I’d like to tell you about and, for those of you in a position to do so, encourage you to run Blokes and Babies sessions in libraries. They’re well worth doing on so many levels – they get men of working age into the library, they improve the interactions between fathers/male carers and their children, they help in children’s development of language and motor skills, and (less high-mindedly) it’s really fun!
I tend to find that the dads are more willing to pay attention to the person leading the group and to do the actions than many of the mums at main Bounce and Rhymes. There’s often less tune than in the main ones but we all get a lot out of it and, on the rare occasions when tune does break out, it can be truly gorgeous.
If you can get male staff or volunteers to lead, this is an obvious advantage – the voice pitch tends to be better (when I led weekly Bounce and Rhymes I had the opposite situation – my voice was too deep relative to the women). Also, it is a truth universally acknowledged that all men without exception are self-conscious shy vulnerable sensitive creatures who are terrified of female mockery over their mediocre attempts at action-singing and are more comfortable with some other poor sod in the same predicament. Of course getting male staff to lead is a bit of a problem in many libraries, for the obvious reason that they don’t have any, but even in those which do have men, those men are often reluctant to do it. Women may need to lead at least to start it off.
Printed words are necessary and you may need to run through the songs more often than you would with the mums as the dads, with notable exceptions, tend not to know the songs so well. Lifting songs are good (Grand Old Duke of York, Grumpy Pirate etc.) and pirate songs in general. I’m a Little Teapot is OK but don’t do TOO many songs that make them feel silly. Some dads love gory verses (Here comes the chopper to chop off your head or Down came the blackbird and pecked off her nose) but others don’t, so play it by ear. If you only have 3 or so children you can do X currant buns (X being the number of children) but it gets boring when there are too many children. If you have toddlers rather than babies lying down/jumping up songs go well – Sleeping Bunnies/Dingle Dangle Scarecrow. It took a while to find a suitable end song for Blokes but I now use “Sing Hello to Everyone” to start and “Sing Goodbye to everyone” to end.
Handing out the instruments tends to lose the audience’s attention so we tend to leave that until near the end. Using wet wipes on returned instruments reassures the parents of hygiene precautions.
A large teddy is a useful prop to show what to do. Drink before the session or, if you can find somewhere to keep a glass of water during the session without it getting knocked over, drink from that.
Have a clear policy on whether women are allowed in that all the staff know. Our policy has been that we do allow women in as “honorary blokes” if asked – it’s rare for this to be an issue but there are times when siblings require more than one carer or when the dad is the main carer during the week and takes the child to the main Bounce and Rhyme but the mum is free at weekends. And do stress that men are always welcome to the main Bounce and Rhyme.
Blokes and Babies can take time to build so don’t worry too much about low numbers to start with. Try to find a time that suits both staffing levels and the families. Plug it through the main Bounce and Rhyme (mums forcing their partners along because the mums want to get a break really helps draw the dads in and then you hope the dads will think that wasn’t so bad and come back). And make sure they can easily find out when the next one is. Put up posters and list the dates on the library website.
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