Ep#117 | Collecting Birth Stories from Fathers

Meet our guest Ísak Hilmarsson from Kópavogur, Iceland.

In 2019 he started such a brilliant project called; ,,Birth stories from fathers" together with his girlfriend and the mother of his daughter, Gréta María a midwife, working at the National University Hospital of Iceland.

The main purpose of the project is to get people (not only fathers) to think about and discuss the experience and participation of fathers in the birth of their children.

They want to open up the discussion to fathers and encourage them to talk about their experience. Men also have stories to tell when it comes to births and they want to point that out.

Their goal is to collect birth stories from fathers and publish them in a book. The purpose of the book is to make the stories available for people to read and also to keep the project ongoing hopefully for many years.

Such a brilliant story that showcases how the world is changing as we speak. The #GenderBox of the stereotype of what is a dad or what is a mum. This box is being smashed right in front of us as fathers are saying: “I want to be noticed as a dad! I want to be taking care of my child equally to my partner!”

Check out Isak and Greta Maria on these social media platforms; Facebook and Instagram pages or send them an email.

Some great takeaways from Isak:

  • Both parents play an important roles during a child birth

  • Men are often put in boxes as just a side kick or supporting role but that is indeed an important key word - “supporting”

  • We all have our stories to tell during all these big moments in our lives - also fathers!

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The Change Makers are doing a fundraiser for their #NoMoreBoxes Online Training and Collaboratory Center. A platform designed to teach you how to create safe space for deep-dive conversations that open up for the conscious and unconscious bias behaviours, placing ourselves and others into boxes, that places our focus on what separates us as human beings, not what unites us.

Your help is highly appreciated.

Just go to www.Patreon.com/NoMoreBoxes today!

Or grab a copy of their book; The Story of Boxes, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.


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