Space for Men to Connect & Heal

I had the honor to speak with Keegan Albaugh, who founded the Dad Guild in 2019, a community of dads, which now serves about 2,000 men across the state. As you will find on their website, the Dad Guild believes “that when dads and masculine-identifying caregivers are engaged in their caregiving roles, children experience positive outcomes, dads experience positive mental health benefits, large steps towards gender equality are taken and cycles of generational trauma are disrupted.”

In a society where dads have historically been encouraged to escape into their man caves and discouraged from talking about kids and concerning themselves with effective diaper-changing techniques, the Dad Guild is a place of healing and connection. It’s a place where men can behave like men, and also let go of the need to do it all alone and pretend they don’t care about the beautiful little beings they’ve brought into the world.

Keegan’s background is in nonprofits and mental health. He worked for years with teenagers who had experienced early childhood trauma, talking about masculinity and exploring what it means to be a man and where messages about “manhood” come from. When Keegan made the transition to parenthood, he was shocked that there were few options for men and that most groups, though they were open to all dads, mostly seemed to serve those who were engaged with the court system or the Department of Children and Families (DCF). 

His thought at the time was: “if one thing is going to exist, yes, of course, let’s make sure that resource is there…. but when the only thing that exists is for people who are going through the courts, the message is clear to men that, when you’re parenting, you only need help if you’re going through legal challenges. Other than that, you should be fine.” 

Keegan sees this as a highly problematic message for men to be receiving. “When we don’t offer parenting resources for dads and men, we’re reinforcing problematic stereotypical ideas around masculinity and we’re missing this really golden opportunity to make significant progress on some key issues.” The issues he refers to are similar to those listed on his website: positive mental health in men, positive outcomes in children, gender inequality, domestic violence, and systems of harm and oppression. 

Keegan points to research that during the first five years of a dad’s life, two thirds experience mental health challenges like stress and anxiety. “The norm is men not doing great and having a hard time. If men can connect around the feeling that ‘ooh, this is hard,’ they’re way more apt to let their guard down, connect, and talk. It’s such a needed space in our society and it’s a narrative that we have to write—that it’s okay for men to connect and be vulnerable and share in this way.”

“A lot of our work is grounded in research that men prefer to learn from their peers and in casual environments,” says Keegan. Men don’t like to be asked directly to be vulnerable and open their hearts with others, so that’s not on the agenda. “They’re not ready for that or they don’t want that, and maybe they never will.” So for those who aren’t drawn by that environment, Keegan wanted to scaffold an experience that would get people to a place where they might be open to learning and being more vulnerable. 

To meet dads where they’re at, they provide a wide range of activities designed specifically for the male psyche. “Instead of pulling at the heart strings, the Dad Guild uses humor,” Keegan says. The goal is to create space where men are comfortable being themselves. Keegan has found that once men show up to an event, which may happen after weeks, months, or even years of following them online, it doesn’t take long before they start diving into deeper topics. 

Keegan shared an example of a new dad cohort that meets once a month for six months. It was the fifth cohort they’d started and fourteen men were gathered. He describes something that sounds like the dreaded cafeteria school dance, with people sitting quietly, afraid to talk, biting their nails. “And this is like every time. It’s kind of awkward,” he says. “But then by the end of the night, like within two hours, people are sharing about relationships with their own dad and sharing some pretty heavy stuff. And people are really listening.” 

When asked how these conversations and deeper thinking lead to men being safer dads, Keegan notes that “dads and men are in a difficult place right now, especially for folks who view themselves as providers. We’re not too far removed from a time when you could have one parent working outside of the house and enough to have a vehicle, send the kids to college and be able to afford a home. That’s just not the reality anymore. People are struggling more financially now. When people compare themselves to what their dads did and see they can’t do that, the level of frustration, stress and anxiety that brings along with it becomes a breeding ground for mental health challenges that can lead to violence.”

Keegan has found that men are positively impacted by hearing what other people are going through. “Just hearing a bunch of other dads talking about what they're struggling with makes them feel less alone and makes them realize that what they’re navigating is normal and that it’s not a unique problem that only they have.” He’s heard some men say they haven’t had the types of conversations they’ve had at the Dad Guild with anyone else in their lives. 

“Men are really hungry for this kind of space,” he says, and remarks on the pronounced changes he sees when men get together. “I see how quickly people can open up.” In the right kind of space, men can take off the mask and talk about their relationships. Through conversation, they can move quickly from being nervous and feeling like they have no friends to being part of a group text and sharing photos of their baby.

The Dad Guild primarily serves the Chittenden County area but they recently received grant funds to expand. This past spring, they piloted an expansion into the Upper Valley and they have enough funding to expand into up to three more regions. According to Keegan, in-person programs are led by dads in those communities across the state. The Dad Guild has online and WhatsApp communities where dads can connect from anywhere, and podcasts, videos, and other educational materials they can access as needed. Those interested in learning more can find the Dad Guild here.