We’re Just Normal Dads

Why I wish more men felt comfortable with their identities as fathers

Earlier this week, I was sat in our family room, locked in yet another yoga-ball-bounceathon with my four-week-old daughter, whilst my eldest was pottering about in the garden.

My wife, sat underneath a pile of cushions in the spot on the sofa that I’ve dubbed her ‘feeding rig’, passes me her phone. “Have a read of this,” she says.

It’s a post from a Facebook group for mums in our city. You might be familiar with the type of group I mean if you’re a mother too. My wife occasionally shows me posts from the group; it could be a day trip recommendation, a relatable parenting story, or just someone with a really crappy take on something that we can rant about for a bit.

This time it was an interesting recipe idea, but it triggered a thought that took me on a different tangent (and meant that I forgot what the recipe actually was).

I asked my wife “have you seen if there’s a group like this for dads?”

She proceeded to tell me about various mums who’d asked the very same question on the group, on behalf of their husbands or partners. Some people offered up suggestions of “daddy days” in soft play and community centres around our area (the implication that every other day is a “mummy day” being problematic in itself), but in terms of a like-for-like equivalent for the group of over 17,000 mums in my city—but for dads—there was nothing.

Photo by Borna Hržina on Unsplash

I’m not fortunate enough to have real life dad friends that I can just call up to go for a pint with. Pretty much all my friends from school and university moved to London years ago and settled down there, so the only interactions I have with other dads are ones that I’m embarking on in adulthood—which has proven to be a challenge for me .

The next best thing has been online dad groups. The r/daddit subreddit has managed to scratch the itch for interaction with other fathers somewhat, and I’m also lurking around in the community of dads over at

The New Fatherhood

.

But nothing beats meeting people face-to-face. Sure, there’s the odd interaction with another dad at the nursery school gates or at the park, but I was after something a bit more. I noticed that this Facebook group that my wife is part of did regular meet-ups, and so I’d hoped that an equivalent dad group would do the same.

Realising there wasn’t even a group to begin with was frustrating, but I didn’t give up. I got to searching through Facebook for local dad groups myself—and to my surprise, I found a few.

But there was one thing that they all had in common: they all catered to dads with a specific interest. Whether it was heavy metal, cars, football or cycling, each one of these local groups seemed to gatekeep their communities by suggesting that you were only able to join if you are obsessed with a specific hobby or subject to the required standard.

I brushed aside this mild annoyance—surely this was better than no dad groups. Trying to stay positive, I browsed a few.

As I scrolled however, I found very little content from anyone in any of them about, you know, being an actual dad.

The football dads group was just full of football memes. The heavy metal one was stuffed with grainy videos of shitty bands who should never have left their bassist’s mum’s garage. There was no discussion about tips for putting the kids to bed, fun local activities for a rainy day, or anything particularly relatable for a dad like me just looking for other dads to talk to. In fact, there was no evidence that any of these people were parents at all.

At least to me, it seemed like these people were actively trying to avoid the identity of being just a dad, and talking about dad stuff. Whether they were labelling themselves a ‘cycling dad’, a ‘guitar dad’, or a ‘lawnmowing dad’¹ , their interactions with each other had to be wrapped up in some other interest.

Trying to challenge this thought, I asked myself “So what? These people are happy enough. Leave them be.” And that’s true—I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with those groups per se.

But if all you want to talk about is motorbikes or weightlifting or whatever, then why not just join a group about that? Why the reference to fatherhood if you’re not talking about it?

Something drove those people to join the 'Trainspotting Dads' group instead of a larger group not specifically targeted at fathers. Something made the creator of the ‘Bog Snorkeling Dads²’ group add that last word in the title. They wanted interaction with other dads—other regular blokes going through the same stuff—but for some reason feel like they have to dress it up behind something else, Trojan Horse-style.

Very disappointed that I couldn’t find a royalty-free image of bog snorkelling. This will have to do.

But I get it. Leaving the past in the past and not necessarily being able to do the things you used to once you become a parent is tough. Maybe joining these groups, heavily weighed in favour of discussing the window-dressing rather than the actual meat on the bone, are just attempts for some dads to feel like themselves again, like the person they were before everything changed.

