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

As much as everyone here is claiming they’d like a bacon butty, at a mum’s group you’d have a load of moans about being on a diet and collective glaring at anyone daring to eat one. Even picking a chocolate biscuit at a coffee morning carries the risk of social death.

But thinking about it, maybe organising a bacon butties for mums event might be the secret to finding my tribe 🧐

Still the same in my area. I work full-time. My husband is a SAHD. I'd love a weekend baby/toddler group but the only two in the area are for dads. Mums welcome to volunteer to cook food though.

I'd be interested in who is running the group and who is cooking the food.

If its a bacon sandwich dads are after, they can get one a lot easier and more peacefully than a playgroup event! They're just trying to put on an event that appeals to dads, and decided that bacon sandwiches might sound better than tea and cake on a saturday morning.

For people saying
"it a general saturday morning group for Mums and Dads but only male carers will be offered the bacon butty"
don't be nuts! it is a group with a specific target of Dads/male carers.

It is aimed at men only with their kids (babies / toddlers) although if you want to take the point as a female carer and turn up you can bet your bottom dollar they will offer you a bacon butty if you ask for one.

If you object to the fact that it is bacon butty and not lentil soup /wheatgrass smoothy on offer for breakfast and that because it is a cliche that men like bacon butties that is outrageous sexism then in my opinion you have way too much spare time on your hands looking for things to get offended about

@PurpleMonkeys I love you for making me laugh out loud at your phone. They really are bastards aren't they.

It’s the ‘who let the Dads out’ imagine it in reverse and a baby group called ‘who let the mums out’. It’s the implication that it’s unusual for Dads to be out of the house on their own with their own children. Bacon butties isn’t really the issue!

It's not a new thing.

DH did one Saturday group - they sorted their own food - often bacon and sausage baps- I had to go along first time to door with him then loved it found support he wasn't aware he'd need or value gave pg me some more sleep time and DD1 more space to run and more toys to play with

When we moved he really missed it - the child centre did one a month one with bacon provided - run by normal staff ie women - he said he found the one bit patronising as well as idea bacon would draw men in- other one was church run - one in week for mostly mothers did tea and coffee they did bacon at weekends - he didn't like that one much either.

I was less concerned about bacon more with children centre groups that didn't allow drinks - despite bf - or had rules that essentially meant you couldn't have one without arriving with another adult to swap care of child with - bad enough with hot drinks but worse when having breakable cups meant it applied to water as well.

I do think it's a bit backward to offer weekend groups to dads only - as if no mothers work outside the home and have all week to lounge around in church halls eating biscuits!
A weekend playgroup would be good for parents generally I think.

I do see your point, but, I think it is nice to have a dad's only thing. DH was a SAHP for a while and found that the school mums tended to be very hard to get to know, reluctant to swap numbers to organise playdates etc... if there was a dad's only thing every now and again it could have been helpful. Obvs I'd like bacon sandwiches for everyone though.

I get that they're trying to do a positive thing, but also... I want a bacon sandwich too! All the mums groups near us offer is biscuits and weak tea 🤣 that's good enough for us, yet the blokes need to be tempted with a fried breakfast?? Nah. Bacon butties for all please.

Seems a positive thing to do. Cant Dads have nice stuff at socials with their kids, or is that just for Mums

Set your own group up, there's plenty of places that will accommodate them.

Not sure practising Muslims are the target for this
Church group!

I don't think its fair to ask that men get more involved with playgroups and not leave it all to the mums, but then cry sexism when an event targets men that may have been reluctant where a small part of the event is a bacon sandwich. There are plenty of womens events that offer coffee, cake, prosecco and good company, there are lots of men that like those things too.

My youngest is 12 and when I used to take him to sure-start stay and play sessions there were posters up for weekend stay and play sessions for dads and their small children only. Free bacon butties all round. At the weekday sessions- for all parents but all the sessions we
went to had only mums/other women carers, not only was there no bacon butties but no snacks or drinks allowed at all. “Come on, mums! You should be playing with your children!” For. Every. Bloody. Second. You’re. There.

Absolute cobblers.

The Sure Start for my area has things like Lego with Dad, Pizza with Dad, football with Dad, Cycling with Dad etc all scheduled in the evening. The things mum can go to are all scheduled during work hours and are stuff like playgroups, rhyme time and baby/toddler massage or yoga. The one thing working mums could actually go in evening was a book club every 2 months or a walk around the park and they’ve now been cancelled. The stereotyping sucks.

We used to get tea and coffee and unlimited biscuits...but the main incentive for mums midweek was (for me) 2 hrs entertainment for DD1 much easier than being at home. Kids generally younger. There was a waiting list for all the groups near us.

For Dad's who work in the week it's not the same, they probably find it easy to stay at home with the kids, especially if their OH is there. The breakfast is an incentive to get them out of the house.

I half agree with you and half also think that it's a good thing to have a friendly dads playgroup that they will actually want to attend.

Used to annoy me when I worked full time that the only playgroups at weekends in my area were for dads though. Very hard to make 'mum friends' if you had a short maternity leave like I did with my second.

When my last child was just going into primary school, my husband had just retired. This meant that he was free to attend all school events- yay! There were a small group of dads who always turned up and formed a little huddle at the back of wherever it was. I asked him once what it was like, and he said "Competitive!". I can imagine the playgroup thing being very similar.

A few years previously, his hours at work had changed and I was able to duck out of parent and toddler groups and send him. I hated them because the other mums (well, mostly just one, but the others followed) were very hostile. I'm Not Local. My husband is local, and he was positively fawned over. He found it slightly insulting that the expectation of him was so low. I found it funny and the kids got to play with different toys, so off he went.

Did you bother to look it up?

Who let the dad’s out

We want to see churches creating spaces where dads and their children can have fun together, form friendships, and build community.
We believe that to ‘turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers’ (Malachi 4:6, NIV 1984) is a powerful way ‘to make ready a people prepared for the Lord’ (Luke 1:17).

I’d say that’s the definition of evangelical…🤔😂

Surely the solution to that is to change how the mum's groups are run, not to complain about the existence of the dads' groups?

I agree it is sexist, but I’ve seen similar mum ones that have “free Prosecco” on them.

I agree with you, but...

A couple of years ago someone was employed by my borough specifically to increase participation by dads. He had done it successfully in other boroughs and persuaded mine that it needed to be done. Behind it was the idea that children are better off when they have two parents involved etc.

He has worked tirelessly to promote stay and plays every other week as well as swimming and other activities. It seems to have been incredibly successful with very high attendances - far higher than the few mixed ones I previously found on Saturdays.

I asked him how he felt about your (and my) point that there are women that work as well and this just reinforces the stereotypes. He did agree and said he would never turn away a women from one of the events, but he felt that pretty much all the other events organised became de facto women only events. I argued that this is something that should be challenged and by creating a dads only group, it would make the mum only groups worse. He didn't disagree, but ultimately he has created something so successful, that I found it really hard to tell him he done something wrong.

This.