Three years after our newborn PEPS group (see peps-is-best), I volunteered as a leader for another batch of new parents. It was a daunting time commitment of about four to five hours a week for twelve weeks. I’m not going to pretend that I’m not excited to have my Monday nights back and my Monday nights’ sleep improved, but it was also a very rewarding experience.
As in the group Jack and I joined, it was an evening couples group. That tends to mean very equal parenting and both parents going back to work during the twelve facilitad weeks. Parenting a newborn is hard work for anyone, but it was nice to see the group supporting each other through similar challenges. It made me realize how much we all need work-life balance role models.
Being a leader was of course different. It was sometimes challenging to find the right balance between sharing my own stories while trying to fade out as they had more and more natural conversations. PEPS is a very mature organization with great resources, so they have the group do a little survey in the middle. Amusingly it was a split between feedback that I should fill up the occasional silences and that I should let them go on a little longer…
All in all, it was a great group and I am optimistic that they connected enough to keep the group going on their own.
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