Throughout life males and females do their best to remain segregated. The general consensus is that boys have cooties and girls are smelly. You might want to dress it up and say men are from Mars women are from Venus, but essentially, cooties and smelly will suffice. The school playground is where the segregation starts and it’s not until we discover the sexy dance that we decide to relent and go behind enemy lines.
When I started to look after Max full time I had the option of taking Anna’s place and joining her mothers group. “But it’s a mothers group and I’m not a mum and it will be really awkward when everyone else starts to bitch about their husbands”. 
It’s quite surprising how many stay at home dads there are in St Kilda, we acknowledge one another with a knowing grunt but barely a word is exchanged. We’re not especially good at it are we, talking I mean. Don’t get me wrong we could talk the hind legs off a male donkey if the topics were; the state of the national (insert sporting preference here) team, the price of petrol, how hot is too hot where curries are concerned, but outside of these areas the male donkey will run off “ee-or-ing” into the sunset with hind legs firmly intact.
The obvious solution is to replace the name “mothers groups” with “parents groups” (I know you have been oppressed for centuries but two wrongs don’t make a right). It would take a powerful campaigner of epic proportions and boundless energy to achieve such a feat, unfortunately I’m just a lazy Blogger. What I will do is endeavour to establish a Dads Group in St Kilda, a few flyers in the local park (a recognised habitat of the rare spotted stay at home dad) should start the ball rolling.
I will keep you posted on this noble quest for gender equality and a safe environment to discuss the price of petrol.
