We came to the workshop together, a little excited and aware of how little we knew. The room held chairs, cloth bags, and dolls for simple practical exercises. It was not medical instruction but a gathering about everyday life after a baby arrived. The facilitator invited women closer to the table and directed men to the hallway coffee machine. She said they could rest while mothers learned important things. My partner Omer stayed seated.
He asked whether he could approach too. The facilitator laughed and said seeing an interested dad was lovely. Even that praise sounded strange. We had paid two fees and arrived with identical questions. Omer received applause for wanting to participate while my interest was assumed. When he took a doll to try arranging clothes, she took it back and said she would show the women first; they could explain to their men at home.
Omer lowered his hands and asked why he must learn through me. The room grew uncomfortable. A man joked that he should not spoil an opportunity for free coffee. Women laughed, some genuinely, some wearily. I nearly said it did not matter, that we would manage. It was an old reflex: preserve the mood by accepting additional work nobody had yet called work.
Instead I said I had not come for instructions to repeat later to the adult beside me. I wanted us both to hear and try. The facilitator replied that she was simply following experience; women generally handled these things more. Omer said we had come precisely before such a division became our experience. He spoke quietly but did not try winning sympathy with jokes about his incompetence.
We continued the practical section together. Everything did not become equal in minutes. The facilitator still addressed me more often and occasionally praised Omer for an ordinary attempt. Another man nevertheless returned from the hallway to sit beside his partner. Afterward a woman said she thought she was the only one bothered by the beginning. I regretted that we all initially waited for somebody else to make the discomfort visible.
On the way home Omer said he did not want celebration for things we would both do. I replied that I did not want to be his teacher in everything we were still learning. We bought two notebooks, then laughed because we probably needed no such orderliness. At home we put our bags on the table and wrote remaining questions together. The heading did not say helping the mother. It simply said our first month.