When Rick Kaselj of Canada joined the online group  The Cloverdale Mommy & Me Meetup Group with his infant son, he felt he found a place to get support despite the name. In an email interview he told me he had "joined the group and welcomed.  I had been a member for 2 to 3 months and was receiving 4 to 5 notices a day from the group." When it came time to show up at his first event he got an email from the moderator that more then half of the group voted to ban him from the group. In a quote to Surrey Now  the email went on to state:  "I hate to discriminate, but hope you can understand when it comes to the security of our children and especially since you have not been able to attend a meetup."  In the meantime Rick is now part of the At-Home Dad Network to help him find another playgroup that will accept him. Also the Surrey Now has started an online poll on the front page with the question: Do you think a Cloverdale mothers group was out of line when it rejected a Surrey father just because he was a man? So far the votes have been overwhelming in favor of Dad 80% to 20%.

It appears that on October 15th when the story broke they added this addendum to their main page: This Group is specific to moms only as requested by a majority of it's members

All I can say is shame on you Cloverdale, maybe let him spend a day at one event.. geez..give this guy a chance! Banning a member to a playgroup due to his gender has no basis on the "security of your children" Come on ladies!! This is a little over the top don't you think?

If there is another playgroup leader in the Surrey BC area that is reading this, I hope you will be the first to step forward and welcome Rick as a member. 

When I hear from Rick again or a playgroup that will take him on. I'll post an update...

Contact Rick

Note: This story has been updated

At-Home Dads go west!

Please join us for the 13th Annual At-Home Dads' Convention in
Sacramento, CA: Saturday, November 8th, 2008! 

After a 12 years in the Midwest, the convention is moving west this
year and will be held in the old historic downtown of Sacramento,
California.  Although the location is new, the format remains
familiar: a one day convention on Saturday packed with informative
lectures and conversation forums, bracketed by a long weekend of
social events starting the prior Thursday and ending on Sunday.  Some
of the lecture topics to be featured at the convention include:
"Teaching our kids the value of money", "Preparing our kids for
school", "Basic hair braiding", and "A Real Look Behind Men's Reasons
for Becoming a Stay At-Home Father" featuring the research of Dr.
Aaron Rochlen.  Discussion groups planned include "Dads with
Daughters", "Fathers and sons", "What about me?", and multiple open
discussion forums about our children by age group.  Social events will
feature a Friday evening Meet & Greet in the hotel and the popular
post-convention dinner, hosted this year at the River City Brewing
Company. Other social activities may include a wine country tour, an
NBA basketball game, a brewery tour, go-kart racing, and other fun
events.  Early registration fee available through the end of September

For hotel information, registration and event pricing, registration
form, and more general information, please see the convention website at:

www.athomedadconvention.com

Hope to see many of your there!

- Andy Ferguson, on behalf of the convention organizing crew.

Finally Comedian Jon Lajoie  posts a video response to "Mr. Mom" By Lonestar ..with a politically correct title. . enjoy.

Here's Dana Glazer's teaser trailer of his Evolution of Dad Project in time for Fathers Day. If the trailer is any indication, the movie ought to be a hit and will hit a few necessary nerves.  If you like you can chip in a few bucks to the cause here.

Got this e-mail from a Boston globe reporter, she's done a few stories in the past that have been well done, if you fit the bill send her off an email to maggie.jackson@att.net

     Boston Globe's Balancing Acts Columnist, Maggie Jackson, is looking to interview new stay at home dads about their first days or months at home. What was the most surprising? How have others reacted? What drives you crazy about staying at home with the kids - and does this differ from what moms feel and learn? I'm particularly looking for dads who have begun staying home because they've lost a job or for economic reasons. Deadline: This Friday but the sooner the better!

Looks like we might have had an impact on the 800-Flowers "Mr Mom" blunder. 

My thanks to the readers who sent out a letter to the CEO to take Mr Mom off, and while a few got $25 gift certicates in response it didn't do the trick.   

An alert mom from Virginia just happened to look at the Mother's day contest and reports they've replaced the Mr. Mom category with the Office Mom" category.

For a Mother's Day PR stunt 1-800-flowers sent a press release today announcing "The Celebrate Mom For Who She Is Contest"

Apparently they've picked the five most prevalent Mom personalities and would like you to choose which one best describes your mom and why. What may throw you dads off your diaper tables is that Mr Mom is one of the categories.

In the contest below They even encourage to just make the story about mom, after all it's her day!

As a side note,  one of the prizes is tickets to The Martha Stewart Show  who not only had a well blogged about "Mr Mom show" but has a business link with the Flowers CEO Jim McCann. I emailed Jim through media relations to request the Mr Mom category removed from the contest. If you would like to join me in taking this out send an email to Yanique Woodall of media relations at ywoodall@1800flowers.com.  I will let you know if common sense prevails and they hire a proof reader.

In the meantime if you get flowers for your wife on Mothers Day, skip the phone call and pick them out of your backyard instead.

In case you missed it this morning, Brian Reid of Rebel Dad made his cameo appearance on the Today show. The segment started off with a feature on Meg and Rich Lucas of the Austin Stay at Home Dads Playgroup. The typical at-home dad TV feature scene is shown with Rich giving the goodbye kiss to his wife before she rushes off to work. (The "morning scramble").  Although the tone of the 2 minute feature treated the at-home dad scene as a new phenomenon, they still couldn't resist sticking a Mr Mom scene in there. At least they were nice enough to point out that "Hollywood has not helped matters any" while showing the movie clip.  All in all Brian and Dr. Aaron Rochlen of UTexas did a great job in the 3 minutes interview representing the rest of us.

(Clix the pix to see the flix)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't think Thomas Beatie would be offended if you called him a Mr. Mom.

When he penned the Advocate's story on "his" pregnancy (due date: July 3rd) it put the media machine on high alert effectivly clogging the Advocate's servers and shutting it down yesterday. The moment the story was published every paper started spewing out National Enquirer headlines like:

'Pregnant' man stuns medical profession

Pregnant Man Is Five Months Along

Pregnant Man?: Find Out How It Happened

Of course reading the story on his decision, we find out that he's biologically a women (transman) and he's got a fasinating story to tell.  Check it out below.. if you can get in.

[ref: The Observer Labor of Love. - keep reloading if it says "service unavailbale]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The North of Boston Dads playgroup out of Wakefield, MA  (formally the nobaddad group) has transformed itself into to what I think may be the first social networking playgroup for at-home dads.  They used an easy to build playform provided by ning if you want to give this app a whack.