“In-between” Dads
The following article comes from our own New Dads Group facilitator Jeff Ruby, LSW, who well articulated the experience that many new dads are experiencing these days. More information and group registration for our New Dad’s Group can be found here.
I recently read a book that said all new dads pretty much fall into one of three types.
1) the traditional male who sees himself as the breadwinner and protector. He comes home from work expecting to find his house in order, dinner on the table, and the clock permanently set to 1957.
2) a man who understands that gender roles are changing and genuinely wants to help his partner with household chores and responsibilities but rarely takes initiative unless asked.
3) An egalitarian no longer beholden to gender roles, and an equal partner in his family’s financial, emotional, and logistical success.
Most of the young dads who join the New Dads Group fall into the second camp. They’re uniformly well-meaning and genuine in their desire to create a more equitable split of responsibilities with their partners, but many of them didn’t grow up with fathers who modeled this behavior and have years of conditioning to overcome.
They’re the In-Between-Dads of history, caught between one generation and the next, and they’re struggling. They’re struggling to connect with their partners, struggling with their place in the home and at work, and struggling to hold on to the little pieces of who they were before a baby made their old lives go haywire. They’ve been fed tales about the wonder and joy of parenthood and instead finding themselves sinking under heaps of conflict and exhaustion. Many of them are held back by guilt over not parenting enough or not working enough—or both. They may say things to their partners like “what can I do to help?” which sounds good on paper but implies that the default is that their wives will do the work.
The New Dads Group walks through this emotional mine field together. We explore the treacherous terrains of sleep deprivation, information overload, conflicts with spouses and jealousy and sex and opinionated in-laws, and we support each other at a moment in life that can feel lonely and bewildering. Men share their life hacks, their confusion, and the small triumphs that often get overlooked in the rush of parenting a new child. Along the way, we learn ways to carve out a new relationship with partners, one that involves vulnerability and openness. We explore your changing role as a partner, a father, and a man. Identifying values and asking some of the big questions about what you want out of life.
Are sessions touchy-feely? They can be. But more often, they’re simply real and honest conversations for men who feel isolated . . . led by someone who has been there. Men come out of the New Dads Group knowing they’re not alone. They’re part of a makeshift community of guys in the same boat that lean on each other in tough times. The goal is not necessarily to create that rare egalitarian male described above, but to help men find the balance in their lives and get the most out of fatherhood.