Father's Day Special
Elliott Rae talks about his new book DAD and why he's passionate about equal parenting and equality
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Hello dear readers and happy Monday!
This week’s edition of The Freelance Parent is dedicated to all of my male readers and brilliant dads everywhere. I hope you all had a lovely day yesterday and were thoroughly spoiled.
And what better excuse to interview Elliott Rae, founder of the online platform Music. Football. Fatherhood (or MFF as it’s also known) and compiler of the newly released book ‘DAD: Untold stories of Fatherhood, Love, Mental Health and Masculinity’?
Elliott created MFF as a space where dads can be free to talk, listen and read about things that are important to them including work-life balance, mental health, careers, raising healthy and well-rounded children, money management, relationships and, of course, music and football.
His new book DAD features 20 powerful and defiant stories including topics about postnatal depression, becoming a new dad during the pandemic, miscarriage, widowhood, stillbirth, co-parenting, childbirth trauma, work-life balance, new dads at work, and shared parental leave.
Elliott sent me a copy a few weeks ago and it’s such an important and insightful read - I can’t recommend reading it enough. It’s so rare to hear how these topics feel from the view point of a dad and I’m so glad that Elliott has worked so hard to bring these stories into the world.
So without further ado, here’s the interview where Elliott talks more about his important work and his hopes for work and family equality. I hope you enjoy it.
Oh, and before I go, I wanted to let you know of some good news! The Freelance Parent has been chosen by Substack as one of its featured publications this week due to the way it goes deep on the topic of freelance parenting and exemplifies best practise, including how it engages with you - my lovely loyal readers. Thank you for reading and sharing the newsletter each week. It makes it all worthwhile.
Until next time.
Cat x
THE INTERVIEW: ELLIOTT RAE, FOUNDER OF MFF AND COMPILER OF DAD: Untold stories of Fatherhood, Love, Mental Health and Masculinity
CAT: First of all, can you tell me about Music. Football. Fatherhood, the parenting and lifestyle platform for men? What inspired it and how long did it take you to create your community of dads?
ELLIOTT: ‘MusicFootballFatherhood (or MFF for short!) is all about open conversations around fatherhood. We provide a space for dads to share the ups and downs of parenting and aim to promote a positive representation of diverse fatherhood. We are also champion’s of equal parenting and do a lot of work with employers to support working dads. We have a blog with hundreds of articles and resources for dads, a podcast called #DaddyDebates and we have just launched ‘The Lodge’ which are peer support sessions for new dads. There’s a core team of 20 of us, including writers, contributors, an editor and social media manager’.
‘I started MFF in 2016, just as a place to reflect after becoming a new dad. I had some challenges and was diagnosed with PTSD after the traumatic birth of my daughter. MFF was an outlet that helped me process my experience. It’s been a slow and steady journey which I think has helped as we now have a really good understanding of what we are about, what we believe in, and how we can be of value to our audience’.
CAT: Congratulations on the release of your fantastic book, DAD. How has the launch gone and are you pleased with its reception?
ELLIOTT: ‘Thank you so much! I couldn’t have asked for a better launch. It’s been all that I could have asked for and more. We have community partners (organisations who do work around mental health, gender equality and fatherhood) like Carers UK, Pregnant Then Screwed and QPR Trust and they have helped us to spread the word. We’ve had some amazing media coverage across platforms like BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC Radio London and loads of local stations and magazines. And this week BBC News did a long reads piece on my PTSD story which has been shared loads on social media – I even saw Andrea Leadsom the MP tweet it!’
‘The reception to the book has been amazing. It’s very surreal reading the reviews and hearing the impact the book has already had on people’s lives. One of the most moving reviews was actually from a single mother who read the chapter about growing up without a dad; she said it’s helped her understand her son a bit more and it’s really helped her see things from a different perspective. Or the review from a dad who has also gone through a marriage breakdown and the chapters on co-parenting have helped him to re-evaluate his relationship with the mother of his child and his son. Powerful stuff! The book has had nothing but 5-star reviews which is amazing’.
CAT: Why and when did you decide to create the book and how long did it take you to curate all of the men’s stories?
ELLIOTT: ‘The idea for the book came to me in April 2019. I remember being at work and I put a message in the MFF WhatsApp group saying that we need to write a book! I knew we had so many interesting stories to tell and I wanted to bring a collective of dads together to share. I knew this would be so impactful and help to change the conversations we have around mental health and gender equality. I wanted the book to open up those conversations and encourage dialogue between families, friends and colleagues so we can have a deeper understanding of each other’s challenges and reimagine a better future, together’.
‘It took two years overall to curate all the stories. There was a little global pandemic in the middle which slowed things down a bit. Initially, we took the book to publishers and they all said that they love the writing and the idea but that there’s no audience for the book (can you believe it!). So we self-published and raised £12k in two and a half weeks’.
