Sean Branch Jr. pushed his 3-week-old son in a stroller along a tree-lined path as a steady breeze cooled the warm air.
He wore a black shirt with purple lettering: “My First Father’s Day.”
Branch was among dozens of fathers, father figures and some mothers who took over Cylburn Arboretum in Baltimore on a recent evening with their young children for a communal stroller walk.
Some of the children sat in strollers, others walked through the grass or rode atop shoulders.
“I always wanted to be a dad,” said Branch, 25, who attended with his son’s mother, Tionne Hill, 25. “So it feels really good.”
The crowd was welcomed by Mayor Brandon M. Scott and City Council member Paris Gray, both fathers. Gray said the walk was created to not only unite dads and provide them with resources, but also to defy stereotypes often lobbed at fathers — particularly Black fathers — such as being an absent parent or solely a disciplinarian. Pushing a stroller is a routine parental activity, and the event aimed to show dads participating in those everyday moments.
“Fathers deserve to be seen in the full picture of caregiving,” said Gray (D-District 8), who has a 2-year-old son, Parker. “Responsibility is a responsibility. But accountability and also affirming fathers can live in the same space.”
He credited his dad with helping him transform his grades and academic performance, which shaped his path toward success.
Earlier this month, a video of Scott and Gray pushing their toddlers in strollers while announcing the walk garnered 150,000 views on Instagram.
It caught Hill’s eye. The opportunity sounded ideal for her new family, she said, especially since it would offer a resource fair that could further support them.
As families entered the arboretum Thursday, they were greeted by people seated at tables stacked with resource literature.
The Center for Urban Families offered fathers a free seven-week empowerment course. The Mayor’s Office of Children and Family Success helped to provide assistance with energy and water bills and security deposits. The Judy Center aided families preparing their young children for school.
Free diapers lined one table. Goldfish crackers, clementines and fruit pouches lined another. Scott brought chicken meatballs for his youngest children, Charm, 2, and Camden, 1.
“It’s a different kind of barbershop talk vibe,” Scott said of the walk. “It’s stroller talk vibes.”
Scott said he was “raised and taught that if you have a platform, then you have to use it for good.”
As a father of three, and mayor, Scott said that means uplifting what he sees every day when he takes his children to places: Black fathers picking up their kids, attending doctor appointments, and going to sporting events and plays.
Scott said the work is important “especially at this moment” amid attempts to erase Black history and culture and bring back false stereotypes. “We have to show them how wrong they are,” he said.
About 5:30 p.m., the fathers readied themselves to walk — and push their children — to the Cylburn Mansion at the top of the arboretum.
After Scott signaled for them to start, the multiracial group of fathers and children trekked together, with upbeat R&B music blasting from nearby speakers.
They reached the top in about 10 minutes and posed for a group photo. “Happy Father’s Day!” the group bellowed in resounding unison. Some shouts of “Daddy!” filled the air.
Gray said the stroller walk drew inspiration from other groups, like the Daddy Stroller Social Club.
Eric Simpson, 36, a representative of the club’s D.C. chapter, attended the walk in Baltimore. His 4-year-old daughter, Amari Anthony-Simpson, picked him a tiny flower that poked through the grass.
“You got a flower?” he said, dropping to her level as she handed it to him. “Is it for me?”
Simpson said stroller walks and other fellowship offerings provide the support fathers need and help to reduce depression, which 1 out of 10 dads experience after a child’s birth.
The Greater Washington Urban League’s Black Fatherhood Blueprint, another regional fatherhood initiative, has recognized postpartum depression among fathers, too.
“We noticed that in doing some of the fatherhood work and hearing from men within our community that, oftentimes, men and fathers were left out of the conversation,” said Hanna Tessema, director of health and wellness at the Greater Washington Urban League. “Yet they were experiencing postpartum depression and mood disorders.”
The same day as the stroller walk, the league concluded a two-day training program for Black health and wellness professionals to better support fathers’ perinatal mental health, which encompasses the time surrounding childbirth.
At the arboretum, support could be found among one another. Experienced dads traded their best advice with newer fathers, such as how to put a baby to sleep with one of their worn shirts to help ease separation anxiety.
Nigel Campbell-Christie, 25, who has a 1-year-old son named Nile, spotted fellow dad Shiloh Cumber, whose daughter Eliyanah is 10 months old, wearing Morgan State University gear.
The two young dads discovered they had lived in the same dorm at the university at the same time.
“It’s amazing,” Cumber, 26, said of the walk. “Got to connect with a lot of people that I actually went to school with and other fathers that are just looking to have a good time.”
Gray, the council member, said the stroller walk is only the beginning. He’s discussed establishing a task force to continue supporting fathers with Scott, who embraced the idea.
“This isn’t about being a perfect father,” Gray said. “The thing that we’re asking is for you to be a present father.”
Branch and Hill say the walk has made that all the more possible.
The event connected them with resources that may help them place a security deposit on their own apartment one day.
“It takes a village,” said Branch, holding son Sean Branch III in his arms and kissing him on the cheek.
The newborn also wore a shirt with a special message: “My First Father’s Day with Daddy.”
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