Responsible Fatherhood: A Narrative Analysis of Finnish First-Time Fathers

In Finland, a gender-balanced distribution of childcare is the goal of official family policies, an issue promoted by family experts, and nowadays also a cultural norm of parenting. Thus, in most families, fathers play an extensive role in hands-on caregiving from the very onset of parenthood. This presentation draws on the results of a recent study analyzing the narratives of early fatherhood produced by Finnish first-time fathers. The narratives were produced in 60 interviews conducted with 44 fathers during the first three years of their fatherhood. In this presentation, the men’s narratives are considered within the framework of recent time-use and parental leave statistics.

The men’s narratives emphasized responsibility, especially in terms of nurture and care, above issues of age and social class.  Beneath the surface, however, the narratives exhibited wide variation in what aspects of paternal care were stressed. For example, whereas in some narratives equally shared parenting, from family planning to daily care practices, was emphasized as a matter of gender equality, in others, although the father was seen as competent in nurturing, the mother was nevertheless more important in this respect. However, although breadwinning was also emphasized in most of the narratives, it was generally subordinate to “hands-on” practices. The statistics also highlighted the increase in men’s share and engagement in childcare, but contrary to the narratives, socioeconomic differences remained significant and a notable gender gap in parental practices and parental leaves emerged.

As the results suggest, while the cultural ideal of shared parenting has probably promoted the narration of nurturing responsibilities among fathers, these have not yet been fully realized in practice. To turn the narratives into reality, in addition to men’s own willingness to adjust their paternal behaviors, more support from the mothers, working life and family policies is needed.