Bucket Head is a game. A great game. One of our favorites.

It involves me putting a yellow plastic bucket over one of my kids’ heads until their face is completely covered and then using it for a drum. All the while loudly chanting, “Buuuucket HEAAAD! BucketHeadBucketHead!” I drum fairly lightly, and they laugh and laugh and then it’s my turn to wear the bucket. It is elegant in its simplicity.

The game has evolved. Now the Peanut plays it with her little brother. In her version, she runs at him and slams the bucket down over his wispy, blond-haired, unsuspecting head and then wails on it with everything she’s got.

Just pounds the snot out of him. While screeching “BUCKET HEAD!!!” like an insane bird of prey.

The Pumpkin Man usually vacillates between laughing and crying until I can rescue him. He’s so happy she’s playing with him, but man, love hurts. She smiles and screams his name and tells me, “He likes it, Daddy. He likes it!”

It’s a little frightening for everyone. In a good way.

At our twice-weekly YMCA playgroup, not everyone talks to me. It’s mostly moms. Some of them are nice, many are standoffish. Some of the standoffish ones even go to the trouble of carrying extra, suspicious, mistrustful stares in their diaper bags that they drag out just for me.

There are times when I’m self-pitying about it and I wonder what I did wrong. Of course, when I’m honest with myself, I know what I did.

It started innocently enough. I was over to the side, playing a game of Bucket Head with my kids.

Some of the other kids noticed. They were intrigued. Who wouldn’t be?

Being naturally friendly, I shared our family game with them. At first it was just a couple of the bolder 3-year-olds. They, in turn, passed it on. Paid It Forward.

In a flash, toddlers everywhere were playing Bucket Head. Playing it hard. Like a campfire in a meth lab, it quickly got out of control. Toddlers, dozens of them — maybe hundreds — eyes wild, unseen mouths flecked with foam, running blindly, screaming, “Bucket Head!”

(Some of them had placed the bucket on their own heads and were stumbling around the gym, the call of Bucket Head echoing out from under their plastic headwear. That is not how the game is played. I mean – c’mon, guys. Pay attention. Which is something I probably shouldn’t have been saying at that moment.).

We ran out of buckets early on. They used plastic bins, toy strollers, Big Wheels, Playskool garages; whatever plastic toy they could cram onto each other’s heads and then thump. Tiny warrior-savages careening around, smiting the stuffing out of each other, crashing into each other. Screaming and eventually, swearing.

“Bucket Head! Fucking Buuucket Heaaad! GAAAHH!”

Civilizations collapsed and the playgroup plunged into chaos. Darkness. Not unlike the darkness you might experience if you were to have a bucket suddenly descend, unbidden, over your eyes.

It took us a long time to recover. Not everyone has forgiven me.

I wonder if they would like Cymbal Feet any better?

A version of this first appeared on Musings from the Big Pink. Main photo: © Michael Kachalov / Adobe Stock. Secondary photo: Homemaker Man.

Dear Playground Patron of the Adult Persuasion,

The playground at our local park remains a really great yet intimidating place for fathers like me. It’s a place where we get to have loud, crazy fun with our kids but it is often where we encounter frustratingly frequent reminders of how much gender roles and stereotypes about men and dads are entrenched in society.

To help you and all those of us who watch over our children (or others’ children) at these public spaces, I put together a guide so  you can understand what modern dads are thinking and experiencing. This guide could have been a lot longer but Bluey is on at noon and no good parent is going to miss watching that with his child!

1. Playground dads want to be there

We enjoy being actively involved in our children’s lives and do not want to shirk the responsibility of raising them.

2. Don’t assume we are unemployed or unemployable

Since the majority of modern households contain two working parents, dad likely came to the park today because mom is working and he has time off. Shift work, gig economy jobs, telecommuting, seasonal contracts, alternating parental work schedules — the trend for this is clear: Today’s working dads today trade off more primary caregiver hours with their partners.

