Is it going to be just mums and just dads forever now?

[ParentsandParents]

My wife has just had our first baby and well as splitting the load as much as possible I've been trying to join in with the community of new parents and be an active and equal participant. It's tough though. Partly because all the parenting classes, activities and meet ups are held during the week and I'm working at the moment, though I'll be doing three months of SPL later in the year. And partly because every new parents group, chat or meet up I join seems to either just be the women who've given birth and nobody else, or to quickly split into separate groups, meet ups and chats for 'mums' and 'dads' with the 'mums' often initiating this. Even when the point of meeting up or chatting is nothing to do with being a man or woman, and everything to do with being a new parent and / or meeting new people. It hasn't been like this so far in my life, I've always been in and seen mixed groups at work, in friendships and in activities. Is it unreasonable to have expected that new parents would want to spend time with other new parents, or that men and women could talk about our kids and be friends, or does something about new parenthood send everyone spiraling back to the 50's with the men in the pub talking about craft ale and what football team their kids will support and the women in the park talking about books and feeding? Will this change when our kid(s) are older or is this the way it's always going to be now we have a kid.

You seem to have missed an earlier point that was made. A lot of support women seek from such groups involves discussions of an intimate nature.

There is not a single dad on my school WhatsApp groups who participated in sharing information etc. Just women doing all the mental load work of reminding and remembering all the school related stuff.

@Ghislainedefeligonde

Sometimes women just want to spend time with other women. Esp if feeling vulnerable for any reason which is very common after having a baby. Women are less likely to open up with some bloke sitting there. There are hardly any spaces for just women any more so perhaps that’s why groups split by sex given the opportunity

This. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to meet up with men, flapping my tits around as I fed dd… constantly.

If you want to organise something in couples, I would wait until the babies are a bit older and on solids. The mums will be more receptive by then. Maybe try again next spring. Eg A picnic in the park. Afternoon meet at yours, maybe after the babies have napped etc. There will be people, who will decline due to routines so you’d need to get a consensus on the best time etc.

I'm assuming your baby is quite young.

Ime in the first 6 months, women do tend mostly to prefer the company of other women. Mostly, but not exclusively. This is the period when women are physically recovering from birth, trying to establish breastfeeding and parenting is at its most intensive. And in most couples women do seem to bear most of the load at this time. A lot of the time they're the ones stuck in the house with the baby, being sicked up on, having to whip their boobs out here, there and everywhere to placate a screaming baby and often (especially if breastfeeding) doing most of the night wakings. I was a soggy, tearful sleep-deprived mess at that stage and tbh didn't have a lot of energy to talk to men who were still going to work every day and having a life and getting more than 3 hours sleep in a row. Didn't have anything interesting to say, for a start. It's a vulnerable time for many women.

I don't remember seeing many dads at the groups for very young babies but there were more at the playgroups and sensory classes for older babies (SPL is quite popular around here). I don't really remember them being treated differently... we'd go for coffee afterwards and they'd come along if they could. And we'd chat during the groups...no segregation! I think some of them did feel a bit like fish out of water by virtue of being such a small minority. The way to solve this is for more dads to take SPL and dads generally to be more involved in parenting (and women to encourage this).

It does my head in too, OP, and I’m a woman. IME mixed groups usually have a healthier feel to them, and, if they’re parent and toddler groups, help to avoid that mummy ghetto feeling. I want to see men down in these parenting trenches too! 😆 And yes, the segregation at events drives me mad. The mums tend to talk about kids, which I can only take so much of- I’d like to get right in with the dads and their (to me) far more interesting chat about power tools! Problem is, as a single mum I’m viewed with suspicion if I cross the tracks to Dadsville. I kind of thought I was imagining it until one of the mums outright accused me of sleeping with her husband recently. I’ve barely exchanged two sentences with the bloke 🤬

In the first few months after giving birth I wanted the company of other mothers- early motherhood is a very unique, intense experience.
But I do think it's a shame there wasn't more for dads to get involved with. As my baby got older there were more dads at classes and playgroups etc. I think you might find socialising with other parents easier when your baby a bit older and the initial just given birth phase worn off...

I think it gets better as time goes on, and the babies get older. My NCT group were lovely when I went back to work at 7 months and DH took SPL, they made sure he was invited to the weekly meet-ups, and he also went to various classes where he met other dads.

