“I thought, Oh shit, because I was 19.” Discourses and practices on young fatherhood in Denmark

Abstract

This article presents the voices of 30 young fathers from the first interview-based study in Denmark on young fatherhood. The findings show that men face significant challenges when they become fathers at a young age and that they often feel stigmatised by society. Young fatherhood, however, can also promote social integration and produce forms of empowerment. Unlike most international research on young fatherhood, this study shows that economic circumstances do not play a crucial role in the ability of fathers to gain access to their children. This may be due to support aimed at socially disadvantaged families provided by the state. The results further indicate that early fatherhood should be seen as a transitional process, rather than as an event, with the young father gradually abandoning teenage life and where a delay in the development of the father-child relationship does not necessarily rule out the later emergence of a stable father-child relationship.