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Video · Watch · 15 min

Becoming the dad you didn't have

Three fathers on rewriting what they inherited.

DR
Daniel Regan
12 June 2026

Three fathers on rewriting what they inherited.

This short film sits with family the way men actually experience it — not as a diagnosis, but as something that shows up in the everyday. Give it a few minutes of your attention; you may recognise more than you expect.

Why family is worth taking seriously

It's easy to treat family as background noise — the cost of being busy, of getting older, of just being a bloke. But the things we ignore rarely stay quiet. They leak into sleep, into patience, into the people we care about. Naming what's going on is the first move, and it's a bigger one than it looks.

You don't have to have the words for it yet. You just have to be willing to start.

A few things that actually hold

Steady beats dramatic. You don't need a perfect system — you need a couple of reliable anchors your week can lean on:

  • Pick one small thing you can repeat, and do it whether or not you feel like it.
  • Notice the moment it starts — the tightening, the shortening fuse, the pull to check out — and name it.
  • Tell one person the honest version. Not everyone. One.

When to talk to someone

If family has been hanging around for weeks rather than days, that's worth taking seriously — and worth saying out loud to someone who gets it. Therapy isn't a last resort; it's somewhere to think clearly with another person in the room. When you're ready, the therapists here work with exactly this.

DR
Written by
Daniel Regan
Psychotherapist · writes for MTH on sleep & anxiety
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