Free bacon butties for the dads - wtf!!

[PlumPudd]

Someone posted this to a community WhatsApp group near me. What the hell?!? I thought it was a joke but apparently it’s a national initiative and happens in playgroups and churches all over the country!!

Free bacon butties for dads to incentivise aka bribe them into spending some of the weekend playing with their own kids!

Firstly, why should they be rewarded / bribed with bacon butties. It’s basic 101 parenting - looking after your own child who you helped to create at the weekend - nobody is giving mums anything to get them to spend the rest of the weekend with the kids.

Secondly, bacon butties for blokes?!?!? What sexist nonsense is this, is bacon too manly for women to handle? Is it the Yorkie bar of sandwich fillings. I bet if they were going to bribe / incentivise mums they wouldn’t give them bacon, they’d give them fondant fancies or face masks or something.

Lighthearted rant over… I know it’s good to encourage equal parenting etc but talk about setting a low bar

Exactly this. They are intimidating for most men (whether they should be or not) and let’s be honest the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.

Do you mean 'indemnify'?

Why is this sort of thing always bacon sandwiches? Such a cliche. Bacon is so bleughh. (Prob missing the point)

I really want a free bacon sandwich, but don’t have any children. I feel discriminated against.

Said the exact same when I came across this with my first in 2015 😄I'd rather like a bacon butty!

I don't know, every other parent & toddler group is clearly aimed towards mums and that's weekly. I don't have an issue with a group aimed towards dads.

In my daughter’s primary the mothers day had a rock cake per mum yet the Father’s Day event had a bacon butty.

Briefly identify as a dad

I help to arrange community events as part of my job and you need a wide range of incentives to appeal different groups of people. (Which feels a bit like I'm stating the obvious).

Sometimes it's ok to think 'Maybe this group isn't aimed at me' and move on with your day.

Haha. You must be local to me

I know the place and yes why do dads get bacon butties

Blondes loves bacon butties 😂😂

Apart from the assumption that every man MUST be a meat eater, I cant see why it's so awful. And I suspect that the idea has come from women, many of whom struggle to get their husbands to think of anything but me, me, me at the weekends, and want to head off to the gym or gold course alone. That's the part I find offensive - that men have to be persuaded to look after their own kids on their days off.

Whilst some playgroups and pre-school activities are just renting the hall, there are plenty of churches that do run their own playgroup. (Those will vary; some are very evangelistic, some might have a Bible-based story or craft activity, and some might do no more than invite you to other church activities.)

Tell me this is not true? No fucking way!!

But what's the incentive for groups aimed at women? Nothing round here, you just are expected to drink in the joy from watching your cherub play in a musty hall it seems.

This was happening 14 years ago. Bacon for the boys once a month on saturdays (but it was cooked by the men as no women were allowed). However they fed me toast every week. And made me tea. I loved them. (Children's centre in the hey day of Sure Start centres. No religion)

There are community playgroups that hire church halls.
And there are groups run by church volunteers....and they vary in their evangelism.
Some are more aligned with community and some are more religious.
Many churches have full and part-time paid employees to run these groups and their outreach programmes.

In many cases its genuine outreach/charity in accordance with their religious values, one of our local mosques does similar community work especially with older people of all faiths.

But the group I went to was part of a specifically evangelical church. With multiple paid staff, community cafes, multiple play groups. Each week their would be a bible story associated with the craft activity, and religious singing, which I don't object to as they were genuinely really helpful and supportive.

They ran parenting courses, with a free creche....which were great, but the course book contained a bible references on every page and every session ended with prayer.

But they also ran, and invited mums to monthly evening dinner social events....which had a much stronger evangelical element, and would then repeatedly invite you to church.

Yabu.

Groups etc can be hard for dad's to access, some just need a gentle push in the right direction, a lot of men have been raised in homes with no male figure around to teach them how to dad. The men that.go to these groups aren't going solely for a free bacon butty, they're going because they want to do better and recognise that these groups are beneficial to them and their child......they were around 25 years ago when my own dc were small and seeing the few, single parent dads who tried and gave up with predominantly female playgroups and how they and their dc wouldn't be included I can see them as a good thing to have.

Not the point of the thread but why does anything on offer have to cater to everyone else? If the deal is bacon butties, then take it or leave it, according to your preference. But I don't see why the organiser has to get Quorn in or whatever because you're a veggie. Take your own if it means that much to you!
Because indirectly excluding people of different cultures isn't a good thing to do.

Absolute sexist shite. My guess is that the men also get to just sit and eat their sarnies in peace and chat to other blokes. They're not going to subject them to having to sit down and sing all those god awful nursery rhyme with them or watch a mad lady singing with a cat puppet on her hand are they? Oh no, they won't have to put up with that shite either! There will no doubt be a bunch of elderly ladies in the kitchen making the food and helping keep and eye on the kids too. That said, if it does get them out the house for an hour...

At our local church playgroups they have bible stories, songs and a themed craft...so definitely there is gospel spreading. The groups are run by church volunteers.

I think it is great.

I cannot believe anyone would get angry / offended by this.

It is literally somewhere for the father of (usually very young) children to go with their children for an hour or two often with toys for the kids and a gesture at breakfast/brunch for the Dads/male carers.
if a woman turned up with her child/children in her care I am certain she would be welcomed / offered a butty if she wanted one too.

Where i live it is marketed as "give your wife a few hour lie in bed on a Saturday morning" on the posters. I can see why you might get precious about that but on a personal level remembering what it was like with a newborn baby I would rejoice to the heavens if i knew my husband/the father of my kids was out at the local community hall/church eating butties and keeping an eye on the children for a couple of hours whilst I got a soak in the bath and a break.

FFS what is not to like here????

At this point, I have no idea what I actually mean, and even if I did, my phone would change it to whatever the hill it wants.

And it is definitely my phone, not my dumb fingers or inability to spell check before pressing post.. yep.. definitely the phone..

I'm a feminist but stuff like this just makes us look ridiculous op, please stop 🤣

It's the equivalent of a mums coffee morning or whatever. Nothing to see here except you mistakenly thinking bacon butties are some sort of male beacon. I'd show up to watch someone taking a dump if there was a bacon barm in it for me.

Yes, I've actually seen this in a church notice board. No bacon butties for the Mum's they just get a cup of tea or coffee and a biscuit if they are lucky. 🤷

Is it smoked bacon?