One of the first things I noticed when we embarked on this great adventure was just how tailed to Mum everything seemed to be.
I get it, they’re likely to be the ones doing the majority of the caregiving, but still, as a hands-on dad I couldn’t help but feel a little…pushed out by things. Nothing massive for sure, but little things like how a good chunk of the online resources are written as if Mum is reading exclusively. Or how pretty much every baby group in my area is advertised as a Mum and Baby group. It’s far from the end of the world, but it can be pretty intimidating and unwelcoming to a new Dad.
I knew I was excluded and was generally okay with it… Until the kid was about four months old. Family went out to dinner. We were having a good time, baby needed changing, I grabbed him and MY diaper bag (yes, I had my own). I went to the restroom and discovered the only changing table was in the women’s room.
I knocked, said hello, and went in. The only woman (teenager? College student? Younger than me, at least) who came in while I was changing the baby was polite and even offered her help.
But this US chain restaurant didn’t even consider the possibility that someone other than a woman would change a baby. Come on.
Same thing happened to me in a German restaurant. I had to change my son in The ladies’ restroom. To be fair, none of the women didn’t mind me there, which was a relief.
Mother and baby groups were definitely a gripe for me. I’m a part time worker who has 2 days a week on dad duty, and trying to find things to fill these days was a challenge. Almost every group (and certainly all the free/cheap ones) were explicitly mum socials which I wouldn’t have felt comfortable gatecrashing. The groups I did find, which weren’t explicitly “mum” groups, were still entirely mums other than me, so that took some getting used to (and some iffy looks).
Nursery was a bit of a pain for a while too; they’d basically never talk to me. I remember once when my lad got ill at nursery, and they tried to call mum but couldn’t get through as she was driving a long way away for work. I was working from home that day 10 minutes from the nursery, but they never bothered to call me. I was furious when I went to pick him up at the end of the day and they said “we’ve been trying to call mum but we can’t get through”. Like, you’ve got my number, what do you think it’s for?
Hope they brought themselves into the 21st century after that.
The only one that really got me was the mother and baby groups. Most of them didn’t have enough information on the posters to know if it was mothers only, or if it was just badly named.
As it turned out, they tended to clash with existing baby groups that I went to, so it wasn’t a massive problem.
I do drop offs to preschool for my daughter. For the first few weeks it definitely felt like teachers were used to most Dad’s being in and out for drop-offs/pick ups.
So when I’d ask how my kid’s previous days went or upcoming activities those first few days they looked taken aback.
Play dates are mostly moms so figuring out how to socialize with other moms without being a wallflower was a challenge to me.
I still have my wife do babysitter coordination, to avoid me having to get the numbers of a bunch of teenage girls and texting them.
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Your efforts benefit us all, fathers, mothers, non-parents
And nonbinary parents. Don’t ostracize the nonbinary parents
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I hear you, and felt it too. And then feminism called and said that’s basicaly what it feels like to be a woman, always.
Look, I see the point you’re making, and it’s technically probably true. However, it’s never appropriate to dismiss somebody’s pain, injustice, or exclusion with this type of whataboutism.
I promise our hearts are strong enough to sympathize with multiple problems in the world simultaneously.
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*Apart from the mother and baby groups, which we are talking about right here.
This affects women too. If men don’t feel welcome it just puts more pressure on mums to be the one out of work on parental leave, to be the one who does school collections, baby changes at restaurants, etc…
I say this as a dad who has experienced all of the above. I do 90% of the school and nursery collections and drop-offs and will never be part of the mum group at the gates. My wife goes once a week and still knows everyone there better than me.
It doesn’t bother me personally, but i do think my kids end up missing out as a result. Whether it’s a group they don’t go to as a baby because it’s mums only, or activities at the weekend because I’m not in the right WhatsApp group.
However, my wife’s career is important, and my job has flexible working hours, so that’s the situation we are in. It’s not fair that we have to consider what’s best for her vs what’s best for her children.
Oh cool! Translating large systemic issues into an individual’s situation, where they are just trying to be an effective parent. Compelling stuff!
