male-exclusive parenting support networks and structures

As a man who is the primary caretaker of my son, I face this problem all the time. As a pervasive social norm, it penetrates all layers of society. There are severe and unconstitution institutional inequalities, like the way fathers are treated in divorce court. There are logistical problems, like the lack of changing tables in many men's rooms. There are formal support networks that explicityly exclude fathers, like La Leche League. Most informal support networks implicitly exclude fathers, like "mother/todler yoga classes."

I was wondering what sort of experiences other fathers have with this issue.

 

Well first off, men can lactate. And women who are not currently lactating are welcome at LLL. So that just blows that whole "damn good reason" out of the water.

Now picture a single father of an infant. Maybe the mother skipped town, or maybe she died in childbirth, but she's gone for some reason. Supose he wants to find breast milk for his infant. Who's going to help him with that? Where is the support network for someone who really needs it? Or does that child deserve worse health outcomes because his caretaker has a penis?

I'm not even going to address the "lazy marketing." It's too bad a point to bother refuting.

 

Have you complained to La Leche League? What was their response?

 

The La Leche Legue website freely offers very much information on donated milk banks, even providing a list of milk bank locations.

http://www.llli.org/llleaderweb/lv/lvaprmay00p19.html

It wasn't very difficult to find this helpful information; it, and much, much more can be found at their website:http://www.llli.org/

There's really no need for you to take such a militant attitude. La Leche League is about helping infants. They couldn't care less about your penis.

 

If you're a woman, come on in to our public meetings and supporting, helpful people who have been trained to answer all sorts of questions will befriend you and provide all of the support you need to help care for your child.

If you're a man, hope one of these links on our website helps.

Somehow I think you're missing the point.

 

I get the point. You are intent on making an issue where none exists. Please, stop being so negative for the sake of your child.

~Peace.

 

So LLL has a website that provides links to milk banks in 6 states, and that's supposed to negate the fact that they explicitly discriminate against men.

What are you doing in a Men's Issues forum if all you want to do is deny that men have issues that need to be addressed?

You haven't even tried to dismiss the discrimination in divorce courts, either. You're just ignoring that issue as you openly dismiss the rest.

 

La Leche League exists to help infants get the breast milk they need. They don't discriminate against infants.

Why don't you try to infiltrate the Girl Scouts, or Daughters Of The Revolution, and leave La Leche League alone?

 

I thought that you just went to the LLL web site. I guess you didn't read the first sentence.

So yeah, they're not discriminating against infants, unless they happen to be an infant without an involved mother. They discriminate against fathers.

The Daughters of the Revolution are not directly related to parenting, so they're not relevant to this thread. The Girl Scouts are a segregated organization, but at least there is an equivalent "separate but equal" group in the Boy Scouts. This causes some distress for transgendered children, who are not well received in either organization. And homosexuals have some trouble with the openly homophobic Boy Scouts. But I don't consider scouting anywhere near as important as early childhood support, so I pick my battles.

But you weren't really asking that question because you want an answer. You've gotten quite hung up on LLL. Does it strike some sort of personal nerve for you? I mean seriously, why would you want me to talk about the Girl Scouts? It's a bit off topic.

I'll have you know that my wife is a leader, although she's looking into switching organizations for two reasons. 1) She found a breast feeding support group that is not openly discriminatory towards men. 2) She's been unable to find out what the international organization is actually doing with all of that money that the self sufficient local organizations pass up to it.

 

Well, it sounds like you've got it all figured out, Mr. Mom! That's awesome!

 

Actually, I find myself in need of a support network. But your dismissive attitude sure has helped! You can go to sleep with a smile on your face now. You've helped someone who was reaching out for help remember that there really are some people out there who don't give a fuck about his problems.

 

I couldn't care less about you; it's true.

You have been dismissive of my efforts to help you with your Le Leche League question.

Then you say your wife is a leader in LLL who could have answered your questions about them without you bringing it up here at all; thus indicating to me that you are just here to argue and troll (which you aren't very good at).

You don't strike me as really being the least bit sincere about looking for help.



For anyone sincerely wishing an answer about males in Le Leche League meetings, here is an answer I found at https://sites.google.com/site/lalecheleagueoflewisburgtn/Home/more-information-about-la-leche-league

 

I didn't ask any LLL questions. I made a statement about LLL. I'm not really interested, in this thread, with discussing why LLL discriminates, but rather pointing out that they do. I did ask two rhetorical questions in post 3, but those aren't exactly questions to be answered so much as a rhetorical debate method.

Now as to the question of who dismissed who first, your very first post in this thread made it perfectly clear that you have no interest in helping to address the problems I'm bringing forward. Rather, you dismiss the ones you think you can and ignore the ones you can't dismiss. So let's not pretend that you were trying to help me with anything, much less any questions that I wasn't even asking.


