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.

No I think childbirth temporarily fractures the idea of ‘equality’. No women I know think that dads have nothing to offer on parenting, they just naturally pull together in a sisterly way during and immediately after childbirth. It’s a profound and intense experience that I wouldn’t have wanted to talk about to someone else’s husband.

[quote ParentsandParents]@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[/quote]
Snap!

Yes, IMO, it does feel very gendered and perhaps especially so if you're a woman in the 'dad' camp.

I shared your feeling that it wasn't quite appropriate or comfortable for me to muscle in on the 'mum' talk about cracked nipples etc (though I almost never got the impression other mums felt like this). And the dads didn't seem to want to talk to me at all.

DD is 4.5 and just started school, and it still feels extremely gendered, though it's early days.

I actually really hate feeling as if there's no place for me. But I absolutely get what you mean about feeling there's something weird about the dynamic.

My husband just had 3 months paternity and took our DS to two different playgroups. There were only mums there but they were all really nice and my husband enjoyed being out and chatting with other parents twice a week. It was all mostly centred around the kids so no reason why men and women couldn't both join in the chat.

Hopefully you can find some things to do where it's mixed!

@Rantyrantason I'm not a man though. Quite ironic - you assuming that I'm a man - because I said I have a wife who has had a baby, and am interested in having new parent friends who are men and women, and interested in my son seeing active dads and mums around him as he grows up.

The problem is, you don't get equality in early babyhood. It does not exist. The birthing parent takes on a huge amount of physical and emotional change that the other parent doesn't. That's just biological. And it's natural that given the intimate nature of childbirth and those first few months, women want to talk to other women who are experiencing it. Off the top of my head, in the first few months in our antenatal WhatsApp group, we talked about birth injuries, breastfeeding, sex, piles, urinary incontinence, etc. (and often during night feeds at around 3am). It's an incredibly vulnerable time, and the shared experience aspect is important to many women.

As baby gets older and the body recovers from childbirth and the baby becomes a toddler and less reliant on things like breastfeeding, etc, then things tend to even out more. But those first few months are much more intense for the birthing partner than the other, so you will never find equality from the outset when someone has carried a baby for nine months and given birth. It's just not possible, no matter how hands-on the other parent is or split the parenting is.

After a few months then yes, great to meet new people at baby activity groups, men and women. And your ‘road to equality’ resumes...

YANBU. It’s never made any difference to me whether the people I meet and hang out with at baby and toddler groups are mums or dads. I do think it tends to be female dominated because women are usually the ones on mat leave due to needing recovery time physically, but as a result dads end up finding it difficult to make parent friends and I know plenty feel ostracised and ignored at groups. Unfortunate it reinforces the notion that child rearing is a woman’s domain as by the time (usually) mum returns to work those social groups are quite set and difficult to change.
^ This.

@ParentsandParents YANBU
Yes, after birth sometimes you need to chat about the tough stuff, but there’s opportunities to do that and have more mixing.
I was shocked to find out the social gender split continues as they grow up. I have worked in a male dominated field so just assumed genders mixed socially as we always had, but nooooooo, where we live it’s not acceptable. Very strange and sad.

Experiences of parenthood are driven primarily by whether or not you are the birthing parent.

Apart from a minority of cases, including your own, the non-birthing parent is almost always male and there just isn’t a lot of natural commonality between the experiences of mums and dads, especially in the early months.

I really appreciated the support I got from mums in the early days and would have hated having men around at that time.

[quote ParentsandParents]@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[/quote]
You're right, in that it makes no difference. But you're complaining about a gender split. And it is gendered for a bloody good reason, in that the vast majority of the non birth partners will be men, and my point is as I said.

New parenting is split because of biology, it has nothing to do with your opinions on gender. It is NOT regressive or depressing that women want to talk to other women about an experience that only women can ever go through.
Equality is not gained through forcing your ideas of what should happen on people, and it is not reduced by women seeking out their own safe spaces with other women.

Ah….my complete (wrong!) assumption. Thank you, that will make me reflect in future.

The Stay and Play DS2 and I went to had "Discovery Dads" on Saturday mornings. I think because more dads were free then.

@PegasusReturns

Experiences of parenthood are driven primarily by whether or not you are the birthing parent.

Apart from a minority of cases, including your own, the non-birthing parent is almost always male and there just isn’t a lot of natural commonality between the experiences of mums and dads, especially in the early months.

I really appreciated the support I got from mums in the early days and would have hated having men around at that time.

I did a load of reading about same-sex parents after we had DD, and relatively few lesbians seem to feel experiences of parenthood are driven primarily by whether or not you're the birthing parent. The early days, yes. Later on, no.

I think that's part of the mismatch - it's not just that the OP is a minority in terms of gender, it's that she may be having a minority experience in other ways.

(I don't say this to imply I don't think giving birth and all that goes with it is in any way trivial - it's not - but there is a huge amount of socialisation that goes into forming us as parents, and basically women get the 'mum' socialisation whether they give birth or not).

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 feel it's only going to entrench a situation where in the future men who haven't parented or been included by other parents or developed a network, still wont parent because they don't know how, or feel excluded, or feel no social pressure or expectation to do so. I suppose I was just hoping we were a bit more advanced along the road to equality than we seem to be.
^ And this.

