'Pints and ponytails is a safe space for dads'

When Matthew Carter dropped his daughter off at school, it dawned on him that he was lacking skills in the hair department.

"I just remember her hair looked like she'd been dragged through a bush backwards," said the 37-year-old.

"My partner wasn't there and I sent Lawrence [Price, his friend and podcast co-host] a message just saying 'I think we should learn how to plait or do our daughters' hair and we could do it in a pub and we can call it pints and ponytails'."

This marked the start of the viral hair braiding workshop with the pair recently travelling to Manchester to host the free event.

"The optics of the event is dads are learning new skills to honour their daughters, but beyond that I think sits something so much deeper.

"One dad in Manchester had lost his partner and is raising his daughter by himself, there's dads going through divorces, dads who had their own mental health journeys, but it just felt like it feels like a really safe space for dads to open up and talk.

"I think men get such a bad rep all the time about not talking, but I just think they just need a safe space and the right place to do it.

"It turns out a room full of mannequins and pints somehow seems to be doing that."

The pair host The Secret Life of Dads podcast where they discuss all things fatherhood.

"It all came about through our own struggles in the first year of fatherhood. I struggled with post-natal depression, which I didn't even realise dads could get," said Carter.

"Lawrence struggled with anxiety and burnout.

"I think a lot of what parenthood, fatherhood especially, is painted as is that when your child comes into world, there's this instant sense of love and bond and for me personally, it wasn't there.

"So I wanted to set up a platform for dads to understand more about this.

"There were loads in the mum space, but we just felt that there were no conversations happening for dads."

The first couple of events coincided with the launch of the Louis Theroux documentary titled Inside the Manosphere where Theroux investigates a growing ultra-masculine network and its controversial influencers.

"A lot of people have kind of positioned us as kind of the antidote to the manosphere," said Carter.

"I think at a time where especially there's a lot of bad press around men and this idea of toxic masculinity, I think what we've seen from the men and the dad showing up at these events is the complete opposite to that."

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