About Modern Grandad
A 20-year inquiry into what grandads are for now.
When my grandson was born, I wanted to be useful.
His parents were going to need backup. He was going to need steady adults around him. And I had started wondering what an older man is actually for in a world that’s changing faster than the one I grew up in.
So I started asking questions.
What are grandads for now?
Not what were they for.
Not what does tradition say they should be.
What does a grandad have to offer a child, a family and a changing world today?
I don’t know the answer.
That’s why I’m investigating it.
This is my living laboratory
I’m not a grandad expert.
I’m one grandfather figuring it out.
My grandson is growing up in a world of AI, algorithms, smartphones, climate anxiety, changing ideas about work and identity, and extraordinary possibilities that didn’t exist when I was his age.
I can’t prepare him for that world by simply passing on the one I inherited.
So I’m trying things.
Making things.
Learning things.
Getting things wrong.
Paying attention.
The 1-Year-Old Laboratory, 2-Year-Old Laboratory, 3-Year-Old Laboratory and so on are my record of what happens when the ideas get taken out of my head and into the real world.
Sometimes that’s cycling.
Sometimes it’s building something.
Sometimes it’s risky play, curiosity, stories, magic, making, exploring or simply being together.
The point isn’t the activity.
The point is what I’m learning about being a grandad — and about the man I’m becoming.
The bigger questions
Alongside the laboratory, I’m interested in the questions underneath it all.
Why does becoming older so often come with an expectation that we should become less?
What happens to men’s sense of purpose when careers wind down?
What can experience offer when information is everywhere?
Why do parents need more backup than ever?
What do children need from the adults around them?
How might older men contribute without trying to take over?
And what might happen if we stopped treating grandadding as a hobby and started asking what it could become?
I don’t want to turn these questions into a doctrine.
I’m interested in the fertile ground of possibility.
I’m a student, not a teacher
I’m not here to tell other men what they should become.
I’m figuring out what I want to become.
That’s an important distinction.
If something I try works, I’ll share it.
If it doesn’t, I’ll share that too.
If I change my mind, you’ll see that.
Modern Grandad is me learning out loud. Think of it as a long-running conversation rather than a finished philosophy.
I expect the questions to change as my grandson grows — and as I do.
Why grandads?
Because I think there is something interesting happening here.
There are millions of older men entering this chapter of life with enormous reserves of experience, capability, curiosity and time.
Some know exactly what they want to do with it.
Some don’t.
Some are still working.
Some have retired.
Some are deeply involved with their grandchildren.
Some barely know where they fit.
I’m interested in what becomes possible when an older man stops asking:
“What am I supposed to do now?”
and starts asking:
“What’s still possible?”
Modern Grandad isn’t a type of man
It’s a question.
What are grandads for now?
And underneath that:
What’s next for me?
I’m going to spend the next twenty years finding out.
Or as long as I’m lucky enough to get.
About me
I’m Julian Mather.
I’ve been an Army sniper, a National Geographic cameraman, a magician, an author, a business owner and a professional speaker.
I’ve reinvented myself more than once.
At 65, I’m doing it again.
This time I’m exploring what it means to become an older man who still wants to learn, contribute, make things, take risks, stay curious and be useful to the people who matter.
Modern Grandad is my living laboratory.
Welcome.
