When fathers feel 'this isn’t a place for me'

Kevin Maguire of The New Fatherhood talks about creating spaces—and a shift in culture—that are 'dad-led.'

My husband and I were just beginning to find our way through the special education system in our state to make sure our child received the support he needed in the classroom, when my sister told me about a Facebook group she heard was helpful.

I joined and quickly saw how valuable it was. Members helped one another find doctors, decipher paperwork, choose supportive school districts, navigate testing, and generally advocate for their children. They traded everyday parenting tips about potty training and sibling relationships and helping kids as they made first friendships or struggled to.

There was one thing about it that felt wrong, though: the name.

The group is called Quirky Moms Maine. The editor in me cringed—it’s the kids who are “quirky,” not necessarily the moms. As a mother who was deep in my own re-education about neurodiversity, the use of the word “quirky” here made me uncomfortable, too. But the bit I couldn’t get past might seem more benign—moms.

Why was this a group for moms, when the discussion it was facilitating—the only one like it I’ve found that addresses the particularities of our state policies—was important to so many other parents? I wrote to one of the administrators, who deferred to another, the founder.

I sent her a message. My husband is very involved in my son’s life, I told her. I’d love for him to have access to the wealth of resources the group provides. Plus, I think of all the families who need support and don’t include moms. Would she consider changing the name?

The short answer: No. It’s always been Quirky Moms, she said, and that’s never been an issue. Dads can join if they’d like, she told me.

But they don’t. Or, at least, they very rarely engage in the group. This is a space—like so many others—of mothers helping mothers.

Don’t get me wrong. I love mothers helping mothers. I treasure my relationships with other mothers, forged in these early years of being one, when we are all making it up as we go along.

But my own experience and the years I’ve spent researching and writing about the state of parenthood in the United States have taught me that if we want anything—paid leave, perinatal care, the state of education funding, the mental load of parenting—to change, it’s going to take more than mothers.

Why then, even when the conversation is not specific to gender roles or pregnancy, do we so often only talk to mothers?

It does not serve mothers to hold other parents at a distance. It does not serve women to maintain the idea that they are the best and most natural caregivers, the bearers of all emotional care, or the most talented paperwork filler-outers. It does not reflect the truth of families I see all around me, which include engaged, emotional fathers and nurturing queer, trans and nonbinary parents.

We can make the hyper-gendered conversations that are so ubiquitous in the realm of parenting support less gendered. That will be good but probably not enough—akin to saying, well they can join, too. Changing things will also require new spaces dedicated to specific needs. Fathers helping fathers, for example.

Earlier this spring, I chatted with

Kevin Maguire

, who started writing

The New Fatherhood

nearly three years ago. He has since added a community forum for subscribers through the app Geneva and launched The Expectant Dad Operating System, or TedOS, which he described as “what What to Expect When You’re Expecting might have been if it was built in 2023, and with dads in mind.” The New Fatherhood Therapy Fund is for dads who need help accessing therapy.

Maguire’s essay about his own experience with paternal postpartum depression was featured this week on

ParentData

. It’s well worth your time.

The conversation below is part of a longer one in which we talked about new parenthood as the opening of an “empathy valve” and the realities of paternal behavior across species—more to come from that soon. Here, we discuss why inviting dads to mommy groups often doesn’t work and what it means for something to be dad-led. I’ve edited this for length and clarity.

Kevin Maguire and his family.

What has made The New Fatherhood so successful as a forum for fathers? Is it just about opening the space saying, this is for you? Or are there other elements in the mix?

Maguire: I think there’s two parts to it. One, it’s a place that is specifically for men, because I think there are lots of parenting spaces out there—there’s a huge number of mom resources, which is fantastic and so useful and well-subscribed and highly engaged. And then there are parenting spaces which just tend to default to moms. What happens is, women are more open to talk about what’s going wrong. They talk about needing help. They reach out and say, ‘Hey, this is not right. Can somebody tell me what I need to do?’ Way more than men. So as a man, you go into one of those non-gendered spaces and the conversations you see are all women helping women. And immediately you feel, this isn’t a place for me.

So that, I think that’s part No. 1. This is a space for dads. And when I say dads, I just say anyone who identifies as a dad. Gender is not really as much of an issue as just where you are.

Then the second part is—there’s some research being done around this idea of the vulnerability loop¹. So the vulnerability loop is when two people are talking to each other… You say, ‘Hey, I’m struggling with this,’ which men in general don’t do because we are trained not to. Vulnerability and weakness are synonymous, and you’re trained in work and career that our weaknesses are something to hide and something that others can exploit. So, you don’t talk about why you’re vulnerable and why you’re weak.