Again, I can completely understand that as a treatment for the symptom. But we all share this common bond: the all-encompassing, life-changing phenomenon that we call fatherhood. I can’t be the only dad in my area—a city of nearly 300,000 people—who just wants to talk about that, instead of playing the drums or boxing or whatever.

And I’ve got nothing wrong with any of these things in particular. To take one of the groups I found as an example, I actually do like heavy metal, but not to such a huge degree compared to the people in this particular group. In fact, I like a lot of stuff, but most of not not enough to want to talk about it all the time.

These niche dad groups are fine for those who are that passionate about a particular thing, but what about the new dad who doesn’t hold those same passions, and just wants to find an open local community of dads to help him navigate that difficult first year? Sorry pal, not unless you love reggae or marathon running, you’re not going to find what you’re looking for.

But despite all I’ve said, at least these groups do exist for those who find them useful. At least some of those dads are getting what they need socially. Maybe I'm overreaching by calling for dad groups without qualifiers. Maybe these niche groups are the gateway for more general, larger groups to come into being later, and that’s great.

The trouble is that even with all these groups I’ve found, all their memberships put together still come nowhere near the number of mums who are engaging with other mums in our local area. Anecdotal, I know—but I don’t think it’s a massive leap to take from this that there’s too many isolated dads out there, maybe wishing for somewhere to find some human connection.

It’s currently 1:36am as I write this, and so maybe I’m ranting on way too long. Your mileage may massively vary—this might be your experience at all, and I accept that I might just be talking through the lens of my own personal baggage here.

I just found it to be a shame that for some reason more of us dads don’t feel like we can just talk with each other about the experience of being dads. It’s so fucking great and challenging in equal measure, and yet so many dads don’t talk about it even when things are at their worst.

I wish it were the case that more dads out there felt as though their feelings about their parenting experience were worthy of sharing and talking about, and that so many of us didn’t feel so alone going through the hardest times of fatherhood. For something that should unite so many of us, the fact that so many of us experience fatherhood in isolation is of real concern.

Maybe I’ll be the one to try to start a local dads group in my own area. Strike to make the iron hot, as Yeats said. Even if I got a fraction of the number of those in equivalent local mums group to join and meet in person—to actually talk about and experience fatherhood together, as is intended—I’d consider that a success.

Until then, I'll make do with the Dads Who Play Tuba group. It can’t be that hard to learn, right?

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Are you part of a parenting group?

This was mostly about dads, but I’m intrigued to hear of anyone’s experiences with mum/dad/parenting groups, both online and in-person. Did they help you feel less isolated as a parent? Did you struggle to find one right for you? Did you even start your own group?

My ambition is that this small corner of the internet could be that place that someone struggling with sleepless nights, fussy eating, schoolyard politics or whatever can come to have their voices heard by other like-minded parents. If that sounds good to you as well, please share this piece—and Some Other Dad as a whole—with someone who you’d think could do with being seen and heard.

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Back to work

As of yesterday, my paternity leave is over.

I honestly don’t know where the time’s gone. I’ve taken roughly the same amount of days off a last time, but I felt like I had all the time in the world with my first child. I guess being busier this time getting the older kid ready for nursery and keeping her occupied has made the time go quicker, but even so it’s very jarring to be back in the office.

I say office—I actually am in the fortunate position of being able to do most of my work from home, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable. Last time around, dragging myself into the office for 10 hours a day and coming home at 6pm to my wife, who was at the end of her tether, wasn't fun for anyone—so it’ll benefit us all that I can just be a room away to take the load off whenever I can.

More on paternity leave next week!

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Previously on Some Other Dad

Recent previous issues

Climbing the Life Admin Mountain

Trials of the Older Sibling

Paying the Five-Lasagne Toll

Picky Eating and How to Overcome It

1. Since stepping into online dad communities, I couldn’t believe how many dads are obsessed with mowing their lawns. Please tell me I’m not the only dad out here that hates lawnmowing more than any other household job. Anyone else?

2. These weren’t all groups in my immediate area. I branched out my searches to places across the UK to find some of the more niche ones. I do wish I lived near the bog snorkelling group—I’d join in a flash.