3. If we are stay-at-home fathers, it is probably by choice

For the most part, men who become primary caregivers today want to be the primary caregiver. He made a conscious decision – along with his partner – to take that role for a reason: financial or otherwise. The “he can’t even get a job” dad stereotype is outdated and incorrect (see No. 2).

4. Playground dads aren’t looking for a hookup

Like most playground moms, playground dads have kids because we are already in committed relationships. We are not at the park on a Tuesday morning to find a date. We’re here to escape the house while the sun is shining, and let the kids burn off some energy. Yes, some playground dads are divorced or single, but that number is actually lower than in the general population. Call it the modern father factor: Capable dads who want to raise kids aren’t hitting the singles bars after work or the playgrounds while parenting.

5. We are tired

Our kids run us ragged. We also may have been up at 3 a.m. to care for the baby. Unless 3 a.m. was breastfeeding time, in which case we were up at 4 a.m. to change a diaper.

6. There’s a reason we aren’t looking our best today

See No. 5 above. Or we might have missed our whole self-care time today in between picking up 18,000 Legos and cleaning sweet potatoes out of things that were never designed to encounter sweet potatoes. We’ll shave tomorrow. Promise.

7. These kids might not even be all ours!

What?!? Why would a man take someone else’s kids to the park? We may be here because once our friends and family found out we were capable parents, they began asking us for help. At a playground recently, my sister-in-law handed me her baby while she went off to play with her 3-year-old. Of course, no one there knew I was holding my niece and not my daughter. Thank you though, my niece is pretty cute.

8. We’ve got this

Time and time again, dad friends tell me stories of strangers saying, “Oh, give me the child, you’re doing it wrong!” They’ve had their kids taken from strollers and even right out of their arms by someone who thinks they can parent better often because the child is crying. This gatekeeping has to stop.

9. Dads belong here as much as any mom

Still have a problem with me being here? Complain to my wife. She’ll really appreciate your call interrupting her staff meeting. She’s out there making headway in corporate America for women — making her daughter and family proud — and my active parenting contributes to her being able to succeed in her career. (BTW, you’d like her.)

10. We will be here next week

Yeah, this parenting thing takes a whole bunch of our time. Playground dads are cool with that. See you soon.

Signed,

That Dad at the Park Today

About the author

Chris Brandenburg, shown here with his daughter, August, is a husband, stay-at-home father and co-founder of Twin Cities Dads Group. He is also a member of the National At-Home Dads Network, and one time ate some reeeeeally spicy Chinese food.

Like any parent, I want my kid to be happy at school. This is her first year, and while she knew a couple of the kids before classes started, there were still a lot of new faces to get to know. I figured friendships would form naturally, and that’s true to a certain extent. But I soon realized many friendships were swiftly forming because of connections outside of the classroom.

One aspect of parenting that stay-at-home dads have to deal with is the “mother huddle.” That is those groups of moms who congregate at parks, coffee shops and playgrounds. The mother huddle is as much an idea as a reality. For me, it represents those groups of mothers that don’t want me as a member.

The huddle was why so many of my daughter’s classmates were hitting the ground running with their playdate game. Moms on the town catching up over coffee, kids in tow, become playdates, and these kids were forming stronger friendships and gaining confidence because of them. This was clearly something I was needed to deal with.

Making and missing connections

At this stage in my parenting life, I am used to being in female-dominated environments. I’ve been a stay-at-home dad since my wife returned to work when our daughter was 6 months old.

Initially, I was a bit wary of how our antenatal group would take to a man invading their exclusive weekday ladies’ time. But I needn’t have worried. They expressed not a single moment of uncomfortableness, and were more than happy to have conversations about cracked nipples and stretched vaginas in front of me while (in some cases) breastfeeding their kids.

A couple of years later, we moved. My wife again got a full-time job and I stayed home with our now toddler. Our old support network was gone, I was now a stay-at-home dad in a new town where we knew no one. And as the at-home parent, I knew it was up to me to make those connections.

