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.

YANBU. Mummy groups are grim. Can I come to your mixed one instead, OP? Also confused about everyone saying they are mainly friends with people of the same sex - absolutely not the case for me or my husband, how weird?

I agree with you, it's a problem. Our antenatal group had an older retired guy with a younger working wife, and he was always included though.

I was more than happy to include him in everything so I say get stuck in and ignore gender boundaries if you can. He did and it was fine albeit maybe not without some effort on his part.

@mathanxiety

Even though you're a woman, you're not one who has gone through what the mothers have.

I couldn't chat with my sister in any meaningful way about pregnancy or recovery from childbirth until she has her first baby. I have friends who were adopted as babies who found it hard to talk to their adoptive mothers about pregnancy issues.

I couldn't chat in any meaningful way about recovery from a C section either, if I found myself in a roomful of women who had experienced that.

Nor would I have much to say or learn from a roomful of women doing formula feeding, cloth nappies, etc.

I’m sure you probably didn’t mean it this way @mathanxiety and loads of people on this thread have used this form of words too. But it’s a bit upsetting when people say things like “even though you’re a woman, you’re not one who has gone through what the mothers have”. You refer to the women who have given birth as ‘the mothers’, and define me as a woman who hasn’t gone through what ‘the mothers’ have. This reads as you saying that I’m not a mother and never will be and that lesbians and bi woman whose partners have given birth (and from the sounds of it adoptive mothers too), aren’t or can’t be real mothers because they didn’t give birth. I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way, but the drip drip drip of hearing little things like this as a gay woman add up to what feels like homophobia.

@ParishSpinster

I've just read beyond page 1 and have seen you are a woman *@ParentsandParents*.

Your OP genuinely comes across as a disgruntled man.

You being the other mother does change things in terms of whether you'd be more welcome in the early days groups. If you are more annoyed at not being able to join in the group's that operate because you are work, then you will just have to suck that up. When you are on Parental Leave then join the group's.

And still no, not all groups split into mums OR dads. Just get to know people. You do come across here as rather forceful and keen to be seen as an injured party.

@ParishSpinster apologies, I’ll try to write less forcefully and more like a woman should write next time

It sounds very retro, but I do think there is a purely biological dimension to new motherhood. Unless and until you have laboured, and fed your child (or not), endured the shrieking nipples and recovered a vagina, and come out the other side, there is f*ck all equality of input for the first few months of parenthood. Fathers can be awesome, and will have their chance to prove themselves for 20 years, but their job in the first six months is to help the mother of their child rejoin life.

Swimming is a good weekend activity

@XingMing

It sounds very retro, but I do think there is a purely biological dimension to new motherhood. Unless and until you have laboured, and fed your child (or not), endured the shrieking nipples and recovered a vagina, and come out the other side, there is f*ck all equality of input for the first few months of parenthood. Fathers can be awesome, and will have their chance to prove themselves for 20 years, but their job in the first six months is to help the mother of their child rejoin life.

@XingMing where do lesbians / bi women / adoptive mothers who didn’t give birth fit into this? Are we not mothers?

And, having read the last couple of posts (because I didn't read them before, sorry) I'd have to amend my post to say the female giving birth. The non-child bearing partner has a supportive role. In a lesbian relationship, presumably (IDK) you take turns. So, you each have a child to complete a 2 + 2 family, and you both know both sides of the story?

I had my first child 8 years ago and have made one new friend in that time lol.

The thing is when you meet up as a group that only have your kids in common, they do end up being talked about a lot as you don't really know what else to talk about until you get to know people a bit better, which is hard to do in a group.

I don't really have anything helpful to say

I'm not making a judgement, but being more used to hetero convention, I ask in all innocence.

@McNuggetsAndMcFlurries

My boyfriend came to a breastfeeding support group with me without issue and we're going to a music class tomorrow 🤷‍♀️

Ffs. So tone deaf. The poor women in that group.

I think thats sad and not what I experienced myself as a young mum. I remember sitting with a mixture of mums and dads at all the baby groups and toddler clubs. I became good friends with 2 of the dads as they were the ones I saw the most at the school gates. I think if you get involved in the life of the children and are present at things like school activities and drop offs to clubs, school etc it wont matter if you are male or female. This was my experience but that was in 1989 when I had my first child. My DC dad wasnt a hands on parent so didnt get involved, which was his choice, I dont think he did one school run, or after club drop off with them. If you get involved and are a present parent, you will be naturally included unless things have changed since te 80s and not for the better

I have absolutely no interest in baby groups so my husband took our baby. He found the opposite problem and if anything, he would be mobbed and treated like a novelty. He had mums flirting with him, fussing over him, inviting him out, all sorts. He laughed about it, as did I. But it was a bit of a nightmare.

We had some dads at our groups and it didn't split into male/female. But tbh I didn't expect a lot from my parent-and-toddler or baby rhyme time classes in terms of challenging stereotypes or providing different types of role models to my DC. I have that in my family and my friendship groups which are mixed sex and include very hands-on and involved dads.
ime there can be a lot of sexism and tweeness around maternity and early childhood groups. I think it does get better once the DCs start attending activities and classes.

