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The Fatherhood Experience of Divorced Custodial Fathers in Israel
Author(s) -
Cohen Orna,
FinziDottan Ricky,
TangirDotan Gali
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
family relations
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 87
eISSN - 1741-3729
pISSN - 0197-6664
DOI - 10.1111/fare.12092
Subject(s) - psychology , pleasure , developmental psychology , perception , dialectic , qualitative research , raising (metalworking) , social psychology , sociology , social science , mathematics , epistemology , neuroscience , philosophy , geometry
This qualitative study examines the fatherhood experience of 20 divorced men who are raising children on their own. The findings were gathered from semistructured in‐depth interviews. The interviewees' depictions revealed a process of making place for oneself in a multiparticipant arena facing social systems, the mother of the children, and the children themselves. The main findings concern the circumstances of single fatherhood: a constraint and a choice stemming from the mother's incapacity, the nature of the relationships created between mother and children and between father and mother, and the burden and pleasure contained within single parenthood. The discussion looks at the findings through the prism of Baxter and Montgomery's (1996) dialectic theory. It sheds light on the ongoing, contrast‐filled process of establishing a perception of fatherhood, and the experiences of divorced fathers raising their children on their own.