Doing Morally Intelligible Fatherhood: Swedish Fathers' Accounts of Their Parental Part-Time Work Choices

Abstract

This article examines how moral norms shape fathers’ ability to choose their care commitments. Drawing upon semi-structured interviews with 21 Swedish fathers, it considers the ways men negotiate moral intelligibility vis-a-vis the prevailing ideals of fatherhood and masculinity when accounting for their decisions to either exercise or not their right to parental part-time work. The analysis shows fatherhood to be heavily permeated by moral norms. The constraints these norms impose upon and the possibilities they offer for present-day Swedish fathers’ agency when choosing and articulating their commitments are investigated. The moral discourses the fathers engaged with allowed for various ways of doing “good fatherhood” to be made morally intelligible, either enabling or excluding part-time work as a morally possible option.