By Nate Seltenrich

Forget the golf bag, the grill accessories, and the whiskey-of-the-month club. Sometimes all dads need is someone to talk to, says Dom Garrett, dads’ night out coordinator for the Petaluma Mothers Club. Every month, Garrett, who has an almost-three-year-old daughter, picks a local bar or other meeting place, calls ahead for advance warning, and summons the dads – most of whom have one or two kids under age five at home, and plenty to talk about.

Fatherhood is “the thing that brings us all together,” he said. “Yeah, we can watch the game, and talk about that kind of stuff, but the conversation always comes back to our kids, and what they’re going through.”

He’s not the only one doing this type of work in Petaluma.

George Nicol, a marriage and family therapist with a kid of about the same age, had a similar idea in mind when he launched a weekly support group for new dads earlier this year.

And Eric Rubey, a marriage and family therapist and father of two, just announced a new summertime program for local teen boys, ages 12-14, promoting the sort of self-reflection and group support that may serve them well later in life, perhaps as dads themselves.

Men and boys of Petaluma, these three local dads have your back. In recognition of Father’s Day, we’re sharing their stories – and how they hope to help.

Dom Garrett

“I very, very, very much look forward to those nights,” Garrett said, “not because I’m getting away to just hang out with some adults, but because I have really great conversations there.”

Garrett was a regular Dad’s Night Out attendee before he became the man in charge. “I’ve been in Petaluma for two and a half years, and the Dad’s Night Out was one of the first things that I did when we moved into town,” he said. 

Since then, he’s hardly missed a month. It was already a regular event, typically held every last Thursday, and that consistency hasn’t wavered. If anything, the group has only grown. About a year ago, Garrett took over from a friend to coordinate the monthly meet-ups.

He picks a location – usually a “drinking establishment” in Petaluma, Penngrove, Rohnert Park, or Novato — makes sure it’s ready “for 25 dudes that are gonna come in,” and asks about deals or specials. Garrett also occasionally takes the lead in organizing other, non-bar nights, including some where kids are welcome, like a recent gathering at his house.

But the point isn’t just to have a good time; it’s to bond over fatherhood, often in intimate ways. 

“For me, personally, it’s been really refreshing having conversations with folks about what’s going on with our kids,” Garrett said. “My daughter turns three next month, and there’s days where I’m beating my head against a wall, where I don’t know what I’m going to do, and this group is a really, really open space for talking about things like that.”

George Nicol

For new dads looking for a more toned-down approach, George Nicol, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Petaluma, hopes he has just the answer. 

“I have my private practice, and about a decade’s worth of working with teen boys, typically 12 to 14, and in the last three years I dove into working with fathers,” he said. “I started getting client fathers and hearing the same thing, which is [a need for] connection.”

But there was another, parallel, perhaps more important factor that moved him to help build a 10-week support group for new dads through Mothers Care, a Petaluma nonprofit: his own lived experience. 

Now the father of a 2-and-a-half-year-old, Nicol said his personal transition into fatherhood inspired and informed his professional transition toward group therapy for new dads.

“Going through my own thing, and needing support, while also seeing my wife get support, I gradually moved in that direction,” he said. “Mom’s clubs and things like that are there, [but as a father] you kind of have to ask around. It’s not so apparent sometimes what’s out there for dads.”

He’s hoping to facilitate some of the same support for new dads that has become increasingly available to new moms – and to simultaneously gain new insights that may be useful for other therapists or dad’s groups. 

“There’s still so much to be learned about postpartum paternal health,” Nicol said. “A lot of [postpartum research] comes from mothers coming together and saying what’s been going on for them.” 

He wants to see more of that for new fathers, too: just being able to talk with others like them about what they’re going through. It’s simple, but invaluable. 

Nicol doesn’t have another group session on the schedule yet, but said he hopes to offer one soon. 

Eric Rubey 

Meanwhile, another Petaluma dad and licensed marriage and family therapist is weeks away from beginning his first group therapy series – in this case for boys, not dads. 

There are meaningful links between the two, Rubey says, including that all new dads seeking support and camaraderie were once boys themselves.

“Being a man, and being a dad to two boys, ages 9 and 7, and seeing a lot of boys and young men in my practice, [I’ve noticed] the unique experience of men and boys today,” he said.

Men and boys are not often socialized to be skilled at or even comfortable with “sitting down and looking each other in the eye and talking about things that matter to them, whether that's feelings or just things that they care about in general,” Rubey said. “I think there are fewer intentionally designed spaces for that, and this is my attempt at kind of bridging that space.”

In the new program, titled "Defining and Developing Positive Masculinity” and consisting of six one-hour sessions, participants will explore questions like, “What does it mean to be a man, and how do we grow into that, and what are the ways in which we can do that well and positively impact ourselves and our community?”

The concept is years in the making, Rubey said. Informed by his private practice working with local teens, he’d been thinking about building a series on the subject for a while. 

But life, and parenting, kept him busy. 

In the end, it took “putting in earnest work on actually building this, and then finding the courage to launch it.”