YANBU OP. Parenting is horrifically gendered, especially in the early days and it's one of the things that shocked me and the alienation I felt as a mum who'd given birth probably contributed to my post natal depression. Mum's unfortunately perpetuate these stereotypes as much if not more so than the other partner. I left all the baby groups as I had nothing in common with the other women bar the baby.

It does get better. The simplest thing might be to start a more interest-based group, arrange facilities for babies and children there and advertise it to new parents.

The other big way of meeting people round our way was the NCT List. Wonder if it's still going... a contacts list and groups info sheet with parents, children's names and ages, phone numbers, addresses. It was based around baby meetups in houses, which were a bit birthing mum focused, but the other groups weren't.

I had a really good dad friend at one point- after the kids started at school - but my dh got massively jealous, forbade me to see him (our kids were best friends!) and I got so paranoid I barely did more than exchange a sentence or two for nine years, until after dh died. He and his wife have been probably my most stalwart friends throughout.

[quote ParentsandParents]@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[/quote]
My experience was that life was very “mumsy” in the first six months with dads gradually joining in over the next six… we used a private nursery so after that we didn’t meet families with a sahp and where we live there were almost as many men doing nursery pick up (and now school).

I don’t think you should assume the experience in the early months will say anything for your future socialising.

I think you are mixing issues to be honest.

Its factual that most people at home with new babies are women. It's just a fact.

SPL, hasn't taken off as wished. For many reasons, including that women are choosing not to give up one of the only perks they get as women.

Yes, we need to address men mot parenting equally

That doesn't mean that parenting groups have to be mixed and everyone r has to share experiences even though they are different.

Women who have given birth should be able to meet with other women to discuss these experiences. And most don't want to do it round men and most men wouldn't feel comfortable

Its good that women who have just given birth can find and yalk to women in similar positions. There can also be mixed gender groups

But quite frankly, children will learn more about equal parenting within their home. Not from dad feeling like an equal at aren't toddler groups when they were tiny. We change things by teaching the next generation of kids.

If a mixed sex couple show good healthy shared parenting in the house, that's is teaching the child. The mother could even be a sahp and the couple could still model this

These groups are a choice. Not compulsory. Do you think kids who don't go really suffer?

Parent toddler groups are not the be all and end all and teaching about parenting equality doesn't start and end with these groups.

We have actually talked about birth in a group context but we don't feel vulnerable anymore as our children are late primary. I have noticed one husband walking in this scenario but I actually think he finds it quite boring it's not an awkward thing. When I was have a beer with the two Dads tonight we talked about marriage and long term partnerships what makes them work or not so we don't just do small talk but I do wonder how interested they really are in giving birth, I honestly don't think they are .

@ManifestDestinee Yes but I didn't say the women who have given birth couldn't talk or meet privately with no men present if that's what they want and need, and with no me present too if that's what they want / need. I get this. What I said was a bit depressing was that every parental activity, group and chat (even ones that have been set up explicitly for parents rather than mums, and for things like meeting new friends or swapping used baby stuff) is splitting along gendered lines. I hope it doesn't stay that way for ever, not least because I don't want my son thinking dads can't parent

Sorry that should say the topic of giving birth.

In short OP YANBU. I find the gender/ sex segregation very odd too and I'm very uncomfortable with that dynamic. I've had very good male and very good female friends all my life and I'd be happy talking cracked nipples with some males and some females, and not with other males and other females. I also feel safe with some males and some females and also not safe with other males and other females. I don't think it is - or should be - gender/sex/whatever driven. I also want to make sure my daugther grows up in a fully blended society in which she doesn't run scared of men and sees them as equal partners and friends and not some sort of scary "other". But I digress!
And I'll add that we expect men to understand and be comfortable with talking periods, birth trauma etc but at the same time we don't want to talk to them about it. We want them to parent equally but we don't let them. Etc.

Because the experience of parenting very young children and babies is different when you are the mother. And so mothers usually seek out other mothers. As you admit, you didn’t give birth, breastfeed, you aren’t currently at home with your child. All of these things are massively life changing, and tbh it’s what women bond over. They bond over becoming mothers, not becoming ‘parents’. It changes a lot of when they get older and now friendship groups are more mixed, and chats become more about school, behaviour, their hobbies, and just normal non child related stuff. For now though, you’ll probably have more in common with the dads…You might enjoy a craft ale and a chat about your kid more than watching a load of women breastfeed at baby sensory class!

Many (most?) straight women don't want their male partners developing close friendships with other women and vice versa, because of the percieved risk of infidelitey. Having predominantely same sex social circles is a way to guard against this.

I never felt that 'parenting' was a particularly interesting topic and so continued to maintain and make friends at activity groups, lectures, workshops etc. Groups formed around 'parenting' only want to talk about their babies.

What are you supposed to talk about? Nappies? Crying? It's no surprise many people would rather talk about other things. Chatting with adults should be a pleasant escape from nappy contents, not a chance to share it.

A woman actually collared me once as I had my coat on and was leaving the building to monologue at me about her daughter's sleep habits and husband's failings. I was stood in an open doorway, hand on pushchair, very awkward.