The parenting moment that left Gus Worland in tears

The last time mental fitness advocate and Gotcha4Life founder Gus Worland cried was "yesterday".

He was dropping his son Jack at the airport for his return trip to England.

"I was getting the bags out of the car and we started having a hug, and he's not particularly emotional," the broadcaster tells 9honey.

"I could just tell that he held onto me a little bit closer, a little bit longer.

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"Then I started crying, of course, and then he started crying and then I said, 'OK, I love you buddy, let me know when you're safe'."

Jack rang his dad the next day to tell him he'd arrived safely, which, once again, brought Worland to tears.

"I started thinking about him, and hearing him, and how much I've loved having him here for the last couple of weeks," he says.

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Two days earlier, he went through a similar experience with his daughter.

"We need to give ourselves permission to cry," he says.

"When your sports team wins or loses or at an airport or something, we've got to allow that outside in the normal world as well."

Worland has made it his mission to spread this message through his mental health advocacy work and now through his new children's book Boy's Do Cry.?

?Worland launched Gotcha4Life in 2017.

For the past eight years he has been tackling male mental health by sharing his own battle and via the organisation's various supports.

"I feel like I've put eight years in now and spoken to a lot of people, and I've realised that we need to speak to people, much younger boys and girls, about these type of things, so children's books just seemed perfect," Worland explains.

"And now that the book's out there, I'm just so proud of it.

"We see every billboard, every TV ad, shows and stuff, especially stuff from a little while ago, where it's just frowned upon to show those human emotions.

"We are humans. We should be able to have permission to feel the way that we feel. So, feeling all the feels is probably a really important thing.

"But the reason I used that title [for the book] was that we've been told all our lives to 'man up' and shut up as in general rule, and that's just not helping us, is it?"

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"What's happening at the moment is that people aren't sharing emotions at all and they're blocking it out completely," Worland continued.

"So they don't cry at school, then they get home and they don't cry at home and that just starts building up ... eventually things start piling on top of each other and then you explode."

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He would like to see a future when instead of a child crying at school being given "a bit of stick about it", they are free to do so.?

Worland wants to see generational change that leads to healthier men of all ages. On his part, he surrounds himself with a supportive village of people who help him manage his mental health.

He would like to see children build their own villages.?

"So if your kid is getting bullied, your kid is getting harassed, if there's an issue in your kid's life, if they can come home and talk to a parent or a coach or a brother or sister or their godfather or whoever it might be, that will allow them not to worry alone," he says.

"It's as simple as that."

Boys Do Cry is out ?on February 11 and is available for preorder now.

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health or suicidal thoughts, visit rightbyyou.org.au, call Lifeline on 131 114 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636.