Getting With the Program

The best assets for a lot of the dads doing the at-home dad thing are other local parents doing the same thing. A lot of these other parents happen to be moms. This isn't usually a problem -- everyone is usually pretty open-minded about the gender thing, and what barriers exist are usually largely in our head.

But not always.

I received a note from a reader who sent along text and a link to the San Diego Open Minded Moms Group, which proudly stated that

"This group is for Open Minded Moms ONLY. We welcome all OPEN MINDED moms including straight, bi-sexual, tattooed, pierced, and lesbian moms. If you cannot accept people for themselves please don't join us. No Men will be allowed within the group, although husbands and boyfriends may be invited to SOME not at all of our events." (ital. mine.)

But the story *does* have a happy ending.

But if you look at their link now (http://playgroup.meetup.com/568/?gj=ej1-181_plus), they've become more inclusive: "Fathers are welcome at some playgroup events, but may be understandably excluded from our pillow fights, lingere parties, calendar photo shoot, pole and or belly dancing lessons, and other girls only adventures."

Fair enough, and kudos to the open-minded moms to opening the group to fathers, even if we're not allowed to pillow fight.