📿The Only Dad at Baby Camp

Navigating Fatherhood, Finding Connection at Dad Fight Club, and Breaking Stereotypes Along the Way

nothing brings dads together like a good fire

I am sort of obsessed with my baby.

When she was brand new, I would stay up at night for hours at a time as she slept in a bassinet at my side, holding a watchful vigil to make sure she kept breathing. Later on, when she began sleeping for longer periods in the adjoining room, I would wake and go in there to stare intently, letting my eyes adjust to the dark until I could see the rise and fall of her belly. To this day, when she so much as moans at night, one eye opens and my body leaps from the bed to cross the hall, not unlike a dog who has just heard the words, “Want to go for a walk?” 

Most mornings Ruby and I wake up together. I change her as she does her morning stretches. She climbs on me over morning coffee. Then breakfast (currently: banana and yogurt) and then I change her. I like to give her options of outfits to wear. She has strong opinions, but I also only give her the options I think would look really nice on her. 

She giggles much of the time but alternates it by staring as if she can read your very soul. She went through a phase where she would do that and point at a stranger. I tried to train her to say, “Seven days” because how creepy would it be if you had a baby stare into the core of your being and whisper those two words? You’d definitely mark your calendar for seven days later. 

Ruby has taught me a lot about hugging.

I mention the above because I think if a mom wrote those words, people would shrug knowingly. Of course a mom would say that. Yet, for some reason, when a dad talks about the one thousand factors that go into caring for a young one, it’s viewed as surprising to some people. There is, in my experience, more of an expectation for moms to be obsessed with and involved in all the details of their children’s lives.

A few months ago I was at a friend’s party and met a straight couple. The guy was trying to bond with me about dad stuff, which I appreciated. He mentioned that while at a school function for his kid, a particularly judgmental mom asked him his daughter’s shoe size, clearly trying to gauge how involved he was in his daughter’s life. He responded with the correct size. 

“Nice job,” I responded with sincerity, simultaneously wondering if this is the future I have in store: a life where my work takes over or I return to old hobbies and friends to such an extent that I would brag about knowing my kid’s shoe size, as opposed to laboriously pouring over top ten lists to determine the best shoe to purchase for her. Still, the judgmental mother didn’t expect a dad to rise to the low bar of knowing such a thing, and he did, so good on him.

On Thursday mornings we have been going to the local Waldorf school for what we call Baby Camp. It’s technically called Leaflets but I lay awake at night with the image of a bunch of one year-olds trying and failing to stand on a street corner holding leaflets, hoping people will take them.

A passerby would grab a leaflet and exclaim, “Oh nice! A new restaurant! Do you know the directions to get there?” and the baby would stand there, mute, because babies don’t know directions to new restaurants. Then, they might fall down, because babies aren’t great at standing either.

I imagine Leaflets is a name referencing a small foliage leaf but my daughter is not a small foliage leaf, she is a baby, so I like to call it Baby Camp. 

I am the only father at Baby Camp. Why? The group is made up of almost entirely families who have moved upstate from New York City and takes place at a progressive school. It makes no sense to me that it is entirely moms and even grandmas but no dads.

Granted, we do live in a patriarchal society (and my family lives in a small pocket of it that is somewhat conservative) where, after all the strides we’ve made together, there are stereotypes about men being expected to work and provide for a family and women being expected to care for the children. Or maybe the moms want to meet other moms and dads are less interested in that? Or maybe the moms have more tolerance for the group’s leader, who we will call Miss Verano.

I do not have a lot of tolerance for Miss Verano. Every week she does the same puppet show where a kitten chases a butterfly and then is called home by first Mommy Cat and then Daddy Cat and that’s the whole show. That’s it (my apologies; I should have put a spoiler alert at the top of this paragraph). 

Miss Verano also frequently offers unsolicited advice on how to interact with your child, which my wife points out I seem to (subconsciously, I swear) ignore. While the kids are gumming their snacks, Miss Verano will make a point about, say, not assisting your baby while they attempt to walk and shoot a glance at me to make sure I’m listening. I try to hold her gaze but she quickly looks away. 

There are also many elements of this program that I find adorable but, suffice to say, even before Ruby has entered daycare I am already overly critical of the education that she is receiving. It is a different form of being obsessed with her, but I’ll own it.

Not just because I’m the only dad at Baby Camp (although it certainly isn’t helping) I am also a lonely dad. 

I want to bond with other dads, but I find it few and far between to find dads as obsessed with their kids in the way I am. Dads who would never wear a “Girl Dad” t-shirt but would potentially get their daughter’s name tattooed on their chest. Dads who are not shy about how much they miss their kids when they are away from home for a night. Dads who also pour over top ten shoe lists and subsequently want to preserve the tiny shoes for posterity (because what if the kid brings a romantic interest home from college and they want to see her baby shoes?).

A while back, I hit up our neighbor down the street for drinks on a Friday night after both our kids were asleep. As we got to talking about our week and what was going on in our respective families a certain kinship arose; Chris was as involved in his kids’ lives as I was in mine.

Two other friends were brand-new dads, their kids under three months-old at the time and thus, sufficiently obsessed with their newborns. Another had just moved to the area and the family was going through an adjustment period and he was clearly very dedicated to his family.  This sparked an idea in me: Dad Fight Club.

My wife, the moment our child was born, was added to about a dozen text chains for moms. We had not even left the hospital before she was inundated with hundred-text threads about book clubs, moms that like to swim, and many other iterations of “This is a sisterhood where we are allowed to unabashedly be open about the joys and pains of motherhood under the pretense of a book, a pool, anything.” 

I was added to no such lists. I didn’t see that such a thing exists where I live. In fact, based on my experience, I see little to no social support structures for dads trying to navigate fatherhood.

Because I am who I am, when I don’t see that something exists, I’m inclined to try and create it. This pattern of behavior led me to organize Dad Fight Club. 

Dad Fight Club sounds tough and, similar to the many text chains my wife has for moms, is a good cover for a bunch of guys talking about the joys and pains of fatherhood.

The rules are quite simple: