Eef Bartels

I founded BRTLS to help fathers better understand what is happening across their lives — and find realistic ways forward that fit the life they are actually living.

My approach to fatherhood has been shaped by two different kinds of experience: more than a decade working as an occupational therapist, and my own continuing experience of becoming and developing as a father.

I became a father in 2021. Like many fathers, I didn't enter fatherhood with a complete philosophy for how I wanted to do it. I learned by living it. Some periods felt natural. Others asked more from me.

There was also a period when fatherhood felt noticeably harder. Nothing about that experience gave me a universal answer to being a father. But it did make me pay closer attention.

Why did some periods feel easier than others?
Why could something be deeply meaningful and difficult at the same time?
Why did changes in one part of life seem to affect how I showed up somewhere else?

Over time, things improved. Not because I discovered one perfect method, but through reflection, trial and error, changing circumstances and gradually understanding more about what worked for me and my family.

That experience eventually left me with another question:
If I was trying to make sense of these things, how many other fathers were doing the same?

Before BRTLS, my professional work had already taught me to look closely at something that is easy to underestimate:
everyday life.

I graduated with a Bachelor of Occupational Therapy from Zuyd University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands in 2015 and have worked as an occupational therapist ever since. Across primary and secondary care, my work has involved helping people understand and navigate the interaction between their abilities, their activities, their environment and the demands of everyday life.

A significant part of my professional experience has focused on load and capacity — understanding what life asks from someone and what that person currently has available to meet those demands. I have also worked extensively within rehabilitation and hand therapy, including supporting people whose capacity, energy and everyday functioning changed substantially during recovery. Different clinical situations require different expertise. But one principle kept returning:

you cannot properly understand a difficulty without understanding the life in which it is happening.

Occupational therapy has a particular way of looking at people. Rather than isolating one problem, it often asks how different elements of everyday life interact.

The person matters. The activity matters. The environment matters. Roles matter. Capacity matters. And the relationship between them matters.

That way of thinking stayed with me when I started looking more deliberately at fatherhood. A father may struggle with patience at home. But looking only at patience may miss what is happening at work, how much recovery he gets, what his relationship currently asks from him, how his identity has changed or how much responsibility he is carrying elsewhere.

The moment you see the wider life, the original problem can start to look different. That does not mean occupational therapy provides the answer to fatherhood. It doesn't. It means my professional background taught me the value of understanding context before deciding what might help.

That principle became fundamental to BRTLS.

When I started exploring fatherhood more deeply, I found an enormous amount of advice. Be more present. Create better routines. Exercise. Communicate more. Take time for yourself. Spend more time with your children. Become more disciplined. Much of that advice can be useful.

But the same advice can be highly relevant to one father, unnecessary for another and almost impossible for someone else to apply within his current circumstances. The problem was not necessarily the advice itself.

It was what happened before the advice.

Who is this father?
What is happening in his life?
What already works?
What feels difficult?
What has changed?
What does he currently have capacity for?
And what might actually deserve his attention now?

I wanted BRTLS to begin there.

BRTLS was founded in 2025 around a relatively simple idea:
Understand the life before deciding what might help.

That means there is no ideal BRTLS father. There is no perfect score to reach. And there is no universal development plan that every father should follow. Instead, BRTLS helps fathers step back and look at their lives from different perspectives. How they may naturally orient themselves within fatherhood. What qualities may matter in a particular situation. Where different pressures and experiences are occurring across life. And how what fatherhood asks from them may change over time.

The goal is not endless analysis. The goal is better understanding that can eventually return to everyday life. Because that is where any useful idea has to survive.

My professional background influences the way I think about everyday life. But this distinction matters:

I am an occupational therapist. BRTLS is not occupational therapy.

BRTLS is a personal-development and educational platform. It does not provide healthcare, diagnose medical or psychological conditions or offer individual clinical treatment. Using BRTLS does not create a therapist–patient relationship. Some experiences fathers encounter can be explored through reflection and personal development. Others require medical, psychological or other professional support. BRTLS should never replace that support when it is needed.

Professional experience is only one part of why I built BRTLS. I am also living the subject myself. I am a husband and father of two daughters. Fatherhood continues to change as they grow — and I continue to learn what different periods ask from me. I don't use my family as evidence that I have discovered the correct way to be a father. And their private lives do not need to become part of the BRTLS product.

What fatherhood gives me is something different: a continuing reminder that the subject BRTLS explores is not theoretical.

It happens during breakfast. On the way home from work. When everyone is tired. In conversations with your partner. In the few minutes when your child wants your attention and your head is still somewhere else. In periods that feel easy. And in periods that don't. That everyday reality is where BRTLS belongs.

BRTLS combines several kinds of information. Professional knowledge. Scientific research. Established ideas from relevant fields. Reflection on everyday life. And practical possibilities fathers can explore for themselves. Those things should not be presented as if they carry the same certainty. Research can provide evidence without telling an individual father exactly what he should do. Professional experience can offer a useful perspective without creating a universal truth. And a practical idea can be worth trying without being scientifically proven to work for every father. BRTLS aims to keep those distinctions visible. The purpose is not to make every piece of fatherhood advice sound authoritative. It is to help fathers understand what we know, what we can reasonably infer and what may simply be worth exploring in real life.

And I don't think BRTLS should pretend that I do. I have more than a decade of professional experience in understanding everyday functioning, load and capacity, activities and context. I have a personal reason for caring deeply about fatherhood. And I have developed a way of looking carefully at what is happening before deciding what might help. That is the foundation I bring to BRTLS. The rest continues to be tested where it matters:

in real life.

BRTLS is ultimately not about becoming endlessly better at fatherhood. It is about participating more intentionally in a life that is already happening. Sometimes that means changing something. Sometimes it means understanding something. Sometimes it means recognising what already works and leaving it alone. And sometimes it means recognising that what you are dealing with requires something other than personal development. You don't need to turn your entire life into a project. You need enough understanding to recognise what may matter now. Then you return to being a father.

The free Fatherhood Discovery helps you step back and look at what is happening across your life as a father. No perfect-father score. No diagnosis. No generic development plan. Just a clearer picture of where you are now — and what may be worth understanding next.

Free · Personalised results included