AIBU? School "Dads Only" evening.

[Thomlin]

AIBU? School "Dads Only" evening.

Yesterday I had some time off work so picked my daughter up from school for the first time this year. I'm a single mum with a useless Ex, so all holidays are usually kept to cover school hols and sick days etc. I have a demanding professional job as an engineer (relevant later!).

She came running out with a letter in her hand half excited/ half worried and said I had to phone dad asap because the school was having a "Dads Only Movie Night" between 6-8pm that night. So of course I call him and he can't make it, has other plans. She's obviously gutted as says she'll be the only one in her class missing out but I said not to worry we will find someone who can go with you and if not I'll take you.

I call my brother but he is working night shift that night so can't attend. My boyfriend of two years is working and wasn't due to come over last night but said he could get there for 6.30pm if needed. I then receive a text from school at 3.50pm saying "All children attending movie night tonight must be accompanied by a MALE ADULT OVER 16 YEARS OF AGE. Thank you". So realise actually I clearly can't go and text my partner saying please can he come.

So they go and have a great night but a few things about the whole event and what my partners said after are annoying me.

• After the movie the kids were sent for food and the Dads had to brainstorm around boards what they or the school could do to be more involved with the school. Great I'm all for this, but I have a few ideas too and would love to be involved in a brainstorm like this! I don't think this is exclusively a Dads thing, I think its a working parents thing. If they did more events between 6pm-8pm I could attend, but they never do so I can't!
• All the dads were asked if anything they did at work could be utilised to help the school, so everyone was asked if they had a trade could they help out? Do the school think only Dads are capable of having trades? My dad is a decorator and I spent every weekend working with him as a teen, I still do homers for people now in my spare time and am highly recommend, but the school seem to only be interested in Dads with trades.
• It kind of annoys me that in this day and age, the school are still perpetuating that Dads still need to be babied into being involved with their own children. Believe me I've been trying to get her Dad to take notice for 8 years, do the school think a movie night is going to fix what I've been unable to for all that time? Also, if he did go, does it not just perpetuate the whole "Disney Dad" thing.. I'm the one who does the homework, the washing, the cooking, the dentists appointments, and he gets to swoop in every second weekend and take her out for treats and now school movie nights and fun events too! (The letter said not to worry if you couldn't make it, they'd be planning more in future).

Anyway... I don't suppose I have verbalised this very well because I can actually understand their point behind it. At the school run there was of course loads of mums and grans there and not as many dads, so they obviously think they need to do something but I'm just not sure this is very fair and bordering a bit on sexism. Would love to hear your thoughts and what (if anything!) you'd advise me to do? My DP said one mum did turn up, I actually wish I had now!

This would really upset DS2 as his dad died when he was a baby. So he'd have seen it as missing out twice - once because he doesn't have a dad and second because he wouldn't be able to go to the event.

He has no male relatives old enough (both grandfathers dead and DS1 is 14). I may be able to get a male friend to go but almost certainly not at such short notice.

Tbh I'd probably have taken him myself. Why should he miss out just because he doesn't have a dad? It's not his fault.

I get annoyed with things like this because the children should not suffer due to the fact one parent is deceased or just a useless irresponsible shit.

If it was my kid I would take them, and if challenged say I am non binary and today identify as male.

Have to say, Em, I didn't feel very legendary, shivering on the sidelines. And the rugby club culture, unfortunately, is mostly very father-dependent which I didn't think was healthy for DS1. The amount of times I tried to subtly encourage him to give it up... "Oooh, look at this flyer, a basketball club in a nice warm gym!"

I do sympathise- i was the child of a single parent at a time when it was rare (think a year of 9 classes and we were the only single parent family) - i would probably have hated this (we didn't even have the grandparents/ brothers/male partners options)- that said i also felt really uncomfortable in a lot of the events where people traditionally had two parents attend ( i thought my mum would be uncomfortable). at DS's school now I am concerned when they have events for parents which exclude children - for example they have mornings where parents come in to join in a class - it is heartbreaking to see some children not have parents there (for whatever reason) - it would be easy to resolve by for example having 1/2 the class do it one day and 1/2 the next then the children without parents there wouldn't be the minority. I really don't agree on children being discriminated against because of their parents lack of involvement/behaviour etc

BUT as a PTA treasurer/committee member - it is really hard to get dads involved and it is not as simple as the fact they are working. We have more working mums involved than dads ( so in my case I am the full time wohparent DP is the SAHP and does most of school things and I still do the PTA stuff) - there is a lot of tradition and also because the majority of parents involved are women it just doesn't attract men- we have women with professional skills using their skills for the schools benefit but not the men (other than on any BBQ at any school event bizarrely). so I understand what they are trying to do. we have been trying to think of ways to get dads involved - mainly because we need to get more volunteers of any kind and this way we are losing potential recruits. In your case I think they were fine to try and get the dads together but not fine to exclude children who couldn't do this (they could have allowed children to go with someone elses dad for example)

it's a great idea, too few dads get involved with school events.
It's usually the mothers who are actively involved.