But as soon as you do, in the idea of the vulnerability loop, you make a bid and you talk to a friend and you say, ‘Hey, I’m not doing great at the moment,’ and they can reject the bid in a way and just say, ‘Oh, you know, let’s talk about something else. Did you watch the game last night?’ Or they can accept the bid and ask you how you are. And then they will end up feeling more comfortable to open up to you. And I think that’s what’s happening at a larger scale.

There are more and more people who come in here regularly and talk about how they feel. I do it every so often—I did one just last Friday. It’s just like an open thread, and it’s like, how are you really? And if you’re not doing great, this is a space to say you’re not doing great.

The responses on that thread are so fascinating. There’s some who are saying, I’m doing better now. This is what has helped me. And then there are people who say they are struggling. It’s a really dynamic conversation.

Maguire: I think there are still barriers to overcome. There are [a few hundred] dads inside [The New Fatherhood] community now. There’s an app, and they’re all helping each other out and offering advice. And it’s not all doom and gloom. They’re sharing interesting things they’re watching or stuff they’re listening to or cute things their kids are doing. But when, you know, the shit hits the fan, there’s a place that you can go to and you say, ‘Hey, this is really tough. I’m really struggling with this.’

One thing that the newsletter doesn’t do that the community does is provide a very safe private space to open up. That’s another lever that you have to think about. How willing are people to talk about what they’re struggling with, with their name attached in a public forum? So what I try and do all the time is think about those different mindsets. Where are people? How much do they want to share? And am I providing the kind of space where they can share what they need to share to get what they need back?

It also strikes me that you really do need to provide the space for dads to do all of that other stuff too, to share the funny stories and the pictures, because that is what builds the foundation for the vulnerability.

Maguire: It’s fascinating because when I set it up—it’s kind of like a Slack-type thing, and I set up all the different channels. There’s one called Therapy Couch where people can talk about stuff they’re struggling with. There’s one where you can just ask questions, and I created one called The Void, because I thought people might want to come in and get something off their chest. And nobody used it.

One of the dads in there, this guy called Sam, he turned around and said, ‘You know, we should have a channel called A Good Day, where we share nice things that have happened.’ I switched it, and it just became like one of the best places in there, just people sharing little pictures of their kids and stuff that they want to share with other dads, but they don’t want to post it onto Instagram or anything like that.

It’s just like a small space to celebrate little wins in your parenting journey. It’s turned out being really nice.

I love that. So, with modern fatherhood—the new fatherhood—there are a lot of men who want that community, and I wonder why there’s not more of it out there now. Do you think it’s growing?

Maguire: By my numbers, it’s definitely growing. But, even just by the emails that people are sending me—there isn’t enough of it out there. Not even close.

I started The New Fatherhood because I struggled to find anything that accurately conveyed my feelings and experience around fatherhood, that it was this thing of—oh, it is fantastic, and it’s also incredibly difficult. It’s the toughest thing you’ll ever do whilst simultaneously the biggest opportunity that you’ll find for growth, watching this thing that you made grow up and learn how to navigate the world. Your curiosity coming through them and the things that you teach them coming back to you—it’s magic. It really is. But there I was like, who’s talking about that? Nobody.

I thought, okay, well if nobody else is doing this, I’m gonna give it a go.

One of the reasons I reached out to you originally was to talk about this point of gender and parenthood. I have both benefited from mommy groups, or my circle of mother friends, and I want parenting spaces to be more accessible to everyone. I mentioned that there’s this Facebook group I’m part of that is hands down the best place to get information about how to navigate special education services and the IEP process in my state. I’ve found important information and friends through this group. And it is specifically labeled as being for moms.

And I just think, why? Why do we have to do it that way? What do we gain out of it? And what would it take to change that?

Maguire: That’s so tough, because, you know, you’ve got dads who will want to lean in and do more and especially with a subject where you need all the information you can get. You need to feel supported and you need to feel that you’re not on your own. Excluding that to half of the parents feels cruel.

We talk so much about the mental load of motherhood and how much we carry and the obstacles to sharing it. And this is one of the barriers, right? We need to welcome fathers and other partners into the process of learning the information, of being part of these spaces so that they can be fully engaged in their own fatherhood.

Maguire: The question that you ask is, what is gained by excluding some people from this conversation? And you know, I think about The New Fatherhood and at no point is anyone excluded. Twenty percent of people who read it are curious mums, and they do occasionally pop up as paid subscribers, which is lovely. But the intention of making this a safe space for dads to talk is because those places don’t exist anywhere else.

