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Whether you love or hate the phrase “we” are pregnant, one thing is for sure — having your first child is a transition for men as well. It’s a transition worth celebrating especially as involved fathers, paternity leave and stay-at-home dads are increasingly the norm.
And now during COVID, as many dads are working from home and spending more time with their babies, it's time to give them a celebration of their own.
Enter: the dadchelor party, a baby shower just for men.
Celebrate the dad-to-be: Dadchelor party ideas
Just as traditional baby showers can range from elaborate affairs with Pinterest-driven themes, multiple games, printed brunch menus and expensive parting gifts to chic, low-key events, there are dadchelor party themes for every type of guy.
Most, however, are based on a few stereotypes.
Stereotype #1: Dads like to drink beer.
Stereotype #2: Dads like to grill meat.
Stereotype #3: Dads like to play poker (or golf!).
Actually, it sort of ends there.
That’s why you’ll see dadchelor parties called “Huggies and Chuggies,” a “Pregger Kegger,” “Poker and Pampers,” and “Baby-Qs.” In keeping with those themes, dadchelor party invites tend to feature beer bottles, frosty pint glasses or kegs. Dadchelor party food is almost guaranteed to involve BBQ of some sort. And while plenty of the men’s baby shower games are similar — say, guess the baby food — some are definitely more dadchelor in nature, like a race to chug beer out of a baby bottle, pin the sperm on the uterus, measure the (beer) belly or one game in particular called “Labor or Porn.”
Also note that during this pandemic, most of these themes will have to be adjusted for social distanced parties — drive-by and virtual showers are all the rage now and can allow the dad-to-be to be celebrated from the comfort of his own couch (or driveway.)
How a men's baby shower is different
Beer is not the only thing that differentiates the mom-to-be’s baby shower from a dadchelor party.
Men’s baby showers tend to focus more on the life change — from dude to dad — and less on the nursery, baby products or the how-tos of caring for baby once it arrives. That means things like big-ticket baby gifts (car seats! strollers!) and sentimental wish-books for baby are not really part of the picture. (If you Google “dadchelor party gifts” you’ll see a lot of diaper cakes with, you guessed it, beer).
An appropriate gift would cater more to the dad's tastes – maybe a diaper bag he'd actually carry, a baby carrier that will make multitasking easy, a case of his favorite beer, or there's always this book of dad jokes to embarrass his future kids.
Where the traditional shower is about welcoming a mom-to-be into the club of moms, in which women trade sleep tips and gripe about cracked nipples, the dadchelor party is more about saying goodbye to a certain way of life, in which Saturday mornings are for sleeping in and the only butt you’re wiping is your own.
For that reason, among others, plenty of dadchelor parties take place out in the world, places a dad-to-be may not be seeing much of after birth — an afternoon on the golf course, in a box at the ball game, or on a big-ticket boys trip. Pre-COVID, one dad-to-be took a Vegas trip nearly on par with his bachelor party, with a vodka-fueled night at one of Vegas’ hottest clubs, a five-star brunch and a party bus. His friend, who inspired the trip with his own “daddymoon,” told The New York Times, “I was looking for a way to celebrate with my friends, this transition in my life.”
Key words: celebrate and transition.
As Slate parenting writer Elissa Strauss put it, one "laudable aspect of the Dadchelor is the way they are focused on pleasure as opposed to only preparing the dad-to-be for the day-to-day drudgery of paternal responsibilities.”
It’s a lesson, she says, that mothers-to-be might want to heed as well.
Becoming a dad: Why dadchelor parties matter
Does every dad want or need a dadchelor party? Of course not. Do men go to baby showers? Of course they do. But who is to deny a man who is excited to rise to the challenges of fatherhood a moment to celebrate with friends and family.
There are those who are making this “dadchelor” moment their own, too. Justin Galster, a 35-year-old dad-to-be from Oakland California, decided to take one last boys trip before his daughter arrives. He and two college friends drove from the Bay Area to a cabin by a lake in the Sierras, stocked with expensive cuts of wagyu beef, hundreds of dollars worth of craft beer, nice wine and some tequila. They took long hikes and brought Nerf guns, laser, footballs and frisbees.
“We did what we used to do in college,” Galster told Mom.com — except, of course, this trip involved following Covid protocols. But the weekend was also punctuated by what he calls, “quiet moments of recognition with my friends.” He was going to become a dad. And, dadchelor or not, recognizing that was always the point.
