Every day is Father’s Day for these three Tassie dads
One day of the year, families get together to celebrate dads. But as these men know, it’s a role to be embraced and enjoyed every day
TasWeekend
Don't miss out on the headlines from TasWeekend. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Parenthood isn’t a job you can clock on and off from. And the working conditions aren’t always the most desirable, with sleepless nights, stress and sickness all par for the course.
Sometime the road to becoming a parent isn’t easy and the unpredictable journey that follows can be filled with an emotional ride of ups and downs.
But, with Father’s Day approaching, we spoke to three Tassie dads – chef Massimo Mele, Shiploads director Ashley Wilson and ABC sports journalist Chris Rowbottom – who all agreed that while parenting had its challenges, it’s also a pretty rewarding gig.
Whether they’re bonding with a newborn, combing the beach for crabs with a curious toddler or kicking the footy with a sport-loving teenager, these dads have shared their experiences of fatherhood with TasWeekend – providing an insight into the challenges they’ve faced, the lessons they’ve learnt and the hopes they hold for their children’s futures.
MASSIMO MELE
CELEBRITY CHEF
When chef Massimo Mele left Tasmania 20 years ago, he had no plans to return to his home state.
“I was never coming back to Tassie, I was pretty honest about that,’’ he says. “I was pretty happy in Sydney and running lots of restaurants’’.
But he says getting married and having children changed his perspective and he has loved rediscovering his home state through the eyes of his two young children since returning to Tasmania to live five years ago.
Mele loves spending time outdoors with his sons Maximiliano (Max), 5, and Rio, 2 – swimming, riding bikes, fishing or pulling fresh vegies from the garden of their Taroona home.
“Watching Max catch his first fish – it just melts your heart, that kind of thing,’’ the 41-year-old says.
“I’m not here to bag Sydney – I love Sydney. But in Sydney you just don’t do too many things, you can’t be bothered … and you have to deal with traffic.
“But [in Tasmania] there’s a real ability to get out and do things.
“Like just being down on the Taroona foreshore, walking around with Max to go and find crabs … when you turn your phone off – which is a thing I’ve struggled with as I’m always working and I’m always on – and you can just switch off and just be in the moment.’’
Other recent family highlights have included visiting Cataract Gorge – “I still think the Gorge is one of the most beautiful, natural places to visit in Tassie and it’s just five minutes from the city,” Mele says – playing in the snow on Mt Wellington and visiting friends at Leap Farm at Copping.
“The boys were running around [at Copping] looking at goats, and they got to watch a goat being born – where else do you get to do that?,’’ Mele says.
The eldest of three boys, Mele was born in Tasmania but spent the early years of his life in Naples in Italy, where he spent lots of time in the kitchen with his extended family, helping his Nonna chop tomatoes for passata while his aunts fried artichokes.
He returned to Tasmania when he was six, and attended a school in Hobart that taught English to migrants before settling into schools closer to his family’s home in Glenorchy – he started at Glenorchy Primary School before moving to Dominic College and then on to Guilford Young College.
By the time Mele was 10 he was working in the family’s Glenorchy restaurant, La Bella Napoli, after school and on weekends. He later worked at Zum Cafe while at high school and college. He then completed an apprenticeship in the kitchen of Hobart waterfront eatery T42 and later set up Mud Bar in Launceston. But the bulk of Mele’s career was spent interstate and overseas – he worked for Roberto Castellani at the prestigious Donovans restaurant in Melbourne and with celebrity chef Pete Evans at the Hugos Group in Sydney, as well as appearing on various cooking shows including Ready Steady Cook, Yes Chef, and My Kitchen Rules.
Mele expected to stay in Sydney. But then he returned to Tasmania briefly for The Taste in 2014 and bumped into his future wife, Kristy Stewart. The pair had worked together many years earlier at Mud Bar, although they hadn’t hit it off back then. However, they stayed in touch after reconnecting at The Taste and the rest, Mele says, is history.
Max was born in Tasmania but when he was six weeks old, Mele and Stewart moved to Sydney.
“It was pretty crazy of us to do that,’’ Mele says in hindsight.
“I was always working, I hardly saw Max. It would take me an hour to get home and I only lived 10-15km away from work’’.
By the time Max was six months old they moved back to Tasmania.
Mele was still regularly travelling interstate for functions and other work commitments but once the Covid pandemic hit, everything stopped.
“I was not going anywhere – not hosting events or doing media work,’’ Mele says.
“The focus was on being at home. And now I don’t think I’d want to be anywhere else.’’
He’s currently working as the food director at Launceston restaurant Grain of the Silos, which is owned by his father-in-law Errol Stewart. Mele is also an ambassador for food charity Loaves and Fishes. And he also considers himself an “unofficial spokesman” for Tasmania’s amazing fresh produce and the people who grow it, getting out and about as much as possible to explore the state and meet new producers.
