Adjusting to fatherhood

[coveredinsnot]

Hi dads,

Firstly, I'm not a dad, but please don't boot me off the board! I do exist elsewhere on mumsnet so am not here just to pester you all. I just want to ask you all a couple of questions. I'm about to start a research project into fatherhood, but I don't know if it's a viable idea and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Basically I want to interview several men and ask them to describe their experiences of becoming a father, in particular any mental health or adjustment-type difficulties they had, and how they dealt with them. As men, do you think any of you or anyone you know would be willing to discuss this kind of thing (as a one-off, totally anonymous interview)? Do you think it could be a helpful bit of research to do? Or a waste of time - is there something else about becoming a dad that would be more interesting and worthwhile researching?

My interest in this area basically stems from realising that men's post-natal mental health isn't really talked about. What I can't work out is whether this is because none of you men have any problems, or because women's experiences have been prioritised so far. Or some other reason.

Any thoughts?

p.s. I'm NOT trying to recruit any of you in to my study - in order to do this I will have to go through a much more formal process.

I'm a mum and my dh goes through huge ajustments when we have a child.Great idea for a piece of research.I don't think my DH would offer any info but I would.

Mmmm... fidelma that's the problem I think! I'm worried that men just won't come forward to talk to me. But similar research has been done so there must be men out there who want to talk about their experiences, and for their experiences to be useful information to clinicians and other helping professionals... We'll see!

Sounds interesting to me - I'm a Dad to two boys and sometimes feel like I'm still coming to terms with the transition. Love them both dearly but life is certainly different, mostly for the better!

Hi, again i am not a dad... but my DP certainly went through a very difficult transition when |DS1 was born, and for a time was, I believe, moderately depressed. I dont think it's that uncommon, ut he would have struggled to make this common knowledge as it's just expected for new dads to get stuck in and be supportive of the mothers.

Good luck with your research i would imagine it will be very interesting!

Forgot to say - if you want my rambling thoughts I'd be happy to share!

I'll talk to you about this if you like. I'm a (very new) Dad - DD is 8 weeks.

what would be the title of the study? what field?

Hi there all, and thanks for your responses. I'm a trainee clinical psychologist hence the emphasis on mental health and well-being. I don't have a formal title for the project yet but the working title is this: 'The challenges of first-time fatherhood: men?s experiences, coping strategies and help-seeking behaviour'.

So, I want to ask men about what the transition to fatherhood was like for them, and focus in more detail on the coping strategies they employed for dealing with the challenges of new fatherhood. I want to ask them whether they experienced any difficulties with mood, anxiety, stress etc, and what form these problems took. I also want to know how they sought help, from whom, and whether there were any perceived barriers to asking for help.

They are my ideas so far. It's still all at the very early stages so it could change dramatically from this depending on the feedback I get from the university. The main issues people have raised so far is - will I actually be able to find any men who identify themselves as having struggled in the post-natal period, and who are also willing to talk to me about it?

I hope so!

Your thoughts on my ideas and whether you think it's worthwhile would be so helpful. And any tips on where I might find 10 men such as this! (Offers from here welcome of course!)

Thanks...

my immediate thought is that I don't know how I've responded to fatherhood and how I've coped with it. So you're going to have to devise some very searching questions!!

also, it occurs to me that if you are deliberately seeking men who recognise that they have struggled with fatherhood, isn't that going to massively skew the results of your survey? wont you need some kind of control group to work out how that group are different from a) other fathers that feel they have coped and b) men that have difficulty coping with change in general?

Not a father, but a mum of 5, divorced. I agree completely with MrIC's observations on the problems inherent in the self-reporting approach.

I think it would be very instructive to compare what fathers and the corresponding mothers think of how they are coping. A man might think he was coping well by doing/saying all sorts of things that made him feel better, but come across to his wife as patronising, bossy, uncaring, unsympathetic, smothering, etc. (Thinking here of exH believing he had sorted out all our practical problems by leaving me with a list of household chores to do each day and the exhortation that all I needed was to 'get organised' and housework plus toddler/ small child care would magically be accomplished despite sleep deprivation and general exhaustion.) Coping and adjusting are usually done in the context of the wider relationship with spouse or partner after all.

My exH went through what I can only describe as post partum meltdowns each time, and thought he was doing great. Living with him was hellish with a new baby around, and he didn't do well with toddlers either. But to hear him talk, the problems we went through were all mine.

Not sure if this is too helpful, maybe too personal and anecdotal, but just wanted to illustrate my point.

MrIC and mathanxiety thanks for your helpful replies. The study I'll be doing will be a qualitative study, not a quantitative one. This means that I will purposefully be looking in great detail and a very small number of individuals' experiences, and the results will not be interpreted to the rest of the population of men. Instead, my research will add a small part to a larger collective pool of similar research. Does that make sense? There are other (quantitative) studies which look at similar things which have used survey/ questionnaire methods and therefore assessed larger numbers of people. My research will build on this and expand it, a little. Qualitative studies, by there nature, never have control groups so this won't be necessary.

mathanxiety your other point about interviewing couples is excellent, and is a thought I have also had myself, particularly having had conversations with parent friends of mine whose men have had difficulties post-natally, but would never be able to articulate this - instead, their behaviour has changed. I think it would be incredibly interesting to look at their different understandings of these changes. Thanks for confirming this idea!!!

FWIW, I think studies like this would be incredibly useful, and I'm surprised that there seems to be little or no literature on men's responses to childbirth and the adjustment to parenthood, particularly when it is well-accepted in marriage and relationship counseling that the first year after the arrival of a child is frequently a very stressful time, even the time when any cracks in a relationship can become chasms.

There is a fair amount of sociological research into men's roles as fathers, their changing roles in society, etc, but very little in the mental health literature about their responses in mental health terms to this adjustment period. Fathers have largely been ignored in the research literature, particularly in comparison to women. Understandable in some sense, but not when you consider the importance of the paternal role in raising kids.

It's really interesting to me that women have responded to this thread, and so few men have. I wonder why that is?

Do any of you dads know of any other more active fathers' forums on the internet? I'd be interested - I've done some searching myself but they seem pretty inactive.

I think it would be a very worthwhile study. I had to deal with a lot of issues and I don't think there was any assistance in my situation. I can certainly see areas where mental health issues could come into play.

erm...im a dad. it's a piece of piss. except when he's got a cold/decides to get up at 6am.

which probably doesnt help much.

I'm a dad of a 7 month old and have recently lost my job so I'm now a stay at home dad. I could talk about it all day!

Hi all,

Just to say the study is now up and running, please find more info on in the Media section of mumsnet here