Men in the mirror: A qualitative examination of low-income men's perceptions of their childhood relationships with their fathers

Abstract

This study presents analysis of in-depth, qualitative interviews with 25 low-income, urban Latino and African-American fathers of 5- to 7-year-olds conducted by the researchers from 2003 to 2005. Participants are a subsample drawn from a larger pool of fathers from New York City (NYC) who were part of the Fathers and Newborn Study (FANS), a strand of the National Early Head Start Research and Evaluation study, with the goal of examining men's perceptions of their childhood relationships with their fathers and their views on how these experiences affected their parenting. Interviews were examined for thematic content using grounded theory techniques. Findings revealed that the vast majority of men felt their fathers had been disengaged in their lives, with only one-third reporting having seen their fathers at least a few times a week or more over the course of childhood. Men whose fathers were accessible over the course of childhood often described their fathers as hardworking and talked of appreciating th...