I mean, I see real value in The New Fatherhood being a space that is primarily for fathers, because there are particular needs that you are serving that are specific to fathers and men. I guess, there’s some thinking to do about, when is our gender dynamic around parenthood useful and when is it just perpetuating problematic narratives?

Maguire: This shift to, you know, dads becoming more active means that some of these old things that have always happened have to change. Any dad who has been a stay-at-home dad for even a week will have a story about going to a baby group and being the only guy, feeling completely on their own and being made to feel out of place.

Yes. My husband had some parental leave where he was on his own with our oldest, and then later he was home two days a week with our son. All of the playgroups, all of the playground meetups—he would go to them and mothers would just not really talk to him. It really bothered him.

Maguire: Yeah, and if you’re a dad and you have gone through this huge life change on a different time frame than other men in your life or the close friends that you have, it’s tough. It can be isolating.

I’m working on hosting events for dads, like meetups for dads here in Barcelona, where it’s like, come down to this cafe, bring your kids, we’ll all hang out and we’ll drink coffee. We’ll have some chalks out on the street, and the kids can play. It will never be only for dads, of course. But it’s dad-led. It just shifts the narrative a bit, and it shifts the meaning of who feels welcome in parenting spaces.

I think about all the people who will see you, right? People who will see that dad-led event and think like, ‘Wow, look at them!’ And not like, ‘Oh, they’re so great babysitting their kids.’ But, ‘Look at them caring for their children and supporting one another.’

Maguire: Exactly. Well that’s what has to change… It’s society catching up to the changing definitions of both motherhood and fatherhood.

Do you have a wish list of things that could make fathers and others feel more welcome and, ultimately, help change that story?

Maguire: I honestly think it all comes down to parental leave.

[Aside: Amen!]

Especially in those early years, the only way that you’re going to significantly change perceptions and mindset around where dads should and shouldn’t be is if moms and dads are taking the same amount of time off and they’re expected to be equal partners in that early stage.

You know, I’ve read stories about baby groups in Sweden and Norway and you go in and it’s like a bunch of dads… People are taking full paternity leave in those countries.

There’s a neurobiological component to this, too, which I love to think about. The adaptive paternal brain is shaped by experience. With paternity leave you’re getting that experience in those early newborn days. And you’re are also getting that sense of capture—your brain is adapting to fatherhood in a way where you are connected to your child and you are compelled to meet their needs. That takes time with your baby.

Maguire: It's all part of the process of making this big shift.

---

Also,

If you want to geek out on how human paternal care came to be, let me suggest this paper by Stacy Rosenbaum and Joan B. Silk, which you can read in full here. Rosenbaum and Silk are primatologists who study the evolution of social behavior, one at the University of Michigan and the other at Arizona State University. The conclusion of this evidence review is basically that we don’t know how human fatherhood came to be, but the path may not be as straight as we’re often told. Specifically, paternal care and monogamy weren’t necessarily a packaged deal.

It includes this lovely bit:

If science is “...a slow, erratic stumble toward ever less uncertainty” (Ed Yong, 29 Apr 2020, The Atlantic), then what do we gain by increasing uncertainty about how male parental care and extended breeding bonds evolved in ancestral hominins? We believe that an awareness of this uncertainty enhances our prospects for understanding the events that transformed our species.

And,

Please look around your neighborhood or apartment building at the people who are caring for newborns, elderly family members, or a child in recovery, at the people losing sleep and work hours and routinely putting the needs of others above their own. Then, think about how many people are doing that essential labor right now in your city or town. In your county. In your state.

What is their work worth to you? All that they contribute through caregiving—to the health of their families, to the future of your community, to the economy—is it worth a total of $10/month?

According to reporting from Joe Lawlor of the Portland Press Herald, that’s about what it will cost the average worker to support a state-based paid leave system that’s now working its way through the state house in Maine, where I live. The program will allow workers to take up to 12 weeks of leave, paid at between 66 percent and 90 percent of their wages, with a cap set at the state’s average weekly wage. Twelve weeks is hardly enough if you’re a new parent, but right now many parents here receive zero weeks paid. Maine would be the 12th state to adopt paid family leave.

That’s $10 per month for a program that could boost labor force participation by mothers, lower the risk of families falling into poverty, help Maine employers attract and retain workers, potentially ease the shortage of infant care providers, and give fathers and other nongestational parents real time to care for their newborns and support their families in those important first months? Seems like a pretty good deal to me.

1. As best I can tell, this phrase comes from Daniel Coyle’s book The Culture Code, citing Jeff Polzer, professor of organizational behavior at Harvard Business School.