It didn’t go well at first. At various baby and toddler groups, none of the moms would talk to me. I didn’t feel bad about it for me — but I did for our daughter, who I felt at that stage (coming up to age 2) would benefit greatly from regular social time with her peers.

Refusing to be defeated, I kept trying new groups — and eventually I found some friendly faces with similarly aged kids. But I was always aware of the mother huddle.

By definition, there were never dads there. Sometimes, mothers I thought I got on with would be in there, but I’d never be invited in. I even got totally blanked on a few occasions.

Now I have to face the mother huddle again, this time at school. The latest huddle has some familiar faces, but also new ones — and playdates were being exchanged as a form of social currency. I needed to break in.

My daughter and I were out and about one day, and she spotted a girl across the road. Turns out they had played together that week at school. Later, my daughter asked if they could have a playdate.

The invitation

The next day, I spotted the mom on the playground and went up to ask her. I was basically a strange man either inviting her to my place, or inviting myself over to hers. I wasn’t sure how she was going to take this.

Her reaction surprised me. She was grateful I had come up to talk to her as she was worried that her daughter wasn’t making new friends. So a few days later, we went over to her house. We chatted over coffee while the kids played in the other rooms. Turns out that she works four days a week, and doesn’t really know any of the other parents. I think she feels even more apart from the huddle than I do.

The next level to overcome was the unsupervised playdate, e.g., when my daughter would go to their friend’s house without me or I would pick the kids up at school for a playdate at our place. How would these mothers feel about their children (mostly girls) going home with a man they hardly know? I thought there might be trouble ahead.

But there wasn’t. All invitations were gratefully received, and many successful playdates later, I’m happy to have overcome my huddle outsider status. That’s not to say I’m now in the huddle. I’m happy to leave them chatting about each other’s coats after they drop their kids off (a conversation I recently walked past), but I haven’t let any potential exclusion impact on my daughter’s social development.

So perhaps the mother huddle isn’t the exclusionary force it once was. Maybe it never was in the first place.

About the author

In a previous life, Simon Ragoonanan of the United Kingdom was a television producer. He has been a stay-at-home dad to his daughter since she was 6 months old. He occasionally still works in TV, is a freelance writer, and blogs about being the dad of a daughter at Man vs. Pink.

1. Don’t take offense

You’re a dude. Most of the playdate parents you will deal with, especially if you are a stay-at-home dad, will be moms. They may feel weird about dropping their kid off at your house for two hours when they hardly know you. Not to mention that you may or may not be a gigantic scary looking human being to their small child. It’s all about comfort levels.

2. Keep a playdate neutral

Choosing your house for the “first date” is going way too fast. Meet up somewhere public like a playground so if it doesn’t go well there is no pressure to reciprocate.

3. Set a time limit

Standard times are two hours for kids who can sustain play by themselves without parent interaction. This may include your child if he or she is age 4 or older. Kids who are younger than 4, trust me, an hour is going to be plenty.

4. Set playdate parameters

Talk to the other parent about expectations, especially if the playdate is at your house. Set a time to drop off and pick up. Once, I didn’t do this and the parent showed up three hours later. Apparently, she went to see a movie that she didn’t have time for usually and thought that was acceptable.

5. Exchange digits

If your playdate parent is dropping off, make sure you have cell phone and home phone numbers in case something happens. Also, make sure the parent has yours in case he or she gets stuck in traffic or hung up somewhere.

6. Ask questions

Ask the parent if he or her child has any allergies or restrictions. Maybe they don’t eat a certain kind of food or are deathly allergic to something you think is otherwise safe.

7. Again, don’t be offended

If the parent you invited to the playground suddenly has her friends show up by “surprise,” let it go. She wasn’t sure of you, my friend, and having backup to talk to about girl stuff will probably make her more comfortable. While you may be comfortable watching others’ kids, they may not be until they know you more. Bonus: You just met more potential playdate parents! Everyone wins.

8. Pay attention

Watch the interaction between your kid and his new “friend.” Does this kid share? Do they play well together? Does the playdate kid offer to clean up without issue? Does the new friend scream when it is time for it to be over? These can all be things that make or break the playdate.

