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Comment by ineedasername | Hacker News Reader

This plays out at all levels. I felt extremely insulted just a few days ago when my youngest’s preschool held a gathering to celebrate their “graduation” to pre-school.

At least 4 times mothers were called on to step forward— once to have a song sung to them, another to receive a flower, etc. Fathers were not mentioned at all.

This prompted me to look around, get a rough sense of the distribution… Counting the kids & counting the male attendees, I can’t say for sure that all were fathers but it roughly balanced the # of kids.

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My daughter's teacher this year just straight blanks me at the parent consultations. Like, it's uncomfortable. Speaking to some other fathers it's not just me. But I am still undecided over whether it's worth complaining as her holding her hands up and saying mea culpa seems somewhat unlikely and I feel I would quickly become the bad guy.

> My daughter's teacher [...] it's not just me

Maybe it was just her though. I'd talk to the school director over this.

You're not wrong but at the same time she otherwise seems to do a good job with my daughter which I'm keen not to in any way get in the way of by making this about me.

It's not about you, though; it's about all of the fathers that will follow you. Does your partner see this dynamic as well? Will she support you by redirecting conversations to force your inclusion? That's where I would start, if you don't want to throw her under the bus with her admin.

Your point is correct of course and I have considered that. Where my partner stands is complicated because I share parents evenings with my ex, whose support I can not rely on to put it mildly.

She is teaching your daughter that treating you (or other men) this way is acceptable. I think it's worth the intervention for that reason.

Did you communicate to the organizer about this?

In modern society we're normally conditioned to avoid confrontation, but it's the best way to initiate a proactive solution.

The problem with confrontation is people tend to start acting as if they’re playing a role that they don’t know how to leave. As though they’ve seen in movies and places where two sides get ramped up, confront one another, but there’s usually not an equally powerful resolution to model. It’s just: get angry and be blatant/audacious. Notably in movies violent resolutions are much more common as the ultimate resolution, too, and that doesn’t leave much as a compromise or alternative-so just stay pissed/audacious/etc.

I don’t know if I have a suggestion to OP. One option would be to offer to contribute to buying the flowers next time. That’s a soft way to engage and remind there’s others in the audience not being celebrated. Personally, I’d probably be put off by the whole thing and just let them have their moments. Or bring dark chocolate. Chocolate because theobromine acts a little like a happy “everything’s good” buzz for people and men might tend towards dark chocolate over milk. But bring some milk chocolate too-shows you’re being inclusive.

Nothing to be done at this point: the event is over and my child is done with that school.

It is annoying ( effectively being excluded ), but do we need social validation to do our job ( raising kids )? Now, if the teacher is withholding information, that is a different story.

It’s not only about how the father feels in a situation like this. It’s also about the message that sends to the child, who has now seen (and will continue to see throughout their childhood) subtle messaging about the role and responsibilities that each parent takes on, and the perceived value of each parent in caring for them. A message that is heavily imbalanced, yet will influence their own view on things as they grow up.

Value is in the eye of the beholder.

Granted, I absolutely hear what you are saying. Not to search very far, I have cousins, who managed to get bamboozled their father was an absent father, because he was a trucker and clearly did not love them enough ( apart from ,naturally, securing their future several times over, but as kids they could not understand it -- and their mother certainly was keen to capitalize on it ).

OTOH I was the only male in my daughter's classes whatsapp group for parents. Most fathers seemed to be glad the mother was handling that shit.

And I doubt I was the only divorced father with shared custody.

What is a parents' WhatsApp group for?

From things like "my son left his math book in school, can someone send a picture of page 23 so we can prepare for the test" to "my daughter didn't write down the homework assignments; can someone send them" to organizing the class outing, discussing general issues with teachers or the schools organization.

Doesn't this just delay learning about responsibility and consequences until later, when the consequences might actually be real? Parents getting this involved in the children's learning seems really, really weird to me.

We are talking primary school, when kids don't have their own phone/computer and it is unrelated to taking responsibility and consequences. If my daughter ask me to relay a question/message because she didn't wrote well / forgot a detail, she is actually taking responsibility for it.

This is the content I've seen so far, limited to primary school children.

I'm German so my view may not be the prevailing one in the US, but I see my role as including making sure that the kids get a proper education. This includes making sure they are doing their homework and are revising for tests.

The consequence of forgetting (or "forgetting" ;) ) to write down their homework assignments or their books is not a work-free afternoon, an inconsequential negative remark by their teacher or a slightly worse test score (I'd argue that at primary school age consequences have to follow directly; a delayed test score does not register).

The first time it happened, they got a friendly expansion of the expectations. The second time an expression of disappointment. There hasn't been a third time.

Also I was glad they could ask for anything they missed when my girls were still learning the language and were spending most of their class time trying to grasp what they were told in class.

There are loads of reasons its useful for parents to communicate which have no bearing whatsoever on the long term psychological health of the child. I feel you might be reading a little too much into the implications of having that channel that simply aren't founded.

Like: My son loses his sun hat. I could make a point about personal responsibility and let him get sunburnt for a few weeks until he saves up his non-existent pocket money to pay for a replacement, or I could just ask if anyone has it and find out that Joe accidentally took it home and that Joe's mum is going to leave it on the fence post at drop-off.

Why is this weird? I can make sure my child faces consequences for this myself. If I don’t get the learning material on time, the consequence is that my child doesn’t learn what they need to, has a slightly harder time keeping up in the next day’s lesson. I don’t want my child’s punishment to be “insert obstacles to learning”.

Also that might not even be an very unpleasant experience for them. In my kid’s school the teacher has plenty of other things to deal with so their practice is generally to have kids do the missed work quickly in the classroom and move on. I’m not sure my child is going to learn much about responsibility that way.

Instead, I take the time to make sure my child is able to get their work done on time. But that costs me time. This is where the consequences and learning responsibility comes in. Because I value my time, and the ways I make my children compensate me for my time when they have been irresponsible is much more memorable what they’d experience being unprepared in school.

Well it is useful at primary school when kids don't have phones. If they miss one day of school or didn't record correctly an information from the teacher parents can ask others about homework tasks, missed lessons, etc.

Also the parents delegate can relay useful info from the teacher's as the only one who has direct immediate (without taking an appointment) through that channel. State is maintaining an app/website where teachers can send messages to parents but while some do it correctly, other teachers ignore it completely.

It is also interesting when some parents find out they have an issue with a specific teacher. Like this year one of my daughter had one lazy one and parents expressed their concerns to the delegate and debated on a common message to send to school.

To help Meta collect more information on everybody and their children.

I wish people were using xmpp, tox, briar or jami but that is the way it is. Network effect.

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