Mele is preparing to open a new restaurant in December, which will be located inside the new Marriott luxury hotel, The Tasman – part of Hobart’s Parliament Square development.
As the culinary director he is helping to create the overall concept for the restaurant, including the menus. He’s also planning to spend some time working in the kitchen alongside local talent to create an eatery with “a lot of old school hospitality and charm’’ inspired by his own father’s business.
Mele is also about to become a dad again, with Stewart now 29-weeks pregnant with a baby girl.
Mele will enjoy a Father’s Day lunch at the Port Cygnet Cannery with about 20 members of his extended family.
He says growing up in the family restaurant definitely inspired his love of cooking, but it has also shaped his desire for a more balanced approach to parenting.
“My dad worked a lot when I was a kid … obviously that’s the downfall of a small business … so it’s nice for me to be able to spend a bit more time with my kids,’’ says Mele, who enjoys cooking with his kids and also regularly takes them to Farm Gate Market on Sundays.
“If I hadn’t grown up in the family restaurant I wouldn’t be where I am today.
“But it also made me realise I want to have a bit more balance and I have made different choices to create that balance where I’m not working every night,” he says.
“I want to be there for swimming [lessons] and those sorts of things.
[The kids are] probably not going to like me being their soccer coach one day, but I can’t wait to do it.’’
ASHLEY WILSON
SHIPLOADS FOUNDER
There’s plenty of father-son rivalry in the Sandy Bay home of Shiploads managing director Ashley Wilson. Especially when Collingwood and Hawthorn go head-to-head on the footy field. But while the 53-year-old doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with his 13-year-old son Alex, Wilson says he’s forever grateful he got the chance to be a dad, after many years of thinking it might never happen.
“My wife Pip and I met in 1990 and married in 1995,’’ Wilson explains.
“Seventeen years after we met we had Alex. We tried for quite a while … and it was complicated.’’
The day Alex was born should have been the happiest day of their lives. But complications during Pip’s pregnancy and after the birth, caused by pre-eclampsia and subsequent HELLP syndrome, left her in the intensive care unit, fighting for her life.
Alex was also born four weeks before his due date and weighed just 2.5kg.
“My wife was in ICU fighting for her own survival at a time which was meant to be the happiest day of our life and it was traumatic to say the least,’’ Wilson says.
“Alex is 13 now and we’ve both worked through that – some people can’t have babies, some people lose babies … we’ve had friends who lost a baby.
“So to know that we have a really smart, loving child and a loving relationship with him, between the three of us we’re just inseparable.
“For me it makes it all worth it and I’d do it all again.”
Wilson says the experience has shaped the way he makes decisions in all parts of his life.
Once the general manager of Chickenfeed Bargain Stores in Tasmania, Wilson was asked to relocate to Sydney to run Chickenfeed and a string of other bargain stores – 600 stores nationally – after the business was bought by Jan Cameron. But he quickly declined the offer as Alex had just turned two and life was just beginning to return to normal after a challenging couple of years. He also knew he would hardly see his family due to the demands of work in Sydney and he didn’t want to give up the Tasmanian lifestyle he loved.
“Having Alex changed my perspective on life and where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do,’’ he explains.
“The decisions I have made since then have very much become family decisions.
“[Turning down the Sydney job] was the right decision then and it’s still the right decision now, as it moulded the next part of my life.’’
That next step was setting up discount retail chain Shiploads in 2010. Wilson, who started his career as a trainee at Venture department store, now has 13 Shiploads stores across Tasmania which continue to thrive, despite the pandemic, as the business is constantly adapting to suit the changing needs of customers.
When building the business, Wilson kept family at the forefront of his mind. The reason Shiploads doesn’t open for late-night trading is that he wants his staff to be able to go home at a reasonable hour and enjoy time with their families.
As soon as Alex was born, Wilson, a keen Collingwood supporter, signed his son up as a member of Collingwood Football Club.
But as Alex got older, he jumped ship and became a Hawthorn supporter.
“One of my brothers is a mad Hawthorn supporter, and he gave Alex a poster to put on his bedroom wall,’’ Wilson recalls.
“And because Hawthorn was winning at the time it seemed like a more exciting side.’’
So in support of his son, Wilson signed them both up as Hawthorn Football Club members and they remain financial members of both clubs, so they can go to games together and support each other’s team.
“People say how do you feel that he’s not a Collingwood member?’ Wilson says.
“But I just love the fact that he loves football, I just go along for the mutual interest with my son, that’s what’s exciting.’’
Wilson grew up going to footy matches with his own dad, who still lives in South Hobart in the home Wilson and his three siblings grew up in.
He loves that he and Alex, who turns 14 later this month, have created a similar tradition.
