to call this is sex discrimination at our local Children's Centre?

[learnasyougo]

Our local children's centre runs weekly 'Stay and Play' drop in sessions on a weekday morning. My husband (SAHD) often goes to these with our toddler son. It's mostly mums, but there is another father who goes occasionally, too.

Being a weekday morning I can never go (to spend time with DS and see him interact with other children), as I work full time.

Once a month, on a Saturday morning, the same centre runs a 'Dads' Stay and Play' drop-in, so working fathers can a) have the same sort of experience with their children and b) have somewhere to go to give SAHM a break, presumably. I know not all fathers have Saturdays free, but presumably a shift-working father would be able to make the weekly one from time to time, at least.

So my husband asked when the next one would be because his wife (me) would like to go.

"Oh no. It's men only" was the reply. He said his wife works full time, though "yes, a few people have complained about that" but it was left at that.

This is sex discrimination, right? I qualify in every other way, except for the Y chromosome. I can understand a men-only space if this were some sort of support group or talking therapy and having women about might inhibit men.

I'm really annoyed by it. I'm wondering whether they'd actually turn me away if I turned up. I would love to see him in a social environment, interacting with other children and playing with other sorts of toys we don't have at home, and give DH a break. I was annoyed enough at everything on a Saturday always being a 'dads' whatever, yet the regular, normal event is never described as a 'mums' event - a reverse of the 'men as default' so prevalent elsewhere in society.

So, should I just turn up anyway? Next one isn't until next month.

I think it's a good thing.

Frankly considering how busy you seem to believe yourself you are finding a lot of time to be grumpy on this. One event where dads can go and be welcomed, compared to the 95% of the time most groups are only attended by women. Additionally, why a Saturday? Most working mums I know are four days with Friday being most ideal, this in my area Saturday would therefore mean no one would go. Fine, argue but for gawds sake include a better suggestion.

Tanith, had exactly the same issue just as a parent. Set up groups, had great relationship, council realised we were v popular, moved us about, still can't get numbers on theirs, cut our group entirely. Sour grapes and muppets the lot of them.

IN all my dealings with childrens centres I have come up against ridiculous rules, thoughtlessness and bureaucratic nonsense.

Desperately in need of BF support, which was available at the baby group for under 1s - no older children allowed, so most second+ time parents excluded. BF support group ran 3-4pm on a weekday, meaning no BF support for people with children in school.

Baby clinic that won't weigh my 10 month old because they need different scales for babies that can stand and they don't have them, directed to a CC across the city.

Can't light a candle on a birthday cake for a child due to health and safety.

There are actually no groups I can attend at my local centre, not one, and they run several a week (childminders - I'm not one - Multiples - I don't have them - Under 1s - I have a toddler - BF support - school run time - family learning/learning point stuff - I don't fit criteria as I am not single or under 25 etc etc etc) I have also been excluded at other centres due to postcode and refused entry EVEN when I've been referred over by my local centre because I can't access their services.

The refusing entry thing is awful. In my town there are four centres, one big and three small ones. I am only just in the postcode for the big one. But even if i lived in the next street i would still be able to access most of the services in the large centre, there are only a few groups that are catchment area only due to their popularity. And to be honest i have never seen a parent turned away. If you live in the catchment you can also apply for creche to enable you to have your toddler cared for while you attend baby group, bf support or similar groups.

it is such a shame that some councils provide brilliant services for children but they are so bad elsewhere.

I was turned away from the cc in the street next to my home - I was so excited about signing up and was really upset when they told me I lived in the wrong London borough by one street. I think it's really wrong that other mums were streaming in and using the lovely groups on offer and I was sent away - I lived about 3 minutes walk away.

Mums are vulnerable in those early months and all the people attending that centre were my community and neighbours - how on earth can that make sense ?

They didn't exist when my children were little so I thought I'd missed out but it sounds like there seem to be so many rules that it's debatable if they are worth it at all. I'm sure the people who work in them do their best though.

Waterrat- again this is due to funding cuts. Each borough funds it's own CCs. So as money got tight, they cut services, then started to only focus on each borough's residents.

teacher - If CCs are only focussing on the most disadvantaged, why would it focus on all dads? Surely a lot of dads already play with their children?

Getting dads more involved benefits all children, so in encouraging dads as a group, disadvantaged children will benefit too.

