One of the first things I noticed when we embarked on this great adventure was just how tailed to Mum everything seemed to be.
I get it, they’re likely to be the ones doing the majority of the caregiving, but still, as a hands-on dad I couldn’t help but feel a little…pushed out by things. Nothing massive for sure, but little things like how a good chunk of the online resources are written as if Mum is reading exclusively. Or how pretty much every baby group in my area is advertised as a Mum and Baby group. It’s far from the end of the world, but it can be pretty intimidating and unwelcoming to a new Dad.
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I knew I was excluded and was generally okay with it… Until the kid was about four months old. Family went out to dinner. We were having a good time, baby needed changing, I grabbed him and MY diaper bag (yes, I had my own). I went to the restroom and discovered the only changing table was in the women’s room.
I knocked, said hello, and went in. The only woman (teenager? College student? Younger than me, at least) who came in while I was changing the baby was polite and even offered her help.
But this US chain restaurant didn’t even consider the possibility that someone other than a woman would change a baby. Come on.
Same thing happened to me in a German restaurant. I had to change my son in The ladies’ restroom. To be fair, none of the women didn’t mind me there, which was a relief.
I do drop offs to preschool for my daughter. For the first few weeks it definitely felt like teachers were used to most Dad’s being in and out for drop-offs/pick ups.
So when I’d ask how my kid’s previous days went or upcoming activities those first few days they looked taken aback.
Play dates are mostly moms so figuring out how to socialize with other moms without being a wallflower was a challenge to me.
Mother and baby groups were definitely a gripe for me. I’m a part time worker who has 2 days a week on dad duty, and trying to find things to fill these days was a challenge. Almost every group (and certainly all the free/cheap ones) were explicitly mum socials which I wouldn’t have felt comfortable gatecrashing. The groups I did find, which weren’t explicitly “mum” groups, were still entirely mums other than me, so that took some getting used to (and some iffy looks).
Nursery was a bit of a pain for a while too; they’d basically never talk to me. I remember once when my lad got ill at nursery, and they tried to call mum but couldn’t get through as she was driving a long way away for work. I was working from home that day 10 minutes from the nursery, but they never bothered to call me. I was furious when I went to pick him up at the end of the day and they said “we’ve been trying to call mum but we can’t get through”. Like, you’ve got my number, what do you think it’s for?
I hear you, and felt it too. And then feminism called and said that’s basicaly what it feels like to be a woman, always.
Look, I see the point you’re making, and it’s technically probably true. However, it’s never appropriate to dismiss somebody’s pain, injustice, or exclusion with this type of whataboutism.
I promise our hearts are strong enough to sympathize with multiple problems in the world simultaneously.
