Danny Loong did not fully grieve his father’s death until he became a parent himself.

For two decades after his father’s passing, Loong remembered him mostly as a provider and disciplinarian: a man who pushed hard, cared quietly and offered little by way of tenderness.

“He would ask me, ‘How come you’re not this, or that? How come you’re not studying hard enough?’ So when he passed away, I missed him, but I somehow couldn’t really grieve for him,” said Loong, 54.

“It was only after I had my own son that I started to realise that I really missed my father.”

Now, with a four-year-old son of his own, Loong wants to define fatherhood as a relationship where love is expressed and struggles can be shared.

“I want my son to be able to be expressive around me,” he said.

Loong is part of a group of Singaporean men trying to build safe spaces for conversations that have traditionally been kept private – from national service, relationships and fatherhood to finances and the fear of never measuring up.