Australian fatherhood is undergoing a profound transformation. For generations, the archetype of the “good dad” has been narrowly defined by roles such as the “primary financial provider”, or “the weekend dad”; and whilst some of these stereotypes still exist, cue outdated jokes about “daddy daycare” the modern Australian dad is more engaged and present than ever before. This shift marks a move away from peripheral parenting toward a model defined by shared responsibility and emotional investment.
The proof is in the proverbial google-key-search-pudding. Modern fathers are actively seeking resources to help navigate their roles, with search terms such as “how to get baby to sleep through the night dad”, “best baby carriers for dads” and “mental load in parenting” climbing the ranks. So, today, being an effective father increasingly means being present for the daily realities of family life: daycare drop-offs, school runs, bedtime routines, and managing the emotional load of raising children.
There’s a clear shift happening between generations. Recent research from leading men's health charity Movember in 2026 shows that 72% of Australian dads 1 are much more hands-on and involved in the day to day care of their children, than their own fathers were. This data highlights a conscious effort by the current generation to break away from the more distant parenting styles of the past in favour of active participation. The shift is mirrored in the workforce, as Australia is structurally becoming a two-working-parent society, with 73% of parents both employed as of June 20252. Australia’s Paid Parental Leave scheme has also expanded to 26 weeks in 2026, including four weeks specifically reserved for a partner or second parent.3 While women still take the majority of parental leave, the trajectory is clear: caring for a newborn is no longer viewed exclusively as "mum’s job."
Despite this progress, plenty of dads are still looking for real social connection, whether through informal meet-ups like ‘Beers and Braids’ or structured walking groups. A perfect example of this need is Melbourne dad Zachary Perez, who recently went viral after sharing a vulnerable moment online regarding his own dad-walking group. When no one turned up to his newly formed dad-walking group, his post sparked an outpouring of support, generating over 2.1 million views. The following week, over 50 men turned up for the walk group, showing that there is a high demand for connection between new dads. This highlights a simple truth: while modern dads are stepping up for their families, they’re still craving a sense of community and the chance to connect with other fathers.
Zachary Perez's debut book, Becoming Dad, offers an honest, personal look at the realities of his first 50 days as a new father and is available for purchase now. So go and grab yourself or the new dad in your life a copy
References
[1] https://movember.com/uploads/files/2026/Movember%20-%20Fatherhood%20Report.pdf
[2] https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/employment-and-unemployment/labour-force-status-families/latest-release
[3] https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/paid-parental-leave-scheme-changes
Sam: A profile asks you to declare something enormous - this is who I am, please assess me. And the implied ask sitting underneath any profile like that is "I would like you to be my friend," which is a lot to put on a stranger before you've met.
A plan asks almost nothing of you. You're saying you'd like to go to a ceramics class on Wednesday. That's the whole commitment. If it's great, you go again. If it isn't, you did a ceramics class.
No one has ever made a friend irl based on their physical appearance - so why other apps distil it down to a perfectly-curated profile is beyond me.
Sam: In practice, the numbers on our wall are attendance and clubs joined, not minutes in app or daily sessions. If someone opens Butter, finds a Sunday hike and closes it 90 seconds later, that's the product working exactly as designed. Structurally, the feed has an end, there's no algorithm rewarding you for staying, and notifications are tied to real plans with real times rather than manufactured activity.
Browsing still does genuine work - a lot of people get value simply from knowing what's on near them. We protect that. Attention for its own sake is the thing we don't chase.
Social media replaced intimacy with interaction, and most of us accepted that without noticing it happening. You see someone's holiday, their new kitchen, their Sunday morning. Your brain files it as contact, even though you haven't spoken in months.
Underneath that, the physical infrastructure went first. The pub you could walk to, the club with an actual clubhouse, the hall someone's mum ran on Wednesdays - those have been thinning out for decades. Once you're out of school or uni, there's no room you get automatically put in with people your age.
So you end up with an extremely high-res picture of everyone's life and nowhere to actually hang out with them. That gap is the entire problem.
Sam: Always food-based plans - dinner clubs, coffees + walks, at-home cafes - people love gathering around food. We also see a lot of trend-based plans, trivia nights, hikes, even tarot card readings - something takes off and everyone else catches on to make their own iteration.
Sam: A 100-person Halloween house party last year. Organised by a normal person - not a brand or club - and found 100 other 20 year olds who were looking for plans for the holiday.
Sam: Pick a plan for something you'd do on your own anyway. If you'd happily go to a bouldering session solo, going to one where 8 other people also RSVP’d is a much smaller step than it feels from the outside - you were already going, there are just people there now.
Choose something with structure for your first one. A class, a hike, anything with a task in it. Nobody has to generate conversation out of thin air, and there's a natural finish time, which takes an enormous amount of pressure off. Open-ended drinks with strangers is a hard first outing. A 90-minute pottery class where you leave with something cool is not.
Every other person there pressed the same ‘RSVP’ button you did. Butter plans exist specifically for meeting new people, so there's no established group to break into and nobody is anybody's plus-one - everyone came on their own, and most of them are more nervous than they look.
Sam: I want people to stop treating their social life as something that happens to them. Most of us inherited our friends - school, uni, the first job - and when that supply runs out we stop expecting the next set to arrive.
What I want is for a 26-year-old to think "I want to learn to surf" and for the next thought to be about which morning, not about who they could possibly ask.
At a systems level, making a plan on Butter should feel as ordinary as sending a message on WhatsApp. We've set ourselves 100 million in-person connections by 2035, and that number only works if this becomes a thing people do on a normal Tuesday.
Sam: The US. That's the next market and it's what we're building toward now.
Nothing Butter solves is particularly Aussie. The spaces that used to do the work have thinned out everywhere, and the US is where the swing back offline is loudest - run clubs with 300 people, supper clubs, an entire generation rebuilding third places from scratch because nobody handed them one. It's a market that already believes the thesis.
Alongside that there's a tonne of product work I won't spoil. The short version is that Butter is getting smarter about what it puts in front of you and taking more of the friction out of making a plan - it should feel like the app already has a sense of what kind of social life you're after.
To join or host your own gathering, download Butter: the IRL app on your Android or iPhone and let the plans begin.
