Boot Camp Helps Men Be Dads

They call it Boot Camp, and it might be the only one where men change diapers while listening to songs by Mexican crooner Vicente Fernandez.

The all-male rap sessions, conducted in Spanish, encourage men to share their greatest concerns about imminent fatherhood: going to work after nights with no sleep, stretching their paychecks a little further, dealing with meddling in-laws, caring for recuperating wives, having sex after the birth.

“Latino men tend to leave the children to their wives,” said Juan Diego Norena, the program facilitator. “We know that kids involved in gangs and drugs are children who have not had a father figure in the house. Fathers play an important role. They can hold their children, feed their children, bond with them. This bond should begin when the child is born.”

The Spanish-language Boot Camp for New Dads is run by the Maternal Outreach Management System Resource Center in Santa Ana.

The Boot Camp is based on an English-language program started 11 years ago by the Irvine-based New Father Foundation. The program is used in 37 states, the Army and the Navy. English-language sessions are offered in Irvine, Laguna Hills, Northridge, Pomona and Corona.

The Spanish-language program offers three-hour sessions once a month. Classes begin by separating the veterans--dads whose partners have given birth--from the rookies, whose partners are pregnant. The veterans bring their babies, who are cuddled, fed and diapered by the rookies. The program began three months ago and has about 20 participants.

Social worker Alejandro Moreno, who works on various projects to get men more involved in their families, used $150,000 in tobacco settlement money to set up Orange County’s Spanish-language program and fund it for two years. Part of Moreno’s motivation, he said, is to change the culture in Latino households that divides labor into men’s work and women’s work, a custom that he believes can hurt the family’s well-being and isolate children from their fathers.

“We want to send the message that we are not just protectors. We have to have a relationship with our children. If we want a close relationship, it must start at birth. We must establish a behavioral pattern that will last a lifetime,” Moreno said.

The Saturday sessions open with a recording of Vicente Fernandez singing, “Time is slipping away, far away. I don’t have my father’s hand anymore, just his advice.” That leads to a discussion about what the men expected of their fathers and what kind of fathers they want to be.

Antonio Islas, 34, a restaurant chef from Santa Ana, and his wife are expecting a child in September. “For the most part, Latino people get left behind because we don’t have this sort of education,” he said. “It’s a good thing we have this class. . . . Sometimes you are afraid to go because it’s in English.”

Whether in Spanish or English, Boot Camp is a way to reach men “at a magical moment,” said Greg Bishop of the New Father Foundation. He hopes the program will be offered at every hospital in the nation. “It just works for guys. Men who are having babies for the first time are all ears,” he said.

‘Men who are having babies for the first time are all ears.’