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Couples Meeting Basics
Kathy Grossman
Sandy UT USA
From: LEAVEN, Vol. 39 No. 3, June-July 2003, p. 56.
I’ve planned,
hosted, and attended only six Couples Meetings throughout my two decades
with La Leche League. There are many Leaders who have never participated
in one of these special meetings. I wish I could tell you I’ve
figured out exactly how to make these unique get-togethers successful,
but each one is different and unique! All Couples Meetings don’t
look alike, but the following basic considerations may help when you
welcome mothers and fathers to a meeting together.
Define what
will make this meeting feel successful.
Why are you
having a Couples Meeting? Is it to convince a certain father that extended
nursing is important? (And how realistic is that goal?) Is it to let
your husband see how important this special group of women is? Is it
to show how normal breastfeeding couples are? Discuss what outcome feels
best to you, your significant other, your co-Leader(s), and Group members.
Keep the pressure
off Leaders’ husbands/partners.
Your husband
and your co-Leader’s husband aren’t accredited Leaders, and
sometimes they will say things that are not quite what you would say
as a Leader. Surprise! It’s best to keep the discussion light and
keep everyone, including your partner, engaged in the most positive
way when talking about mothering, fathering, and parenting together.
Meeting at
a private home has some advantages and disadvantages.
A Leader or
member who agrees to hostess a Couples Meeting will probably pay great
attention to cleanliness and childproofing. The bathroom(s) will be
available and sanitary. There will most likely be age-appropriate toys
for attending children.
Preparing can
be a lot of work.
The hostess’s
children may feel threatened or out of sorts with other children invading
their space. The hosting father may be helping manage the household,
finding it difficult to join the discussion.
Meeting in a
public venue also has advantages and disadvantages.
A park will
have lots of space and play equipment, good parking, and will be marked
on maps and easy to find. However, you can’t always control who
else shows up. I’ve been at Couples Meetings at park pavilions
where birthday parties, reunions, and noisy baseball games were going
on nearby.
Fathers contribute
in their own special ways.
Some fathers
may feel comfortable with more physical meeting contributions. At one
Couples picnic I attended, there were lots of wasps attracted to sticky
juice that had been spilled on the floor and tables of our park pavilion.
It was awful! The next year, a father came early, hosed down, swept,
and scrubbed our pavilion so there would be no repeat of our insect
invasion.
You are the
face of LLL.
Many attending
fathers may never go to an Area or LLL International Conference or other
LLL gathering. This Couples Meeting may be their only direct contact
with La Leche League and with you as a Leader. When those fathers come
to this meeting, you are La Leche League.
Mothers may
be attending alone. There will be many reasons why a husband or partner
might not attend. My own husband has not always been able to attend
Couples Meetings even when they were in our own home. Business trips,
illness, disagreements over the value of such a meeting, shyness, and
other reasons can keep couples from attending together. Make your Couples
Meeting welcoming for a woman attending alone.
Consider different
food options.
Brunch, lunch,
or early dinner? A total potluck could be divided up by last names (A-G
bring main courses for instance), or you could try a partial potluck,
where your Group buys the main course and families bring side dishes.
You might also just share finger foods or desserts.
Be prepared
for some confused or perhaps even hostile attitudes.
Some men may
come with real frustration over certain aspects of breastfeeding and
raising children. They may be hoping they can talk some sense into their
spouses who’ve been attending La Leche League meetings and bringing
home new ideas. Some fathers may feel ganged up on, anxious, and bitter.
This is a different kind of meeting than most men are used to. Provide
a welcoming atmosphere with your acceptance of where these fathers are
in their own parenting.
There may be
an unusually large number of toddlers and older children.
With fathers
attending rather than staying at home with the children for a Series
Meeting, the group of active children at this meeting may be challenging
at times.
You might need
to keep the formal discussion to a few opening remarks. Under some circumstances
(e.g., large number of children present or distractions of playground
equipment), you may find that a long discussion about breastfeeding,
parenting, or co-sleeping just won’t work. Informal talking over
food can be a natural, pressure-free way for fathers to interact. For
a more structured meeting, try one of the meeting focus suggestions
in the fourth revised edition of the Leader’s Handbook, pp. 183-184.
Make our resources available.
The Womanly
Art of Breastfeeding, Mothering Your Nursing Toddler, Becoming a Father,
Fatherwise, and other books might be very helpful to have displayed
and available.
For more information
on Couples Meetings, see the following:
- "Couples Meetings—A
Medley of Your Ideas!" Leaven, August-September 2001.
- "Couples Meetings:
Parenting the Breastfed Baby" Leaven, August-September 1999.
- "Couples Meetings,"
The Leader’s Handbook, fourth revised edition, pp. 181-184.
Kathy Grossman
has been a Leader for 18 years and has lived in seven Areas across North
America. She now lives in Sandy, Utah, USA with her husband, Tom Dillon,
and three sons Sam (20), Ed (18), and Monty (14). She is the USWD Area
Leaders’ Letter Advisor and Leaven cartoonist. Brandel Falk is
the Contributing Editor for this column.
Page last edited Sun Oct 14 09:31:47 UTC 2007.
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