I’m a member of the May 2009 forum on BabyCenter. I think it’s a clever and useful idea to have forums specifically for a birth cohort, and it’s entertaining and informative to read comments from fellow parents.
I’m more than a bit disappointed that there aren’t more males on the forum I’m on; I haven’t seen any others post, although I haven’t scoured the place. Granted, the forum is written with mothers in mind first, and I think there’s a bit of chicken-egg going on: Because, historically, mothers have been expected to have a much more central role in child-rearing, sites devoted to child-rearing are focused on mothers, not fathers, which in turn leads some men who might be on the fence on the subject to feel unwelcome.
For the most part, I haven’t felt unwelcome; quite the opposite. However, I’m disappointed in the tenor of some of the mothers posting on a Father’s Day thread, the gist being, “Because I didn’t get a Mother’s Day card, I’m not getting him a Father’s Day card,” sometimes with something hostile thrown in. I understand it, but it’s still disappointing, from both perspectives: That so many men decided to forget Mother’s Day (because, really, with how much publicity it gets, how could an act of forgetting be anything other than willful?), and that so many women are being spiteful in return. Perhaps some of these couples would benefit from more positive intercommunication in place of aloofness and online sniping.
Ah well. My wife got a Mother’s Day card (approved by the kidlet in the store), and I’m told I’m getting a Father’s Day card. What happens in other households is what happens in other households.