Why?

Well, I was not working when my son was 2-3 so I was the one who took him to his play groups. Rather then the town being in charge of the play group, it was a local PRIVATE (ie not run by city) organization/mothers club that handled it. The fact that I was the only father who was a regular in the group made no difference to any of the moms in the group.

This whole mess in the NL is a great example of what happens when you let your government handle something that parents should handle for themselves.

The Dutch statistics make the difference between “western” and “non-western” minorities (the word used in the Netherlands is ‘allochtonen’, which means something like people from foreign origin). 10% of the population are non-western minorities, of which 5.7% are muslims – but in the large cities, including the one where I live, this is around 10%.
Of these 10%, the two largest ethnic groups are Maroccan and Turkish. But they represent a significant larger share of the poor, low-skilled, and unemployed (of course, there are also some extremely ‘succesful’ members of ethnic minorities, but they are not the target-groups of the local public policies).

I am not a scholar of Islam so please forgive me for any inaccuracies I may communicate regarding this information. Please know they are my inaccuracies, not my religion’s! Ok, so Islamically speaking, a woman is free to work, it’s her choice, but if she does all the money she makes is for her (her own “mad-money” or “stash” so to speak), it should not be used to support the family because that is the man’s primary role.

Culturally speaking, Arabic culture puts heavy heavy shame on any man that stays home with the kids and only his wife is working. In their minds he is using her, he’s up to no good, etc. There is nothing “virtuous” that he could possibly be doing, especially if you employ a housemaid (which I did, she was my newborn baby’s Nanny!) if you get my drift! This culture absolutely positively cannot see the issue any other way…

My husband could not go to my son’s school for any reason, even though he was the children’s primary care giver because I was at work. He was under no circumstances allowed to enter the front gate of that school, let alone go inside the school. The principal would call me at work so she wouldn’t have to talk to him on the phone!

You have to understand that these may be women that have never, ever shown their faces to any man that is not in their immediate family….And now they may be living in this new Western country, with their faces exposed. What an enormous change, let alone having to show their breasts while nursing their baby in a play group.

That is how extreme this “ethnic minority’s” culture can be….

So I totally know from first-hand experience what it’s like to have a Mr.Mom in an unfriendly environment.

If the discussion was purely “should men not be included in playgroups”, I would be totally like “of course they should, segregated playgroups are an unfair and ridiculous idea!”…

But I discerned that is not really what is on the table…It seems clear to me that the purpose of this 1x/week segregated offering of a playgroup was an attempt by your country’s gov’t to assimilate the “ethnic minority” muslim women into the mainstream culture… not simply to offer a playgroup to the general Western public, and oh yeah it’s no men allowed.

Let me know if more clarification is needed..
Peace-

1. What is the % of the population on social services in this country that is muslim? It must be a pretty high percentage for the gov’t to think that doing this would be beneficial!
…My conclusion is that the Social Serivces in that country is having these segreated play groups SPECIFICALLY to TARGET the muslim/”ethnic minority” population….not simply to “incorporate them” into the playgroups….
What ethnicity are these muslims? It sounds very much to me like they are from Arabic culture….

2.If in fact the Gov’t there can succeed in actually getting these women to attend the playgroups it will be a hudge milestone. Typically in these countries where they are from, the idea of even reading a book to your child is totally foreign; it simply isn’t done. There is no such thing as playgroups in traditional cultures in places like the gulf; I imagine that North Africa isn’t much different, with the possible exception of Egypt…

3.I am sure that this country wants to try and assimilate these groups into their society, but it has to be done step-by-step, slowly introducing them to the cultural norms. The void between their culture and the Western state of mind regarding so many facets of life is hudge; Kudos to the Gov’t there for the bold move of trying to help these women make the transition. If they can change the women, they can change the entire family units…

4. It seems that most posters here really have no idea what these immigrant muslim families’ values are like. Unless you really have a grasp of what Arabic and Muslim culture truly is, you have no business commenting on the topic.

5.Many of the comments are, sadly, racist and Western/Imperialistically-tainted versions of Feminism! There are many many many versions of Feminism…YOUR REALITY is not the only one that is CORRECT!
Peace-

To me, men-as-primary-caregivers is something we want to encourage, and the discrimination they face is substantial. There are, however, very few of them (this is part of the problem), and they are not very visible (another part of the problem).

