How one Arlington family redefined fatherhood to support mothers in the delivery room

Arlington City Council member Bowie Hogg’s father proposed a workaround after he was told he was not allowed to be present in the delivery room for the birth of his first son.

“What are you going to do if I handcuff myself to my wife?” William Clifford “W.C.” Hogg Jr. asked in 1965.

The suggestion was made in jest, but his and wife Sue Hogg’s advocacy was sincere. Eventually, they got their wish — the hospital board allowed W.C. to be present for the birth breaking with a long-standing tradition.

This was the beginning of the Hogg family’s advocacy for motherhood issues that has spanned generations and continues in an ever-changing medical field.

“We’ve all seen in the old movies the husband standing out in the waiting room, and then they get their cigars when the kid is born, which is not what we see this day and age,” Bowie Hogg said.

Men began to see their separation from their wife and newborn baby as “intolerable” in the late 1940s, wrote University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Judith Walzer Leavitt in a History News Network article. Leavitt is the author of a book about the history of fathers in delivery rooms.

“The men contested the separate hospital spaces and the exclusionary routines of medical authority to find a place for themselves and, in so doing, created unprecedented new masculine domestic roles while enhancing the birth experience for mothers,” Leavitt wrote. “In the 1950s and 1960s men succeeded in entering labor rooms with their wives.”

Sue Hogg founded Tarrant County’s La Leche League, a group that supported breastfeeding mothers at a time when not many resources were available.

Bowie Hogg recalls countless times when calls to his mother interrupted family dinners.

“Almost every night my mom would get a phone call from some mother who was having a hard time breastfeeding,” he said. “Trying to get it done, trying to make it happen, and (my mom) would talk them through it.”

Carrying on the family tradition, Bowie Hogg is an advocate for breastfeeding and mother-friendly hospitals — those which give mothers evidence-based, respectful care that empowers them.

His wife’s birthing experiences demonstrate how far delivery room practice has come.

Bowie’s wife, Leslie Hogg, had support from a doula when giving birth to their two children, he said.

A doula is a trained nonmedical provider who supports a mother during her pregnancy and birthing experience. 

Maris Young, team manager for the Tarrant County Community Doula Program, supports a mother from her attempts to get pregnant and throughout her pregnancy to delivery and postpartum.

“I’m there to help answer questions and to offer education to help families make informed decisions throughout the entire childbearing journey,” Young said.

Bowie Hogg was present when Leslie gave birth. Fathers play an important role during labor, Young said.

The act of giving birth takes all of a mother’s energy, and supportive fathers can help take care of her needs and make sure things are going the way the mother wants them to, Young said. 

When Young helps a mother come up with a birth plan, it may include the father and ways he can help.

“Usually, fathers are very anxious and nervous, and there’s a lot of emotion in the room, and so they can use these tasks to channel that nervous, anxious energy into and still be very supportive to their partner throughout the delivery experience,” Young said.

Looking to the future, Young hopes more fathers will see themselves as active participants in the birth process and educate themselves about their partner’s wishes. 

“Having that presence in the room is so powerful, and it’s something to celebrate,” Young said.

McKinnon Rice is a reporting fellow for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at mckinnon.rice@fortworthreport.org. 

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