I'm not here to argue. I'm here to discuss Men's Issues with sympathetic people. But if I've got to get through this bullshit with you in order to get there, so be it.


I'm a man, discussing these issues as they impact me. That's what this forum is here for. The fact is, in my absence, it's been overrun by man bashing trolls who couldn't care less about me or my issues; it's true. But that doesn't make me a troll. You're in my home taking a shit on my rug, not the other way around.

 

I've often thought that being a single father is in many ways tougher than being a single mother.

But to be honest, I can't figure out what your personal problem is. I don't really understand how you're the primary caregiver of your child yet your wife is a leader of LLL. Also, I'm not entirely convinced your complaints of LLL discrimination ring true. I cannot imagine someone from La Leche refusing to talk to you and point you in the right direction if you called with any questions regarding breast milk banks.

I do agree that courts are discriminatory towards men. I've seen a child end up with his grandparents because courts wouldn't grant the (extremely devoted and responsible) father custody and the mother ended up dumping the kid at the grandparents after she was awarded custody. The father is still waiting for another court date to contest this.

On the other hand, mothers are often times simply more devoted to a child's upbringing than a father. This is why they are traditionally awarded custody. This is also why so many support networks exist for mothers - because mothers take child raising seriously enough to seek out support and education.

What is stopping you from forming a support group for single dads? Or even a support group for married, primary care-giving dads with wives involved in LLL.

 

Like Drumminmama said, you could have stated that your questions were only rhetorical, and that you were only complaining, not needing help.

I looked up answers to your questions because I thought they were sincere and you seemed to not know that milk banks are available.

I don't feel that it was a waste of time, though. I'm pleased that I could point out some links to help father's who need help finding milk.


There's a current thread addressing some of the father's legal and court issues in case you want to go there: http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=464695

 

And what the hell do you think this forum is? I've been gone for a while. But I built this forum from the ground up, and I'm horrified to see what's become of it in my absence. Take a look at my posting history if you want to know who you're dealing with.

Actually, I never wanted there to be a Men's Issues forum. What I wanted was one Gender Issues forum with a pair of auxiliary male-safe and female-safe spaces linked to the side. I don't believe in segregation. I believe that the issues of both genders intertwine, and that it's impossible to address one properly without also addressing the other. But y'know, I don't always get my way, and this is how things worked out.

The concept applies to parenthood support networks. I don't want to create male-only networks. I want women to accept me into their existing networks, for several logistical and ideological reasons. I just went through a bunch of the ideological reasons, so I'll touch on the logistical reasons now.

There simply are not as many primary caretaking men, and I live in a small town. So there aren't enough men to actually make a segregated system work for us at all. But even if there were, we'd need women to help. Even among the small group of primary caretaking men, I'm an oddity in that I want to be in this possition, and I've been preparing for it my whole adult life. So my parents didn't prepare me to be a primary caretaker, since it's not in my traditional gender role. But as an adult I was a live-in nanny, I studied child development, and I thought a lot about how to be a good parent. Most men don't do that. So what good is a support network full of people who have no clue what they're doing going to do me?

So short answer, yes, I have considered creating the network I want. But what I want is not a segregated network to match women's. What I want is an end to discrimination in this area.

Oh gawd. You're actually going to make me spell this out. *sigh* OK fine. Let's start with the difference between discrimination and prejudice. Prejudice is in your mind, while discrimination is in your actions. It is possible to be prejudiced without being discriminatory, if you're not in a possition to impact the opportunities of another person. It's also possible to be discriminatory without being prejudiced, usually by participating in a discriminatory system. But usually, prejudice and discrimination walk hand in hand.

In this case, I'm talking about discrimination. It doesn't matter to me if prejudice is taking place in women's minds, although I certainly think it does. What matters is that there is evident discrimination taking place, depriving me of opportunties to benefit from other people's support and advice.

"Lazy marketing" was an attempt to dismiss the likely prejudice behind the discrimination. But it does not address the fact that the discrimination is taking place. It's a dismissal, and a stupid one at that, and I treated it as such by dismissing it in turn.

You take a good solid look at post #2 and you tell me who dissmissed who first. She didn't even try to address the points that she couldn't dissmiss.

 

You're speaking to Drumminmama as if she isn't the author of post #2.

 

Don't they have neutral baby changing facilities in the US?

drumminmama

Do you mean that the majority of the time it is the female that is the 'primary care-giver' aka parent? So groups catering for parent and toddlers generally say mother and baby ____ rather than father and bay ___ ? - even if they actually cater for both. 'lazy marketing'.