9. Chat the other parent up

Don’t talk about football constantly. You may want to get her take on whether Julio Jones is going to score any fantasy points for you this week but that is not good form. Ask about her family and share information about yours. While the kids are getting to know each other, you should get to know the other parent.

10. Give it play time some time

Kids will rarely get along perfectly the first time. Keep trying these public playdates until you become more comfortable with the other parent’s child. When you do become comfortable, then you can offer to host at your house. Once you establish a rapport, you can trade off dates. Eventually you will have established a routine that allows for either of you to get some time to yourself without worry.

A version of this first appeared on DadNCharge.

It’s vacation for my children. My wife, however, is working. So, I’m the parent in charge. Not wanting to rely completely on screen time and with only so many playdates possible, I’m taking my children out. You could say we’re going on a date.

Ever had a bad date with your children? Of course you have because we all have. Maybe it involved throwing-up, crying or whining. Whatever it was, the date sucked, and you wanted it over.

Ever had a bad romantic date before? Of course you have because we all have. Maybe it involved boring conversation, arguments or whining. The reasons are endless and you want it over.

Clearly, there are a lot of similarities between bad dates with your children and bad dates with a romantic interest.

But there are differences as well. And those differences can be rough.

1. Only One Person to Please

A date involves two people. When you are planning a date, you have one person to please. While I planned to enjoy my dates, my main concern was the woman. So if she didn’t like something, no problem. We could just do something else. One person, one set of quirks, one set of needs, one set of weirdities. Planning was rather simple.

Children is plural. I have two. So, in theory, the quirks, needs and weirdities should not have quadrupled. Yet somehow they do. It can take hours to find something both boys will enjoy. Sometimes one will wait to hear what the other one wants to do before deciding he does NOT want to do the same thing. Planning for a nuclear meltdown would be easier.

2. Getting Ready

When you get to your date’s house, you expect her/him to be ready. You honk the horn or knock on the door and she/he appears and the two of you are off. You might have to give an opinion on clothes/appearance but (if handled properly), this is brief. Okay, it might be a few minutes. Reasonable. Even the worst dates don’t usually go awry at this point.

Children need you to do EVERYTHING. They don’t do preparing. So, you have to do everything. Wash them, get their clothes out, remind them to go to the bathroom, zip their coats. If your children are of a certain age, preparations take longer than the date. When you finally do get out of the house, if you’ve forgotten something, you’re screwed. Prepare poorly and the date has no chance.

3. They Ain’t Faking It

Do you smile for the camera even if you don’t feel like it? Most of us do. Being an adult means trying to make the best of any situation. We grit our freakin’ teeth praying for the damn moment to end. Your date may suck, but instead of bitching, you fake smile and then suddenly remember a reason why you have to be home. It’s over – mercilessly.

Children don’t know they are supposed to fake it or don’t know how to fake it. Seriously, if your children are like mine, they tell you exactly how they feel. Everything is out there. That can be refreshing or NOT. Yup, if they are not entertained for every second, they will sigh, whine, and say, “I’m bored.” No faking here. You know just where you stand as you sink mercilessly.

4. No Guilt

Bad dates happen. Sure, when you scheduled the date, you hoped for a good time. Yet, no one goes through the dating life unscathed. While the dates may have sucked at the time, they are probably the basis for half your stories. Remember the time when … You laugh at them at this point and use them as conversation starters.

A crappy date with your children is reason for therapy. For all of you. Your kids are on the sofa telling the psychologist all about the horrible outing and how it made them feel. Yup, they’re traumatized. Meanwhile you’re out in the waiting room with a check for $175. You’re bleeding money, feeling guilty as all hell, and anxious about your turn to talk.

5. Separate Places to Live

Do you know the best part of a bad date with a romantic interest? The end. Good night, take care, bye-bye. Never see you again. You get to go back to your home and never see her/him again. By the time you’re back on the sofa flipping through the channels, your mind is more focused on SportsCenter or Lifetime or your chocolate donut than the crappy date you just had. Space is a beautiful thing!