I’d like my son to grow up in a society where dads are involved in parenting from the beginning. I would also have needed new dads to be happy around chats about infected episiotomy stitches/plugged ducts/dealing with constipation and prolapse, but that’s different to only wanting other women.

I am much closer to the mums in our friendship group but that’s because apart from my husband and one other dad, most of the dads do way less parenting so don’t have a fucking clue about anything and are consequently difficult to respect.

Im not really sure what you are trying to join in with? Normally the woman takes mat leave (men can't breastfeed so shared leave doesn't always work, didn't in our case) so you are more likely to see a mum at a baby group. Id be more likely to strike up a conversation with a woman as she's experiencing what I am. Socialising without the baby you are going to have 1 or the other parents there as the other is looking after the baby so dad's or mum's night out (eg at school). The precious time you have as a family we certainly either want to do things together as a family or we are off visiting family or friends (that we had pre children). People I meet through baby activities tend to just be mum friends not real friends, you soon realise you have nothing in common except having a baby around the same time. My husband has never made any dad friends through having kids, he's never wanted or needed to and 2 of our children are now school age. I don't think it's generally something men seek out, the dad's in my children's classes at school certainly don't.

A lot of people have more friends of their own sex, that’s not unusual. Most of these things are existing friendship groups and it’s hard to break into those groups whatever sex you are! As others have mentioned maybe set up your own new group, get a new mix of people attending. Maybe something in the evening for couples?

@SpindleWhorl

Why don't you organise something you would want, and see if you get any takers?

This.

Society has left us in a position where groups for parents are de facto groups for women, and OP is likely to have more success setting up a dad's group than he has destroying the patriarchy overnight.

Yes I get why some women would want to talk to other people who had gone through the very unique physical experience of having a baby and feeding one. Especially in the few months after birth. But the experience of parenting a young child isn't unique to women, or it shouldn't be. And I just find it a bit depressing that parents are splitting along these lines and that some of the splitting is being instigated by women

The experience of birth is unique to women. The experience of breastfeeding is unique to women, the experience of maternity leave is unique to women.

Women are allowed to want to talk to other women, without random men horning their way in, it's not a 50's stereotype and they don't want to consider your feelings. Sometimes single sex spaces are warranted, and this is one of them.

Mums go to toddler mornings in church halls and rhythm and rhyme at the library and dads do Saturday afternoon at the park. Thems the rules

It sounds like a lot of the other men don't join in unless their female partners facilitate it.

I think women just tend to be friends with women, like men tend to be friends with men. Obviously not exclusively, but that's the trend. Becoming parents doesn't change who you gravitate towards to be friends with, really. You don't want to be friends with people you wouldn't normally have chosen just because they are parents (well I don't).

Being friendly in classes is different –obviously everyone should be friendly and inclusive to each other. But outside of classes, I think people just follow their natural friendship patterns. Forced groups never really work, IME, and some people just don't want to be part of couple groups in the first place.

I remember this very much being the case when my 2yo was tiny, but now she's a toddler I find there's a more even split. It can be quite mum-centric in the first 9 months or so when mums are more likely to be home. But it doesn't, in my experience, last forever.

My partner did also take SPL but because I was breastfeeding he never took our daughter far from me/to activities, whereas I was always out with her. Now we're both on 4 days a week, we each have days with her and it seems that a lot of other couples are doing the same - there are lots of dads at various stay and play type things we go to (and men organising too), and always men I know to chat to in the park. My partner often does playdates with other dads, but he'll meet my mum friends too, and I'm the same - will often get together with toddlers we know and whichever available parents. I suppose at the age they are now, the goal is more about keeping the kids engaged and socialising rather than it being about a load of ladies getting together to pass an hour or two with the inert potato-babies.

So, I'm saying it may well even out. That's probably no help to you now, and maybe it's because I live in a lefty young-family type area, but I did feel there was a stark 'mums over here, dads over there' divide which was established in NCT, but which has been more surmountable than I'd worried it would be.