@XingMing

And, having read the last couple of posts (because I didn't read them before, sorry) I'd have to amend my post to say the female giving birth. The non-child bearing partner has a supportive role. In a lesbian relationship, presumably (IDK) you take turns. So, you each have a child to complete a 2 + 2 family, and you both know both sides of the story?

I may be able to have our second kid, I may not because of some health issues that could make carrying a baby and staying healthy impossible for me. If I can’t, my wife might carry our next baby, assuming she can again, and we might use my egg, assuming that works. What does that make me @XingMing still not a proper mother? There is another gay woman posting on here whose partner had their baby because she has a history of pregnancy loss. If she not a mother to the child she has raised?

Oh. I hadn’t RTFT. I went off the first few commenters’ posts. Oh well, my anecdote still stands.

This has been so interesting. For me, when I had a baby it was the first time I had been involved in women-only groups and I really needed it after the trauma of birth, breast-feeding etc. In my group you would definitely have been welcomed with open arms as another woman with a new baby but I don't think dads would have been welcome at all. it all changed as the babies got older and now I am in the position of going to support groups for parents of teenagers with mental health problems it is much more evenly split between mums and dads. It's a wild ride.

Trust me, of you are a new mother, struggling with breast feeding, having given birth, possibly had a C-section and dealing with hormones etc, you will most likely want to discuss this with other mums as much of what is discussed is fairly personal. And because women tend to be the ones who give birth, most have time off after the birth to recover and breastfeed. What new mothers certainly don't have the for in-between changing breast, maternity pads, dressings and nappies, is to organise activities and days out for men!! So, if you actually want to have more interaction with others, including men, organise your own events instead of blaming it on society, or rather, women. And if you had wanted to chat to other couples, then why didn't you sign up to an NCT group and attend a course with other couples prior to having your baby?

@ParentsandParents, I wish you all the luck in the world for a happy, healthy successful pregnancy, a lovely baby, and a very happy life with your family. Which is all anyone wants, surely?

@SarahAndQuack
I don’t consider what I said a micro aggression. I’m disabled. I get a lot of shit coming my way so I get it hurts but I sure as hell don’t go looking for reasons to be upset.

I was speaking about the postpartum women, ie the mums on maternity leave. I had no intention of excluding op. Had I said “the mums, who gave birth / the postpartum mums are still on maternity leave”, it would have sounded clunky and unnecessary.

Op is a mum who didn’t give birth and therefore cannot be one of the mums on maternity leave. She doesn’t share that experience. It is not ignoring her status as mum to exclude her from a the description of a grouping of postpartum mums. She will be a mum and partner taking SPL when her dp returns to work. Perhaps another time she will be a mum on mat leave and her dp will be the one working.

A lot of women just feel more comfortable with other women in these settings. I know I do.

It really is as simple as that.

There's nothing "depressing" about it.

@Hugoslavia

Trust me, of you are a new mother, struggling with breast feeding, having given birth, possibly had a C-section and dealing with hormones etc, you will most likely want to discuss this with other mums as much of what is discussed is fairly personal. And because women tend to be the ones who give birth, most have time off after the birth to recover and breastfeed. What new mothers certainly don't have the for in-between changing breast, maternity pads, dressings and nappies, is to organise activities and days out for men!! So, if you actually want to have more interaction with others, including men, organise your own events instead of blaming it on society, or rather, women. And if you had wanted to chat to other couples, then why didn't you sign up to an NCT group and attend a course with other couples prior to having your baby?

@Hugoslavia I am in an NCT group and I literally have also organised a group specifically for new parents. I’m one of the admins and I’ve helped organise meet ups in the week and at weekends and taken days off to attend week day meet ups. What prompted me to write this post (asking parents of older kids if things stayed so gender segregated when kids got older) was a woman in that group (who I know is also in other women only groups because she is in one with my wife and yes they should exist and I’m glad they do) suggesting organising a dads group for all the lonely dads to go to the pub. As though these dads couldn’t be friends with women, or make friends with other men in the presence of women.

@ParentsandParents, without offering any judgement at all, I would say that it has been valuable to have had two lots of input and both sexes/genders contributing to rearing our one child. Our child is male but in a relationship with a non binary person.

Really interesting thread @ParentsandParents. I have a 5 month old and an almost 3 year old and from my experience the DH's tend to appear around age 2 once the kids are a bit more 'fun' I go to a few parents and toddler groups with dads and they don't stick out. We've all stopped talking about foofs/boobs by then and it's more about general parenting - potty training, tantrums etc. Just wait it out for a bit. I also have a few dads that I chat to at nursery pick up so I assume it only gets better with school age etc.
We also do a lot as a family with other mums and dads but these were our existing friends who now have kids.

I'm confused - do you want to act in the role of Mum or Dad ?