the more expensive babysitters are, and the hangovers worsen.”

Dad La Soul offers some of the answers. Dan is hoping his talk will take it to the next level.