These "Dad Clubs" Are Rewriting Fatherhood - One Stroll at a Time ...Middle East

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With any new baby, there's an endless list of unexpecteds - but what first-time dad Joe Gonzales least expected was his own crisis of confidence. Suddenly the 32-year-old wondered about going out alone with his infant son, what people would think, and if he could handle any medical or diaper-related emergencies. At his lower moments, he even recalls asking himself: If I take him to the bathroom, are people gonna think I stole this kid? It wasn't until last October, when he put out a call to other new dads in his Brooklyn neighborhood suggesting a meetup in McCarren Park, that he began to relax.

"We just sat around and talked. No pride, just, 'Hey I'm learning this, you're learning this,'" Gonzales tells PS. "There's a lot that goes into parenting that's maybe new discoveries, and they're scary, but seeing dads that were willing to have those conversations with you was just really encouraging. It filled a need."

It wasn't long before news of that gathering caught wind in the NYC parenting scene, sparking demand for regular meetings of the newly minted Brooklyn Stroll Club.

All over the country, there are dads like Gonzales craving connection - not just with their kids, but with each other. These dads want the world to know that modern fatherhood looks different than it did when they were kids - and maybe even unrecognizable from what their own dads experienced a generation before them.

Dads today have more license than ever to be vulnerable, present, and tender with their kids, partners, and themselves. And for those who don't have the space they need, many are carving it out, creating intimate experiences for the dads and kids in their communities where they didn't exist before. It's the era of the dad club, and we're all better for it - whether you yourself are a parent, a child, a partner, a friend, or just a daddy admirer. (Pedro Pascal fans count.)

More attuned, insightful, openly loving dads translates to better families and better societies, Gonzales says, especially at a time when reproductive rights have been so eroded and pregnancy has become even more politicized. Being a parent himself has given Gonzales more empathy for his own wife, and for parents in general - understanding the costs, not only of material things like daycare and living expenses, but also the mental and spiritual toll of raising a child today.

Courtesy of Joe Gonzales

"I think dads, when they're present and active and listening to not only their child but their partners, can advocate for what is really needed for the best of their family," he says.

Many dad club leaders believe their groups and others like them are revolutionizing parenting, giving dads permission to take more active roles in their families. Gonzales, for one, has now memorized the anatomy of the family diaper bag, and doesn't hesitate to take his baby for walks, with or without his Brooklyn Stroll Club companions. "Being outside with your kid can be crazy anywhere, and being outside in New York is crazy in general," he says. "But now I know what's in my baby bag, I know if he's hungry or tired. I can give him what he needs. I've gained that confidence."

To see this daddyhood renaissance for ourselves, PS checked in with four dad clubs from coast to coast. Meet the groups below and learn about how they're bringing dads together to break the stigmas around fatherhood and reunite with the joys of parenting.

Get to Know 4 Dad Clubs

Dads Coffee Club - Los Angeles

Sara Sanei / Courtesy of Ron Holden Jr.

Dads Coffee Club isn't Ron Holden Jr.'s first community organizing effort. Five years ago this June, he founded the Ride for Black Lives, a twice-weekly bike ride through greater LA to foster a "positive safe space" for his friends and neighbors.

While that group has dwindled a bit (they meet something more like once a quarter now), he's been busy with a few other big projects: namely raising his 2.5-year-old daughter alongside his partner, working full-time as a creative director at an agency, and running a new community group dedicated to bringing dads and kids together at his favorite coffee shops around his hometown.

The 37-year-old refused to believe that becoming a dad meant he had to sacrifice his favorite things, including adult pleasures like basking in the ambience of a cool cafe. Long before Dads Coffee Club was launched this January, he'd already made a habit of taking his daughter to coffee shops on his own, turning one of his favorite, formerly solo, hobbies into a bonding opportunity for the two of them. And while the DCC meetups, which have grown to host upwards of 50 dads and kids a piece, are notably less zen than those one-on-one dates, he's passionate about encouraging dads to share their passions with their kids even at a young age.

"As an adult you still want to try to do adult things, and trying to figure out a way to incorporate your child into your world is important," he tells PS.

Most attendees have young kids in tow, but some come alone - whether because their kid had a separate playdate, or, in the case of one recent dad, they just left home for college. Holden Jr. finds the range of ages especially gratifying, like when he gets to watch a dad of a 21-year-old offer some pearls of wisdom to a dad of a 6-month-old.

The connections he's fostering at DCC give him hope for the future. And with his second baby due this summer, that future is looking especially bright.

"The way our community and our society looks starts with our home situation, so I'm super glad that there's a change and some momentum into what fatherhood can or should look like," he says. And the rise of dad clubs is reflective of that. "If we all want a better community, a better state, a better country, there's some small things we can do right at home by being the best parent we can be."

Mindful Music Group for Dads - Brooklyn

Zack McTee / Courtesy of Dan Saks

According to founder Dan Saks, some attendees of the Mindful Music Group for Dads surprise themselves with how much they're able to approach playing music without judgment or trepidation - the way their kids might.

Saks, a certified music therapist and founder of Qualia Music, is a professional musician, but the sessions are specifically designed for dads who are not. Instead they're meant to provide space to play around with percussion instruments for roughly 45 minutes, and just kind of . . . see what happens.