There will be times when you can't/ your child can't be involved in something at school I'd be preparing her for that. There were plenty that mine missed out on because one of us wasn't available, they can't go to everything.

YANBU Our school would never do this.

Are they actually allowed to do this under the Equality Act? Is it not just discrimination?

oh, don't be daft. Do you actually know what the EA says?

I get what people are saying that it's not the 'dads only' side that bothers them, it's the 'dads only with DC', which I admit to not properly picking up on. I wonder if the school thought they'd get more dads turning up if they laid on a movie night for the kids as well - harnessing pester power.

I am sure they did. But I doubt they thought through the emotional fall out for some kids.

It's not about thinking the children should go to everything @RomanyRoots
If you read the thread this will have been addressed already

I am sure they do think about the emotional impact on the children and of course there is a way to handle things delicately.

But given some children in schools will be in care, some will have shit parents who don’t care at all then by the logic of some parents should never be involved in school activities.

From the OP herself it didn’t need to be the biological father anyway.

YANBU.

My school would never do this. I teach LaC and children who have lost parents. We do everything we can to completely avoid things like this, that would see children hurt or upset.

Where do you stop with all this bloody namby pamby stuff, it's gone mad.
When our kids were little, you went if you could and didn't if you couldn't.
Wtf are we talking about emotional fall out? No wonder kids are bloody soft these days, it's the parents.

I remember a boy in one of my ds classes who sadly lost his Dad, he was RN. As you can imagine there were lots of things that reminded him his Dad wouldn't be there to experience.
He got on with it, people made allowances and supported him if he needed it. The whole school didn't stop anything to do with Dads because of this.
Still dads races at sports day, dads stall at the fair, dad's tug of war etc.

I think the dads only event is a great idea for those children whose dads are actually involved in their lives. But what about the children's dads whom don't? It's a tricky situation and could be upsetting for children with absentee dads.

I do however completely object to the school asking what trades the dads could bring to the school. Um, what about mothers? We have skills too!

Me and my husband really try not to present any stereotypes consciously but it doesn't help when schools are doing this instead.

Our children should be taught that there are no gender defined roles and we really need to move away from the whole Disney husband / father / step mother roles.

There will be lots of Dads who couldn't make this time due to work, my dh would have been one.

I do think it's wrong they gave no notice, why expect people to be available on the same day. I've never known a school do this, you usually get at least a couple of weeks notice.

I think the idea of getting male parents together sounds fine and actually sounds like it has been particularly helpful to the school however my issue is the fact the movie was attached.

I am a Lp . My Ds hasn’t seen his dad since he was 3 and already feels like he misses out on something . This would be awful for him .

We had a bring your dad to nursery day . I took my Ds out for the day as it was too raw for him to sit through a morning full of Dad’s.

It isn’t about my feelings it’s about how the children feel.

Nope. I am in my late 50's and lost my dad as a kid. Yes there were dad's races; but no there were never events for kids that I could not go to.

Of course kids with shit dads, or no dad will be reminded of this all the time. That part is life. Organising an event that is fun for kids but setting it up so some kids are totally unable to attend is a shit thing to do.

And the school I worked in in the 90's that was not at all enlightened, would NEVER have done this.

I do think whilst it’s good to try and get more engagement from a group, the school are on dodgy ground making it exclusively for Dads. My son would have been really upset, when he was at primary school he had no male role models.

I don’t get the reference to a black history month or culture day. Those things are great, everyone can learn and get involved.

Somer
Lol Good for you though

surely the analogy to black history month would be like putting on a film event that only people of a particular race could attend i.e. a white family would be refused entry. i don't think that would be quite on, so i don't see why banishing children who have no available, able or caring male relative serves any productive purpose at all. it just causes upset.

I don’t think many of the dads at my children’s school would’ve able to make a 6pm school thing apart from those that have hours that fit around school already. I certainly couldn’t ring dh at 3:15 to get him back from work for 6pm same day or even a couple of days notice. Parents evening is a mad rush when the times come out for the appointments after 6pm parents stay up till midnight to get on the system first to grab them.

It’s a nice idea but certainly needed better planning.

My son has two mums, no dad. He doesn’t miss out and has never once get like he misses out due to not having a dad. But this would make him feel exactly that. I’d be furious.

OH attends mainly parents evening because it's the only event in the evening. He takes half a day off for Xmas play whenever possible and last year did sports day too. All events are in the morning. He can't attend any of them,but neither can I as I also work. If anything is at the weekend or in the evening we're both there.

If dads don't attend events because they can't be arsed , it's not up to the school to "solve" that. It also doesn't suddenly make them less of a dick because they attended one movie night a year.

The way I see it it's not necessarily an issue they made it dads only,the main issue is that there isn't an alternative late event for mums/other carers too. Dads aren't the only ones at work during school hours.

I can see their idea and I don't know where I stand on this. On one hand it's a good way to get dads involved wirh the school where there wouldn't be normally, but it excludes children with no father figure in their lives.
I also can't see there being a "mum's only" night. I suspect there are more children with absent fathers than absent mothers, so I can't imagine a mother's night where there would maybe be one child in the year excluded. So I'm not sure it should be allowed.