Do you know the worst part of a bad date with your kids? It doesn’t end. You get home, and they come with you. Tough luck, parent! That person who just lost it or caused you to lose it or joined you in losing it – is still there. They ain’t going no place! You can watch a SportsCenter or Lifetime marathon, eat a box of Entenmann’s donuts, and it won’t matter. You have no space!

BONUS: NOT A BAD DATE!

6. A Different Kind of Lucky

A great date ends in a certain way. Maybe it’s physical pleasure. Maybe it’s a step toward love. Even better, maybe it’s both. Whatever it is, when the plans work and you’re with someone you care about, it can be magical. It’s Disney, Hallmark and Harlequin rolled into one. Bliss.

When the date with your kids ends and everyone is happy, you feel warm inside. You see the contentment on their faces and you know you’ve done your job as a parent. You created moments that they’ll remember and so will you. It’s a joy that makes everything else worthwhile. Bliss.

A version of this first ran on Me, Myself and Kids. Photo: dreamsjung on Foter.com / CC BY-SA

Sean Bean, editor of Parenting magazine and Parenting.com is a man we respect very much and we appreciate his friendship and kindness in including us in his magazine on occasion. Yesterday, he responded to allegations that one of the articles published on Parenting.com, The New Playdate Playbook, includes advice from an expert that exhibited an unfair bias against dads. In addition to my post yesterday, questions of dad bias came from mainstream parenting sites like Huffington Post and Babble, feminist websites like Jezebel, and sites focused on men’s issues like The Good Men Project.

You should read his response yourself, Sleepovers in the Sandusky Era, but basically, the Parenting editor suggests that we as parents are living in difficult and complicated times, there are in fact parents who are concerned about men supervising children, and they are entitled to their opinion. I agree, and I especially appreciated this point:

The 21st century parenting universe is vast. And as the message boards and comment fields on Parenting.com prove, it’s full of vastly different opinions. If would be easy if the only issue during a playdate or sleepover was a wet sleeping bag or a skinned knee. But that’s not the case any more. Gay parents, single dads, divorce, and violent video games are all part of the conversation. They are woven into the fabric of the modern American family. But for some, what’s different is what’s unfamiliar. And what’s unfamiliar is what’s unsettling. Ever made a difficult, maybe even irrational, decision based on the unknown? Another way to ask that question is: Ever been a parent?

That said, there are two points in this discussion that I think Bean is missing. First, the article frames the response as “expert” advice from a PhD, a therapist, and owner of a counseling center. Though I agree that “experts” deserve their own opinion, I think the inflammatory nature of the advice deserves to be countered with another point of view rather than left on it’s own. To Bean’s point, we are living in complicated and difficult times, and Parenting and Parenting.com needs to be resources for parents as we navigate scary news stories, technologies we don’t understand, and media that we don’t even know about. We don’t need more fear mongering.

My second concern comes at the end of the piece when he says “five tween girls texting and braiding and gossiping and squealing and (let’s be honest, not) sleeping might be beyond my skill set.” First, though Bean acknowledges that his experience is not the issue, he does have an opportunity here to represent a broader picture of what it means to be a dad. The brouhaha is about divorced dads, but the same questions and concerns are coming up about single dads, widowed dads, at-home dads, and gay dads. Whether within our skill set or not, sometimes we are called upon to step up to something unfamiliar and uncomfortable. Some fathers don’t have the opportunity to “opt out” of a tween sleepover, or braiding their daughters’ hair before school, or the first period, or bra shopping, so they step up, do the best they can, and they deserve nothing less than our respect.

On Saturday, about 20 dads with their wives and children met in the morning by the Great Lawn for our 2nd Annual NYC Dads Group pre-Father’s Day playdate in the park.