Unfortunately there seem to be a lot of sexist immigrants, which means that even a minor benefit to society on a per-head basis outweighs quite a lot of cost per head to the men as primary caregivers group.

I expect that feminists who are mostly concerned with women will favour the women-only preschool, while equalitarian feminists will favour integration. But both sorts will hopefully be open to argument. Anyone not counts as a bigot in my book (try looking up what the word means if you find that offensive).

No, I don’t have an answer. I’m someone who intends never to have children and can’t really “put myself in the shoes” of someone who does. Sorry.

We simply can’t support public initiatives which cater to religious beliefs that exclude certain groups. It’s a pity, because these mother-only playgroups might do a great deal of good: but they’re unacceptable.

Other than the fact that this is in the Netherlands, not the US, I’ve faced it. 14.5 years ago, after we had our first child, I—the father—stayed home with the kids, and stopped being a full-time employee. Naturally, as our sons got older, we wanted to get them out and have the opportunity to play with other kids (I was also eager to have some more contact with adult human beings—something I’ve heard mothers of small kids express in the same terms). I happen to have a gender neutral first name, and in some email contacts, people (reasonably) assumed I was female. As time went on, I made a point of making it clear that I wasn’t….

I showed up to gatherings in parks and was almost always the only male present. Eventually, I made contact with a couple other fathers in the same situation. We compared notes.

We’re the smaller minority (still). We experience all kinds of hostility and suspicion (try being a male alone with a shrieking two year old who is furious about something and is screaming for his mommy, walking out of a mall. No one bats an eye at a mother; security visits with a father, after several people give you the evil eye…). One of us had a playgroup simply up and move. They changed place, day, and didn’t even tell him. They didn’t want a man there. From my own experience and observation, they guy was pretty mild and inoffensive, and vociferously feminist. Others got invited out of groups they approached. I simply got… ignored. Efforts to simply have the most superficial social contact, focused on the kids, were snubbed.

The real losers were the kids. We adults were offended, but we had other contacts and friends; the kids were being excluded—because their parent who was around by day was male.

Eventually, we organized our own playgroup and met regularly. But we got all kinds of strange for that, too. People asking if we were all giving mom the day off (growl). Women who were at a park with their kids packing up and leaving. One who told us she thought it was incredibly rude and hostile of us to have a group of men-only as a playgroup (as if we were the ones who’d been excluding).

I’ve sympathy for the problem that is being addressed. It’s not bogus. But the truth is that if women sincerely want to encourage the idea that parents are equal and ought to be equally able to serve all needs (other than birthing and nursing…), then they need to be willing to support that—actively, and in the vast majority of cases and situations.

There’s a really bitter irony when you hear women bitch about their husbands not carrying their share, and they turn around and refuse to include men who are carrying the same load that they are in their social circle, and exclude the kids of those men. Message sent.

I’m perfectly fine with there being places where the genders can be apart. But they should be relatively rare and distinct.

Note that in one case, kids and adults are being actively excluded and in the other, adults are making a choice, rooted in their faith (a choice) to exclude themselves. One’s a choice that respects the individuals, one’s not.

Again, I have no problem with there being some—though I’d want them to be a distinct minority—groups that are single gender parent groups. But it’s not my preference, and if any of the men involved in the group I participated in had had the option, we’d have been in mixed groups. We were all interested in our kids growing up with the clear idea that it was ok for it to be mommy OR daddy that did various things. Sadly, we had to gather from all over San Diego County to provide a group for men raising kids, because the women (many of them, I’m certain, who saw themselves as feminist) didn’t apparently want that. Not in practice.

This is akin to when my daughter and I are out and women I know say, “Oh, are you babysitting today?” No, I am damn well not babysitting. This is my daughter, and I am her father, and I do not babysit my own child.

The idea that we should reinforce the prejudice that fathers are not equal parents because someone has that prejudice is ridiculous! Why not exclude blacks from playing because someone is from 1980s South Africa? Why not exclude people of one religion because someone else might take offense?

It’s just reinforcing prejudice, and I wouldn’t participate in that.