Oftentimes the sonic result is "surprisingly more delicate than anything else," Saks tells PS. It doesn't tend to sound like a drum circle with a specific groove, but it can range from a "kind of soundscape-y" quality to more straightforward "banging." But it's never an hour of pure banging and screaming, "even if that's what people really want to do," Saks jokes.

Saks, who plays in a band called The LeeVees, had found some success as the creator and host of the children's musical podcast "Noodle Loaf" when his two kids were small. But as they got a little older, now 9 and 12, he decided to take his love of music in a different direction and pursue a license in music therapy from Slippery Rock University. An internship at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music led to the creation of the Mindful Music Group for Dads, a dedicated space for what Saks calls "attending on purpose to the moment-to-moment experience with a nonjudgmental, friendly-towards-oneself presence."

"I just had this idea that it could serve as a way to get together where language and words aren't the focus of the connection," he says.

Because there are already plenty of other social groups designed to bring new dads and their babies together, Saks wanted to offer something different. "Other groups are usually meeting somewhere with your baby, and I think that's great, but the conversations then are about sleep training, toileting, and being tired," he explains. "It's about the role as 'dad.'"

Instead, he wanted to create a space where dads can exist outside of that. "Where they're not just a 'provider,' and they can just be more themself," he says.

Daddy Stroller Social Club - Dallas-Fort Worth, TX; Cleveland; Atlanta

Carmen Bridgewater / Courtesy of Kalvin Bridgewater

When Kalvin Bridgewater's wife gave birth to their daughter in October 2019, he was so focused on helping her navigate her postpartum depression that he didn't even notice his own. "I was so depressed about becoming a father, not knowing how to be a father, not knowing if my daughter would be comfortable around me," he tells PS. "I was wondering if my daughter will ever love me. But I didn't want to overshadow my wife's needs."

When COVID restrictions eased the following summer, he asked a few of his fellow dad friends to join him for what was supposed to be a casual stroll. Eight hours in, they'd all opened up to one another about their shared postpartum depression and the challenges they'd faced as new dads. When their meetups became more regular, the Daddy Stroller Social Club was born. That was in Dallas-Fort Worth - but come July of this year, there will be DSSC chapters in 12 US cities, including in Cleveland and Atlanta, with additional chapters across Europe, Africa, and Canada on the horizon.

Last year, Mitchell Phelps piloted the first chapter offshoot in Cleveland, recruiting dads he would see at the grocery store and elsewhere about town. Now there's a consistent group of about 10 who meet for what DSSC leaders call their "strides," or their group walks and park hangs.

Similarly, Myer Krah will be kicking off the Atlanta chapter in July. A Navy vet, Krah left the military a couple years ago so he could be a steadier presence in his five young kids' lives. Since then, he launched his own podcast, "Here 4 the Dads," and works full-time as a professional fatherhood advocate and parenting coach.

According to Phelps, the chapter leaders talk regularly in a group chat, and bonded after undergoing an eight-week orientation course that ensures they're all joining for the right reasons: to support other dads and foster community. "Especially Black men, we don't show our weaknesses and are taught that being vulnerable with another male is not important," he says. But at DSSC, "we've broken down lots of walls and barriers."

For Krah, fatherhood has unleashed emotions he never knew he had. "Since I had my second child, I am more sensitive to things I wasn't before - I cry sometimes watching a Disney movie," he admits with a laugh.

And the DSSC community has helped him embrace those new emotions rather than push them away. "I have four boys. I don't want them to have to live with this feeling of being alone, when I have the opportunity to make some changes in our culture today," he says. "We have the opportunity to save ourselves and change our culture in a way that suits us."

Brooklyn Stroll Club - Brooklyn

Nick Lanton / Courtesy of Joe Gonzales

Now a senior producer at Hypebeast, Joe Gonzales worked as a tour photographer in a past life, and credits what he saw on tour with rapper Lecrae as having influenced his approach to fatherhood. In between shows, and from several timezones away, Lecrae would get on the phone with his son to help him with his homework. "When I think of Stroll Club, I think of that, and how important it is to maintain your career and find your purpose but also remain present," Gonzales says.

Finding that balance has remained a goal ever since. When Gonzales and his wife moved to New York, the two Texas natives initially struggled to locate social groups that prioritized family as much as career climbing. So when he couldn't find what he was looking for, he started it himself.

What began as a small gathering in the neighborhood park has grown into a Discord community with almost 1,500 members and regular in-person events that draw over 150 participants, bringing out dads and kids from as far away as Staten Island and New Jersey for a couple of hours of loosely structured community playtime.

Gonzales has seen firsthand how low the bar can be for dads, and he wants to raise it. "Even just walking with my son, everyone's like, 'Oh let me get the door,' and my wife doesn't get the same sentiment," he tells PS. "That's telling of how men and dads have been represented in culture, and how women are the backbone of everything and they don't get the love or respect."

One way he tries to compensate for that imbalance is by acknowledging that dad clubs like his - though they are clearly a growing trend - are pulling their inspiration from generations of women, especially mothers, who have gathered together to perform the essential but mostly free labor of community-building. "Women have been doing this for decades, they're so good at creating those communities where they feel safe and seen," he says.

When he's out with his son, he gets a lot of fawning comments from strangers for what he calls "the bare minimum" - taking his child for a walk. "I don't wanna be celebrated for doing the bare minimum, I wanna be celebrated for being a good parent," he says. "It's the biggest honor of my life and it's the biggest honor of the dads in the group."

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