What makes a day like this so special is that not only do I get to hang out with some wonderful dads, but I also get to meet the other half of the parenting equation in their family … which is such a rarity since most of our events are exclusively for dads.  The weather was perfect!  With blankets chained together under the canopy of shady trees (see pic by Scott H.), our children socialized, played ball, and worked on their sharing skills.  Most parents got to relax, unwind, and enjoy themselves.  Well, almost all of the parents.  Unfortunately, my son thought it was much cooler to race off outside of the fenced-in area rather than staying put so my wife & I can finish a conversation – he is 3 … so it’s par for the course. 

Either way, it was an awesome way to enjoy the ride of parenthood with so many other committed, caring, and involved parents.  A chance to spend time with dads I have known for almost three years as well as welcome some new dads within our growing community.  A few of the working dads that participated today had requested more activities like this on the weekends because they are unable to attend our events during the week.  A good point and something we hope to expand on in the future.

Most surprisingly, was my wife’s feelings about the entire event.  She is the career-oriented breadwinner of our family while I am primarily the at-home dad as the primary caregiver to our son.  She said that this type of event where she is able to talk shop with other working moms who are also the breadwinner of their families was a real treat for her.  Makes me think that other breadwinning moms are probably seeking camaraderie, socialization, and support in their unique roles.  My wife has suggested in the past setting up a mom’s night or parents’ night out so she can engage in more conversations with parents in a similar situation as our family.  Even more important for her, is to get to know the mothers of the dads that I have grown so close with over the years within our community. There are so many resources for stay-at-home moms but, what about the breadwinning moms? It certainly is a growing trend.

Babble posted up their Father’s Day feature story today. It’s not your heartwarming or compelling story about how dad is the greatest.

Nope, Babble questions whether having cute stay-at-home dads is a problem in Playdates With Other People’s Husbands? by Jamie Rich. At the center of this article is an issue that merits some discussion – is it uncomfortable for a stay-at-home-mom to have a one-on-one playdate with an at-home-dad?

One mom admitted, that the situation could be uncomfortable.
“I don’t call [SAHDs] for one-on-one activities the way I do the moms. It feels awkward to me, too intimate, to have some dude lounging on the floor in my living room chatting about diapers and toddler feeding,” she told me.

I prefer to hang during the week with a gaggle of dads, but still frequently make local playdates with my mom friends. These playdates occur at a public location like an indoor playgym or local playground so I haven’t been confronted with a one-on-one in a more intimate setting.

Isn’t it all about the adult interaction and opportunities for our children to interact with other kids? I am interested to hear some dads (or moms) weigh in with their opinions- are you uncomfortable with a one-on-one playdate with an at-home parent of the opposite sex?

A year ago, I tacked up a few signs on the bulletin board in our building’s laundry room:

STAY-AT-HOME DAD
LOOKING TO CREATE A
DAD’s PLAYGROUP!

· I have a 3-month-old son
· Interested in meeting new dads
· Prefer to meet on weekdays during the day, but flexible

No responses ever resulted from the posting.

I was reminiscent of that failed experience this week when I read the article New Mom in a Strange Land: How to Make it in your Neighborhood as a New Mother by Jennifer Noble Colgan in the October issue of Parent Guide News.

The article mentions that “When you become a new mom or move to a new neighborhood, the isolation that results can be devastating. My experience taught me that most other moms feel the same way, but either they don’t know where to find other parents in their situation or they’re too timid to say hello. So, take a deep breath, get ready to say hi and try one of these avenues to start making friends.”

Colgan shares these six steps she used to make it in her own neighborhood as a new “mother”:
1. Go Out and Play – meet other parents at a local park or playground
2. Go Back to School (or Daycare) – use the common bond with other parents because your kids are in the same class
3. Join the Club – join a moms group…dads group…or parenting group
4. Start Your Own Group
5. Make Some Noise – meet other parents in a parenting class like music, gym, or swim
6. Post a WANTED Sign – did not apply well to this at-home-dad

If the article were titled “How to Make it in Your Neighborhood as a New & Involved FATHER,” I am wondering how the steps would remain the same, change, or be modified.