I regularly make appearances at my oldest’s school. I’ve been on a couple of field trips, and every few Fridays I show up for “parent centers,” where a few parents come into school for about forty-five minutes and supervises a range of activities – measuring objects, basic math, language arts, whatever. The children are grouped according to various tables (I think the teacher changes them periodically), and each parent works with a given table on a given day. While the teacher tries to have the parent with their own child’s group, it does not always work out (there are two sets of twins in the classroom, and the siblings do not sit at the same table). For the most part the kids are okay with that, especially this far into the year.
As I’ve said, I’ve done this several times, and thus far I’ve seen no other dads on the days that I’ve volunteered. My wife has also gone a few times, and she too has seen no other dads. My oldest has said that one or two other dads have been there. Most of the dads, I imagine, have jobs that keep them from coming to their children’s school for this kind of thing, that they take days off for “special events.” I saw quite a few when the class made their Ancient Egypt presentations.
When I go there, I sometimes wonder what the children think of me. One of her classmates is someone I remember from her last year, and evidently I’m his buddy, which allows me to “mess with” the kids by telling more jokes. I tend to have a certain dry sense of humor, which manages to translate well enough. I walk a line, because of course once five-year-olds start laughing, it’s one step away from silliness, and there is work to be done. (My daughter, amazingly to me, is always well-behaved when I go. She listens to me – I should come to school every day for half an hour! – and is very helpful in putting stuff away). But I think the kids seem to feel like I’m pretty cool.
The boys especially seem, at times, fascinated by my presence. One boy asked me, “are you her mommy?” He obviously knows the difference between boys and girls, but I suspect he’s so used to seeing moms at school that he must have entertained the idea that I was a mom. I don’t think they are used to seeing a male around in the daytime, except maybe a grandfather. I guess their image of “dad” is that he’s the guy who works all the time and spends time with them on the weekends. I think one of the dads is in Iraq. I suspect that a couple of my daughter’s classmates are living only with their mothers, though I don’t know that for certain.
I know some of the moms here have written about the difficulties of getting fathers to volunteer. I wonder how much time couples spend thinking about how to raise their children before there are any children to raise. One of the reasons I took my job as an academic is so that I could have a more flexible schedule that gives me the time to be around my children. Had I a job that kept me at work forty to sixty daylight hours a week, I don’t think I would have wanted to be a father. That’s me, and what my wife I and wanted. That’s not what everybody chooses, or should choose.
I don’t pretend to be an authority. There are others here at this site who have some impressive qualifications regarding early childhood care. I’m just one guy, who likes the feeling when his five-year old takes him by the hand and holds it walking down the steps to the cafeteria after he’s volunteered for the day.