‘Putting the book together was a beautiful process at times, but at other times it was a real slog to be honest. It’s definitely the most difficult professional process I have been through, but by far the most rewarding and important. When self-publishing you need to be on top of everything yourself, so you are responsible for designing, editing, contracts, rights, proofreading, typesetting, manufacturing and distribution. Publishers will have whole departments looking after each of these stages, so I had to learn them all and bring onboard people who were really good at what they do to help. And we had to make sure all these things were done at the right quality and within deadlines’.
‘The good thing about curating an anthology is that you don’t have to write the whole book yourself, but it’s equally as much work trying to coordinate 19 other people. There was a lot of work that went into building relationships, helping to shape the stories and working with the editor and contributor to make sure all the stories were as powerful as they could be. It’s so nice to hear positive feedback about the book because we worked really hard to create something that is a really high-quality product - from the way it looks, feels and reads. Attention to detail was really important to us and I am so happy we can look at the book and be proud of what we have created’.
CAT: I was really moved by the stories in the book, especially those on black fatherhood and being a single dad. We don’t get many opportunities to hear those perspectives of parenting. Did you find it difficult to find men willing to share their stories?
ELLIOTT: ‘I think first and foremost we need to change the narrative about dads in general. The old-fashioned stereotype of the dad being useless and unable to look after a household is outdated and just not true. And layered underneath that is the vast diversity of modern Britain, which of course extends to fatherhood. For me personally, I have always done Diversity & Inclusion work. My last corporate role was as Head of D&I Delivery at HM Treasury, so diversity and equality are fundamentally important to me and will always underline everything I do’.
‘I think it’s important to show a positive representation of diverse fatherhood so we can break down those stereotypes and biases that still exist and increase our understanding of other people’s worlds and experiences. Usually in reading stories from people we may not usually come across, we realise we have more in common with them than we thought we did. And diversity is important to help us celebrate different people, characteristics and cultures – there is a richness in society in the UK and I wanted the book to reflect that’.
‘For the most part it was quite easy to find dads who were willing to contribute. This was because I had already built such good relationships through MFF. Lots of the contributors to DAD were already part of the core MFF writing team – we have a WhatsApp group and we speak to each other every day! So that relationship and trust was already built. I had to find other people outside of the core group for some of the other stories, for example the stories of being bullied as a new dad, gay fatherhood and post-natal depression. I’ve had some of the best conversations ever in speaking to the contributors about their experiences. All of the dads in the book are amazing and I am so proud of what we have achieved together. It’s their bravery that has made this book possible and I am forever indebted to them for helping to make this vision a reality’.
CAT: I love that you champion equal parenting and gender equality in the workplace. We need so many more men’s voices in this area. Can you tell me a few ways you do this and what your aims are for the next year or so?
ELLIOTT: ‘Equal parenting is so important to us. I feel that it’s the solution to so many societal problems. If we can help dads to be involved parents, we will see benefits to dad’s mental health and wellbeing, the gender pay gap and improved outcomes for children. The tide is changing and we need to do more to support the growing number of men who want to be more involved in their children’s lives. I spend a lot of time hosting workshops and webinars for organisations, talking to them about how fatherhood has changed, how they can support working dads and the benefits of doing so’.
‘I am being asked more and more to speak which I think is an indication of society recognising the importance of supporting working dads. In June alone I’m working with HSBC, John Lewis, Department for Transport, University of Reading and De Beers on how they can support working dads. The sessions I run are all about engaging dads, opening up the conversation around fatherhood in the workplace and going through some of the data and statistics around dads in the UK. We usually have a panel of dads from the organisation and a fun book giveaway too. If you think your organisation could benefit from this, let me know!’.
CAT: What has been your own experience of fatherhood? Is it what you expected and what are the biggest challenges?
ELLIOTT: ‘Becoming a dad has completely changed my life. Not just personally but professionally too. It was a difficult start, and it still is sometimes – lets be honest, parenting is HARD! But it’s also the most amazing thing ever. Me and my daughter are super close and my wife and I share all the childcare responsibilities, so I spend a lot of time with her and drop her and pick her up from school on most days. She’s five now so it’s like having a little friend and we enjoy each other’s company’.
‘I don’t know what I expected from fatherhood, but it’s definitely come to define me a lot more than I thought it would. I don’t think I understood how much I would change after becoming a dad. I’ve become more emotional, more sensitive, more aware of the world around me and my responsibility to try and change the world for the better, for my daughter’.
‘I am so proud of her. I love it when she is content and enjoying herself. Seeing her happy makes me happy’.
You can buy a copy of DAD here and follow Elliott on Instagram here where there are lots of useful links for the book, MFF podcast and meetup details.
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