At first new mums need quite a lot of support with stuff that's female specific, which they probably wouldn't be comfortable discussing with a man. As kids get older though that pretty much disappears, and IME it's perfectly normal for dads to get just as involved as mums in kids parties/school admin etc, if they are sharing the load 50/50 or have the bulk of those kind of responsibilities. Actually making friends is trickier though, if that's your aim. It's not impossible however, you just need to put yourself out there, invite other parents and their kids to meet you at the park etc. It's like anything really, women may gravitate towards other women and men to men because of shared interests, but it doesn't HAVE to be like this and often isn't. One of the dad's at my DS's preschool was a SAHP and he made friends with lots of the other parents (yes mostly mum's because as has been mentioned, it's usually the mum's who stay at home or work part time). I get the impression he worked quite hard at that though, he was often the organiser, which was maybe necessarily as one of the only men. If you're working full time it's that bit harder too, but that's the sake for women and men.

I'll be blunt. You probably won't agree.

The purposes of these groups is mutual support. The experiences of the new mothers are very different from the experiences of the new fathers - considerably more visceral. The needs of the mother are therefore very different from the needs of the fathers. The vulnerability of the mothers is much greater than the vulnerability of the fathers. In mixed groups, men tend to 'lead' and do most of the talking - blame their socialisation. This works against the needs of the mothers.

For example - you are getting frustrated because people aren't doing what you want them to do. Now imagine wanting a quiet chat to share experiences with someone who has experience similar to you, but half of the room is talking over you.

That's why things are the way they are. No amount of good intentions can counter the lifelong socialisation of the rest of the room. You need to accept that there are occasions that you are not just superfluous, but actually counterproductive.

@Verbena87. I agree with you on the 'difficult to respect' point. Many men get away with being fairly lazy uninvolved parents. I still remember the dad who dropped off his DC for the first day of the nursery term and was therefore added to the parent group WhatsApp. Within a few days, he'd messaged to add his wife and had removed himself since he'd only been dropping his DC off as a 'favour' to her as she had a medical appointment . They both worked full time.

OP, it's great to hear you want to be an involved and equal parent and do your share. So many men seem happy to treat their partners as the default parent and the children as 'their' responsibility and then wonder why their relationships suffer.

All of my groups have men and it hasn’t been split, our parenting groups tend to be that - parenting. I go to a mother’s meeting group and my husband goes to a dads activity group.
The only one where it has been a bit split was a breastfeeding group I accidentally went to, along with three dads. Not well advertised as BF only but I don’t blame them for splitting that one 😂

@ManifestDestinee I'm a woman, in a same sex relationship, with another woman who is the one who gave birth to our baby. It's entirely irrelevant to this conversation whether I'm a man or a woman. I wasn't talking about me, as a woman (or a man) wanting to force myself into groups of women talking about discharge and cracked nipples, or groups of men talking about ale and power tools. I was just expressing 1. my general shock and disappointment at how bloody gendered new parenting seems to be, 2. my worry about what this is going to mean for future friendship groups and 3. my worry that new parenting being so gendered is going to fuck over women and men who want equality

I think at the baby stage, this is generally the case for all the reasons mentioned above but about 2 hours ago I returned from a park cafe where I had a bottle of beer and went with DD's friend's Dads so two Dads and me the Mum. Unlike a PP I find our class WhatsApp has almost equal contributions to it regarding school issues. I think it depends where you live, my area is not conservative and it is not a huge deal. That said, I wouldn't talk about childbirth with them unless they brought it up but we are past that now so it probably wouldn't come up. We do to about relationships, the children, their feelings, our older selves compared to our younger selves.

“But the experience of parenting a young child isn't unique to women, or it shouldn't be. And I just find it a bit depressing that parents are splitting along these lines and that some of the splitting is being instigated by women“

I appreciate your intent but the split is predominantly caused by our patriarchal society, which you, as a man, are attributing to the women you have interacted with. Quite ironic…..wommin should change and accept me as I am fully accepting of equality.

I quickly came to the conclusion that I had nothing in common with the other mums at the baby group (and yes, in this case they were all women) apart from the fact that we had all had babies around the same time. IMO it's better to find friends in groups for people who have the same interests as you.

@WhereYouLeftIt
Nailed it. Especially the part about males being counterproductive. I’ll be interested to see what op has to say about your comment. He’s making all the right noises. But is struggling to see things from a woman’s perspective.