A student at The Hutchins School, Alex enjoys having a kick of the footy but he doesn’t actually play in a footy team.
“He’s a very, very intelligent statistical person,’’ Wilson says
“He enjoys sports like football and cricket from a spectator point of view as he loves the mathematics of it, he’s always giving me statistics on games.
“He knows that I love sport and I grew up playing sport. It’s really exciting being a father and sharing that common interest with your son.’’
Wilson will spend Father’s Day with his wife and son, but also with his own father. He says it’s a “pretty casual affair” which just involves spending some quality time together.
“Father’s Day, for me, is not a big deal,’’ Wilson says.
“It’s one day. But I get to be a dad every day and I enjoy being a dad every day, not just on Father’s Day.’’
He says being a dad is the “greatest thing ever’’ and he wants to be a great support for Alex, just as his own father has always supported him.
“The fact we have a son in the first place is really special to me,’’ Wilson says.
“He was a real fight, but he was a good fight.
“My wife fought her way through a pretty tough time, so I value the opportunity to be a father in the first place, I don’t take it for granted.’’
CHRIS ROWBOTTOM
SPORTS JOURNALIST
Chris Rowbottom became a dad three weeks ago but the 33-year-old confesses the enormity of becoming a parent still hasn’t really sunk in.
Oliver Lane Rowbottom was born on August 12, weighing 3.94kg and measuring 53cm long. And Rowbottom, an ABC sports journalist, couldn’t stop laughing when his son first arrived because he was simply amazed by how big the newborn was.
He’s looking forward to celebrating his first Father’s Day on Sunday but says being a dad still feels like a bit of a foreign concept.
“I haven’t really thought much about it, I keep forgetting that Father’s Day is actually a thing and that I’m actually a father,’' Rowbottom says.
“It will be pretty weird but pretty cool as well.
“I’ll be able to join in on some of the activities with my brother-in-law and my old man – I’m the last cab off the rank when it comes to being a dad.’’
Rowbottom and his wife Lucy Breaden, an ABC Hobart radio presenter, say they are loving life as a new family of three, despite the broken sleep that comes with having a newborn to care for. Breaden laughs that she already has at least 584,980,000 photos of “Ollie” on her phone and is clearly smitten with her son, as is Rowbottom who says his son has been a “pretty easy” baby so far.
But they are both mindful that they are only three weeks into their parenting journey and will no doubt face plenty of challenges moving ahead.
“We’re sort of in that honeymoon period in a way now,’’ Rowbottom says.
“Being off work, I’m around all the time, and it all feels very new and fresh.
“Oliver doesn’t do much at this stage, he just eats and sleeps. But I think it will sink in once I go back to work.
“Every now and then I catch myself thinking ‘I’m actually a dad’ and that’s pretty cool.’’
Rowbottom and Breaden have been together since 2012 but made a deliberate decision to delay having their first child. But now that they’ve started, they hope their brood will continue to grow.
“We waited a long time,’’ Breaden, 32, explains.
“We just really chose to put our careers first for a long time, and we wanted to travel and do lots of things before we dived head first into having kids. So we feel very lucky that we were able to have children when we wanted to have children – and we’re loving it.’’
Both their extended families live in Hobart and Breaden’s sister also had a baby, Artie, just two and a half weeks before Oliver was born.
The couple sold their home at Lenah Valley before Oliver arrived and are currently living in New Town while their new home in Lenah Valley is being built.
They chose the name Oliver as it was the only name they could agree on. And Lane is Breaden’s mother’s maiden name.
Rowbottom, who is on parental leave for a few more weeks, says he can’t wait to see what sort of person Oliver will grow up to be. He jokes that his son is free to be whoever he wants to be – as long as he’s a Hawthorn supporter.
“He’s a Hawthorn fan … it was actually my dad who bought him a membership without me really knowing,’’ Rowbottom explains.
“So he doesn’t really have much choice there. But I’m just really excited to see what sort of person he becomes and what choices he starts to make. (Supporting Hawthorn) is the only thing he doesn’t get a say in. With everything else I’m happy for him to go his own way and do whatever he wants. We’ll be there to guide him and keep him on track but we’re not going to force him or pressure him into any particular choices about anything he wants to do with his life.
“I’m just excited to see how he turns out really.
“And what he chooses to do and which paths he chooses to take.
“But of course I’d love it if he played footy.’’ ●
Join the conversation
Secluded coastal cabin perfect spot to make cherished memories
Secluded cabin ‘Sisters’ located at the stunning Spring Beach on the East Coast is more than just your average holiday ‘shack’, writes Molly Appleton
Read more
Mr Universe: Tassie trailblazer making an impact on global stage
Tassie’s Jony Berry was nine when Jennifer Hawkins was crowned Miss Universe 2004. As Mr Universe 2024, he hopes for an equally successful career, while also supporting others through trauma
Read more