Men's Group

I swore before I became a dad that I wasn't going to do it until and unless I was ready to throw myself into it 100% and really be there for my kids. I'm not a perfect father, but I think I'm a good one. And it is bar none my most important job, the most important thing I do.

We get a lot of flak around here for not accepting notions like conspiracy theories about "The Patriarchy", but I absolutely DO believe that there have historically been gender roles and expectations that have limited and stunted BOTH genders. I grew up in a town where all the dads were like "Mad Men", coming home slightly drunk on the 5 or 6 PM train. Then shuffling out of the station in gray matching suits. Except unlike mad men, unless there was a secret life I wasn't seeing, no one appeared particularly happy about their respective stations in life.

I'm glad things have changed since I was a kid. I'm glad women (as well as men) are freer now to pursue self-fulfillment in whatever ways they can make it work, or try to, given the economic realities- and I am glad that there is freedom, and a certain expectation, for dads to be much more actively involved with their kids' development than they were in the old days.