It's a bit like having a young parents group - some mums under 22 will really need support, some will be married/partnered, have a working partner, own their own home. But as a whole, increasing support for young parents improves outcomes for children.

But working mums are excluded from that idea?

What really gets me about the whole thing is the fact that they make the lovely assumption that the poorer you are the more likely you are to be a bad parents plus people who.are partnered or married couldn't possibly need support because...well I don't know why they make that assumption...because if a woman has a man then she's sorted? At my local CC they openly commented that they didn't want my friend to attend a course. All they know about her is that she lives in the postcode with bigger houses and she's married and on the basis of that alone they deemed her not to need their services. Says a lot about British society IMO.

The thing is if you're working, coping, doing ok at this parenting thing then you aren't really within their target group anyway.

It doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to see why dad's need targeted. Many probably only actually have their children at the weekends.

Whole projects are funded, people employed, just for dad's groups. It's not discrimination, it's meeting need.

I am shocked that people actually get turned away from CC's - we have our target groups but I can't imagine we'd ever turn someone away. In the very worst case scenario, if they wanted some kind of support that we were not able to offer we would at least have a conversation with them and try and help them find somewhere that could provide they help they needed.

Caillin - the whole middle class families don't need help thing drives me up the wall too. I was a 29yo married, home owning woman with a good job to go back to when DD was born. It didn't stop me having crushing PND and I would have loved to have had our Centre round the corner back then (DD was 4 by the time it became a CC). Being middle class doesn't immunise families against divorce, redundancy, ill health, bereavement, birth defects, SEN etc.

Also, the 'sharp elbowed middle class mums' that were bringing their toddlers to our Centre 5 years ago (pre ConDems) are now the people giving their time for free as volunteers to help keep services going in the face of massive funding cuts.

Sorry OP - off on a tangent there but it's something that really riles me!

Oh and one friend who does fit their criteria - single parent on benefits - found them patronising and unhelpful. When she mentioned going back to education they "helpfully" provided her with information on mature students sitting gcses. If they'd stopped making assumptions for a second they'd have realised she was planning on doing her second degree. They have the cheek to call her "one of our success stories" despite the fact that she found them so useless she set up her own playgroup (the kne I now help to run) which attracts at least triple the numbers they attract.

Ah absolutely, middle classes have no issues. DV, alcohol, drugs, one parent, racial mixes, young parents, bf/or not, old parents, twins, pnd, only actually occur in those earning under minimum wage.

Our group had people from 18 different countries. But as was parent led they got us out. They were so busy ticking clipboard sheets they didn't notice their groups were crap!

I have no issue with fathers only groups. I do have an issue with the assumption that working fathers are a disadvantaged group, and working mothers are not.

What this is saying is that most fathers don't play with their kids, whereas mothers do. Is that really true?

Yes, it's true that fathers are less likely to be involved with their children than mothers. It's also true that outcomes for children are improved if fathers become more involved.

What really gets me about the whole thing is the fact that they make the lovely assumption that the poorer you are the more likely you are to be a bad parents

I know what you mean, but, IME of CCs [in the early days of them-my children are older now] it was about having access to play facilities and activities that if you are poor you wont have or can't do at home. Things like 'messy play' and giant floor hand and feet painting, If you have very limited funds or live in a tiny flat with no garden those things are not practical.

As I said, my experience of CCs is a few years ago now, when they were first starting up. I remember there was one being set up just around the corner from where I lived on a large council estate that was identified as a deprived area. I signed up for mailshots about upcoming activities. I got a letter about a messy play session that would be starting with a date to come down and book a place. I went at 9am on that date to be told that the places were all full. I said to them that's odd, how can the places be full already, that can't be right? I was the first person in the centre as they opened?

I asked to see the manager/person in charge and he came down and ended up giving me places for my 1 and 4 yr old. When I went along, all of the other families present were MC Mums who lived a few roads away [not on the estate] in the big houses on the expensive rds. A lot of them appeared to know the manager.

Those families were not the families that these things were supposedly being targeted to.

Other Mums I knew from my estate were put on waiting lists, every activity I signed up for had these MC Mums attending.

I know people in other areas that had similar experiences, so I can understand why they make such a thing of targeting particular groups of people.

I know that being MC doesn't exclude you from being isolated or having problems etc, but the centre was opened in my area specifically because lots of the families living there had children with no nursery place [the local school favoured those living out of the estate] living in poor housing.

