"Women have a lot of natural outlets (to talk over parenting issues) and the assumption is men don't need that," says John Trowbridge one of the group's founders and a professor of Chinese philosophy at both Hawai'i Pacific University and UH-West O'ahu. "But I think they do. There's nobody who couldn't benefit from having more interaction."

There's a new kind of father out there these days and this dude is nothing like dear old Dad who often defined his role as breadwinner, disciplinarian and not much else.

Today's dads are playmates, helpmates, Mr. Moms, single parents and even foster parents who handle the chores along with the joys of their children. Sometimes, says Denis Salle, a father of two who also helped found the first Dads' Baby Hui group last year, parenthood becomes a negotiation of who goes to work and who stays home.

"With the increase in women as sole breadwinners, there are more men out there hanging out with their kids," said Salle, whose wife, Nadine, is a pediatrician and the family's primary breadwinner at the moment. Denis Salle just completed a master's degree in business administration at the University of Hawai'i and is trying to establish his own business.

"There's a trend of more women with more education bringing in more money than men," Salle said, "and they don't see themselves as the one staying home."

'A changing world'

John and Jill Trowbridge, at right, with son, Henry, 1, at mom's feet, hosted a Baby Hui meeting with other parents, clockwise from bottom left, Brian Marguleas, Hinda Diamond, Steve Caires (with son Sean, 1) and Denis Salle (with son Etienne, 16 months). Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

Just count the dads out running as their infants or toddlers bounce along with them in a big-wheeled Baby Jogger. Or drop in on a weeknight at the Mid Pacific Institute cafeteria in Manoa, or Kapunahala Elementary in Kalihi or 'Aiea Intermediate in 'Aiea and watch dads working out on the karate mats with their youngsters as part of the Hawai'i Shotokan Karate club.

"It's a changing world," said Trowbridge, who grew up with a Wall Street attorney father who was gone most of the time and never touched a diaper. "I think it's a new model of fatherhood people are starting to embrace. ... As dads are playing more of a role in taking care of the children, it's an important factor to figure out how to do this. There isn't a lot out there. Most of us have as role models fathers who would go to work and the rest was done by the mom."

Dressed in identical white gi, Trowbridge and his 8-year-old son, James, strap on their blue belts a couple of times a week and head off together to sharpen their karate skills with other dads and kids.

Nine-year-old Jasmine Reynolds brings both her parents, and dad, Alan, said it strengthens their bonds as a family.

Very soon Trowbridge's 5-year-old daughter, Holly, will move up to the intermediate class to join him and James.

Social support organizations such as Parents and Children Together — PACT — have also been tumbling to the fact of how important it is to include fathers in outreach efforts to reduce stress in struggling families. Out of that has come the Hawai'i Coalition for Dads, which is part of PACT, along with their Early Head Start program. In both, outreach to fathers has been a new important component in strengthening families.

"Research says that kids who come from solid, two-parent homes or have a positive male role model in their lives have things like increased test scores and social and emotional development," said Ben Naki, comprehensive services manager for Early Head Start. "These are the reasons it's important to get dads involved."

According to Greg Farstrup, coordinator for the coalition, PACT decided seven or eight years ago to include fathers in their outreach efforts.

"All of their home visitors were women — they have about 80 — so they wrote a grant to hire a man or two to reach out to the fathers in the families," Farstrup said. "If someone shows up to see how the kids are doing and it's a woman, the father usually goes outside. But if it's a man who comes, it's a different feeling. Guys are more open to talk to men and it reinforces that fathers are an important part of the parenting process."

These tentacles of support are reaching farther every day. In Waiawa Correctional Facility, a medium security prison, for instance, the Good Beginnings Alliance is sponsoring a program that offers incarcerated fathers "play groups" with their children, plus a program to nurture them as fathers.

Though still on a limited basis, the play groups enable men who have spent little time with their kids — or none at all — the opportunity to be part of their lives.

"By the end they're just so into their kids," Farstrup said. "The good thing about it is that many feel 'OK, I've got to not come back here.' There's such a love connection. With one of the guys his kid jumped up on him after a few weeks and said, 'Hi Daddy,' and the father said, 'That's the first time he's ever called me Daddy.' "

Accepting new roles

The change in the parenting landscape can't be denied as men step up to the plate and accept roles they may never have imagined.

In Wai'anae, John Teixeira, a single parent, has taken on seven difficult teenage boys as guardian and foster father — the latest in a string of 58 foster children to whom he's become dad over the past 20 years. Some are now in their mid-30s and raising children of their own and still calling or stopping by so he can help with their kids.

"We have our own ranch now with five horses, and the boys participate in horse shows," said Teixeira, who breeds dogs and raises chickens along with the kids. "The kids just respond to the animals. That's my ace. They start loving the animals."

Teixeira is currently building an arena at his new Wai'anae property, and there's space for the young kids to play football. Or for grown-up ones to visit.

"I'm still Dad and when they need help you still help them. When DHS walks away, the parent doesn't. We're there for life."

In Nu'uanu, Canon Ken Aronowitz of Temple Emanu-El, and his wife, Hinda Diamond, a state social worker, became foster parents in April to a young sister and brother, and hope to adopt them. Already the 4-year-old boy calls his new dad "Uncle Ken" or "Mr. A." like the other children in the temple's preschool, because none can manage his name.

Taking on the challenges of fatherhood for the first time at 43, Aronowitz is reshuffling his life, reducing duties at the temple for a year as his new family adjusts, and seeing a whole new reality in priorities. "Your perspective changes," he said. "Your work doesn't hold as much allure as it once did.

"My wife will be going back to work after her leave and I'm transitioning in my job responsibilities so I'll be the primary caregiver. With working mothers and fathers, it takes teamwork. But to have my new daughter fall asleep on me at night, I don't want to move. It's just incredible."

In Kaimuki, Tim Le, an assistant banquet chef at the Sheraton Waikiki, said he's happy struggling to keep his two teenage daughters in private school after a difficult, lengthy and financially debilitating divorce. His own mother died when he was 4 and he grew up with just his father before leaving him behind in Vietnam at 15 and coming to the United States with other relatives.

"He told me 'Go, for your future,' " said Le, but he recalls how lonely it was. He never saw his father again and now his children are everything. "I don't want them to suffer. I want them to be happy," he said. "As long as they're happy, I'm happy."

It's all part of the complex picture of today's father. As Trowbridge says of the strength he gains from the Sibling Baby Hui group:

"It's the companionship, the friendship and the support in knowing I'm not alone. Guys don't really often relate very directly to one another, so sometimes they're at their best when they're doing something they like together."