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I closed the meeting-room door and walked to the front of the community center, trying not to draw attention to myself.
The two women at the front counter looked at me.
“My wife is still in there,” I said.
But I’d not answered their unspoken question: why was I leaving the parent group early? My wife and I had always attended together, with our new baby.
I walked out.
◊♦◊
My older child was born in October 2012.
Earlier that year, I’d left a career in education policy research. With my wife’s blessing, I decided to split my time between pursuing my own creative writing and staying home with our child.
Thus, I joined the two-million-strong (depending on how you count) community of American stay-at-home dads. And I was able to share in every aspect of my wife’s maternity leave, free from the limitations of American-style, too-short-if-it’s-even-available paternity leave.
Nothing had prepared us for the difficulty of feeding our baby. Our child nursed poorly and gained weight slowly, and our pediatrician made clear that we were one bad weight check away from a “serious conversation.” We supplemented our child’s diet with formula, rented a baby scale, and began meeting with a lactation consultant to turn things around.
Perhaps sensing our exhaustion and need for community, our lactation consultant invited us to attend one of the “new parent groups” she led every week. She encouraged us to attend together.
When I sat down among the new moms for the first time, I felt suddenly unsure of how to act.
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We started attending the groups when our child was little more than a month old: first one time slot and then switching to another. The meetings became a weekly ritual. We got out of the house, which was a big deal in itself. And we met other first-time parents who, like us, were struggling to make sense of their transformed lives.
We and the other attendees were each a tangle of vulnerabilities. But, together, we were not alone.
Not alone, but with a twist: I was almost always the only dad in the room.
This was not a surprise. Our lactation consultant had made clear to us that getting dads involved in the new parent groups was one of her goals. Indeed, the term “new parent group” reflected a conscious choice: in the not-so-old days, such meetings would have been called, simply, “mommy groups.”
From the outset, it hadn’t occurred to me not to attend. My wife and I were a team. I belonged beside her and our baby. And as the soon-to-be primary caregiver in our home, I was desperate to learn everything I could and find peers.
But when I sat down among the new moms for the first time, I felt suddenly unsure of how to act.
I’d not anticipated how extensively the parent groups would focus—necessarily—on moms’ bodies. In retrospect, I should have known this. After all, my own family’s life revolved around troubleshooting our child’s breastfeeding.
But whereas I was unquestionably welcome and trusted at home, I didn’t know whether my voice and perspective on matters of the maternal body would be welcomed by the other moms. I feared I would misstep and speak “in place of” my wife about our family’s experiences with feeding. And I didn’t know whether the other moms would want to speak in front of me about things like birth injuries or cracked nipples.
Moreover, at any given moment, at least one baby in the group was nursing, whether easily or fitfully, with or without a nursing cover. I feared that my gaze might settle accidentally in the wrong place.
I did my best. When a mom talked about her body, I listened silently in respectful witness. I deferred to my wife about the same. I cultivated a kind of selective inattention so I would know where not to look. And I tried to keep my anxiety about doing the right thing under wraps so I wouldn’t seem creepy.
More than anything, I wanted to participate and be welcomed for my contributions. I wanted to find peers on whom I could depend and who would trust me in turn.
I joined the conversation whenever I felt I could, about topics like baby gear, sleeping patterns, tummy time, and milestones. And as time passed and I started getting to know some of the moms, I worried less about how I would be perceived.
After one of the sessions, a mom who often sat near me asked if I’d ever been criticized for being there. I don’t know what prompted her question, whether personal curiosity, a desire to bring her own husband to a meeting, or awareness of dissatisfaction within the larger group. No one had asked me that before, so I chalked it up to growing rapport and an interest in my experience.
“No,” I said.
Then I shared how I’d appreciated being able to hear the moms talk about their husbands. All of the moms were either still on maternity leave or staying at home. I felt fortunate to hear some of them talk candidly about interpersonal tensions with working husbands who, because their jobs had pulled them away from their babies during the day, couldn’t develop as intimate or practiced an understanding of the rhythms and tasks of childcare.
I’d listened, thinking ahead to how my wife and I might mitigate similar (but reverse) tensions when she returned to work.
I’d listened, confident that all welcomed my listening.
Then, one day, as conversation moved about the circle, one of the moms told the group that nursing would be easier if no men attended.
My body flushed. I tried to maintain a steady expression, but I felt blindsided.
A bit further around the circle, another mom agreed that no men should attend.
When we reunited, my wife and I felt lost.
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I don’t know what motivated these two women’s requests. In retrospect, I suspect their requests had little to do with me personally. But in the moment, I felt that one my greatest fears as a soon-to-be stay-at-home dad—rejection by the moms around me—had arrived. I felt isolated. Hurt. Angry.
And I had a decision to make. I could stay, insisting tacitly that my presence had value. Or I could leave, in deference to the two moms’ stated feelings.
I left. My wife stayed behind with our child while I browsed in a nearby bookstore and bobbed upon emotional churn.
When we reunited, my wife and I felt lost. Our lactation consultant and the community center, to their inestimable credit, were crestfallen at what had happened. They reached out to us. They affirmed our value. But my wife and I, having heard and told so many stories during those past two months in the group, no longer knew who we could depend on.
We decided to stop attending the parent groups.
A while later, as we took our child to a local play gym, my wife and I ran into some of the moms who had been in the room when I left the parent group.
They opened their arms to us. One mom said she’d missed us and invited us to return. Another mom shared that, earlier during the same day I’d walked out, her husband had debated whether to attend. He’d ultimately declined. I can only imagine what he must have thought when he learned about my experience that day.
Feeling affirmed, we returned to one of the parent groups during the waning days of my wife’s maternity leave. We chose the time slot that we’d attended initially. (The thought of returning to the time slot we’d left behind was still too painful.)
The moms with whom we reconnected most strongly—and their husbands, whom we met later—are now dear friends. There is no question that we can count on them, and they on us.
◊♦◊
As American dads like me get more involved in raising our children, we participate increasingly in social spaces formerly identified with moms. This makes dads and moms vulnerable to one another in new ways. Dads like me fear we will misstep in our interactions with potential peers and be rejected. And moms—whose own bodies are focal points for so much parental anxiety and intimacy—cope with the revelation of stories and bonds once shared primarily with other women.
We parents are vulnerable to each other in direct proportion to our need for the support and knowledge found in community. We can, and will, hurt each other. Through community, we can also learn and heal.
Men should embrace these risks. Doing so deepens and enriches our lives as dads and enhances the dignity and options of the women in our lives.
Previously published on STAND-Magazine.
By: Matthew S. Rosin
Photo: Getty Images