In those days, there was definitely an abuse of the facilities.

lily - Okay thanks. I knew that women did much more of the actual work of childcare than men. But I thought most men did play with their kids. I was obviously wrong.

They have this at our local one. Only thing that annoys me is that they get a bacon butty while we aren't even offered a cuppa!

In some demographics, there is a need to reassure potential users that the event will be strictly single sex or people won't go.

However, doing man stuff only at the weekends does reinforce the idea that childcare is women's work (pace the poster above who said the opposite). It makes men doing things a weekend exception and makes a song and dance about men needing to be lured there with promises of no overbearing chatty silly women, whereas women just get on with it all week.

(I took dd1 to stay-and-plays when heavily pregnant and with newborn dd2 and I didn't like having too many men around. There were one or two and they always nicked a seat if I a. found one and b. got out of it for two seconds to wipe a nose or something. No mother would ever have pinched a seat from a 41-week pregnant woman limping with spd. Also I am usually a casual and unflappable bf-er but some of them seemed weird about it, although I can do it through an invisible gap. Although the staff there were lovely it was in some ways a bit of a difficult place for the peri-natal and looking back on it I think I was too shy about asking for help with needing chairs with spd and not having anywhere safe to put dd2 for a minute and things like that. Odd oversight.)

"Caillin - the whole middle class families don't need help thing drives me up the wall too. " yep.
But also - take the class thing out of it for a minute. If some in society need more help than others (true enough if you don't say which), then surely it is in everyone's interests that all of the above mix anyway. Everyone, no matter how great a parent you are, needs somewhere for their toddler to play and get out and about with other children before going to school. If you make certain kinds of other help available as part of mainstream events, which everyone is expected to attend, you don't ghetto-ise the "non-coping". Surely that is a good thing? You don't stigmatise anyone, you are offering discreet support and advice to those who need it, and meanwhile normal functional playing and socialising and parenting is taking place in full view of everyone, including maybe some parents who need to see it, who may have not seen it before. The difficulty with why well-off people should be funded to play with their children could be solved through taxation. From each according to their means, to each according to their needs.

Not sure if people aren't reading the whole thread & ignoring the facts.

Sure it would be lovely to have special groups for every parent. That would be amazing, because parenting is hard & everyone needs and deserves support. The fact is- there is not enough funding for that.

At my previous centre- when we had general stay & plays they would be full of lovely middle class Mums. So full in fact- there was no room for anyone else. These are the same parents who were educated & resourced enough to buy and access the help they needed, if they did. Of course some of those Mums might have had other issues- they aren't immune to problems, no one is saying that. But these Mums didn't identify themselves as having those problems.

In the feedback we got from other minority attendees (Fathers, refugees etc...) They said they felt intimidated in this environment.

Funding cuts have meant CC's have had to scale back to the absolute basics of their core function. Target the 'hard to reach' groups. Those that research have shown have the biggest issues with low engagement, attainment or health etc...

For those complaining that the CCs think middle class don't have issues- well that is silly. CC's don't assume that- there is support available for specific issues-single parents, multiple births, mental health, drug addiction etc... Again what is available will depend on how much of the funding has been cut from that centre. Most used to have teams of family support workers that could come & have tea with you after work, but most of those are gone now. Complain to your MP if you think this is unacceptable & fill in the dreaded feedback forms. It is the only way it has a chance to change.

Each CC will be slightly different. As decided by the needs of the borough.
For those still not understanding or complaining that the men's groups get bacon butties or special treatment- the organisers are responding to LOW ENGAGEMENT. Some men have said they need a safe place to learn, meet others Dads, some only get access on weekends. The fact is these men were not attending the general stay & plays. So it makes sense for CCs to try different approaches to increase their access & respond to feedback.

Dad's can obviously go to the general open stay & play to- there they will get the same treatment as Mums. No extras, bacon butties or cups of tea. We used to offer this at our sessions a few years ago, but again since our budget was slashed by about 40% this is a luxury we cannot afford. So again- the priority is one the low engagement, 'hard to reach' groups.

Sorry for the rant- but it frustrates me that CC workers try their hardest to get the right support to those that need it most in the face of huge budget cuts.This sense of entitlement & 'being offended' seems misplaced and unhelpful.

I have no problem at all with dads only sessions. It just saddens me that there are never mums only sessions. There are mums in target groups who won't go to a mixed session. But their needs tend to get ignored.