Widowed Fathers Research Articles

Le territoire sauvage de l'âme by Jean-François Létourneau

Reviewed by: Le territoire sauvage de l'âme by Jean-François Létourneau Joseph A. Reiter LÉtourneau, Jean-FranÇois. Le territoire sauvage de l'âme. Boréal, 2021. ISBN 978-2-7646-2675-7. Pp. 144. This homage to the Inuit people and culture also celebrates the wilds of the province of Québec, family, fatherhood, storytelling, and (perhaps not surprisingly) hockey. Largely autobiographical, the author successfully employs and alternates two modes of narration—the singular tu, with an effective use of the present tense, to chronicle alter ego Guillaume's first years of teaching in Nunavik, and the third-person il, to recount family life with his wife and three children a decade or so later in their forest home in southern Québec. Readers might google maps to follow Guillaume's movements. Air travel was and remains the sole manner to reach Nunavik's towns, since no connecting roads exist, and once landed it is difficult for an outsider not to feel isolated or exiled. Add to this language—the Inuit of Kuujjuaq, old and young alike, communicate in Inuktitut, which Guillaume discovers during his initial flight from Montréal with a large group of teenagers. He earnestly wants to understand the conversation—"Tu aimerais leur parler, ne peux que leur sourire" (11)—but he can only guess the meaning, and over his four years in Kuujjuaq he will many times misinterpret what he hears, at times even when spoken in French. This of course will make for humorous tales he relates to his children in the prospector's tent erected in the woods behind his home. Guillaume was raised by a widowed father in the last house on a rang in a village in les Cantons de l'Est, now referred to as l'Estrie. The father told stories, sang—"un air traditionnel pour chaque moment du quotidien" (14)—chopped wood, worked the land, loved nature, and imparted that ethos to his son. Guillaume, to pay his way through college, planted hundreds of trees during summers in northern Ontario, where his yearning for the far North took hold: "Tu as voulu le Nord comme un vide à combler" (35). He does not make much headway with his students nor feel at ease for months after arriving. One Saturday night he heads to the hockey arena (Jean-François Létourneau was a champion hockey player) with skates and equipment and manages to be invited to play. His prowess stuns the players and crowd and opens the door to friendships and acceptance by the community. He will experience life with extended families, hunt caribou, camp on the tundra, learn legends, read the stars, and intensify his love for the environment and for traditional ways. Guillaume realizes he has learned much more than he was able to impart in his courses, perhaps expressing what many teachers feel: "J'ai l'impression de vous avoir pris quelque chose sans rien laisser en retour" (131). His decision to return to l'Estrie is viewed as a betrayal by the town and at departure he cannot adequately express his gratitude nor say farewell. Létourneau's poetic and poignant novel beautifully accomplishes that task: "Votre pays est magnifique, vous êtes magnifiques […] vous m'avez appris à rire. Vous m'avez appris à vivre" (131). [End Page 251] Joseph A. Reiter Phillips Exeter Academy (NH), emeritus Copyright © 2022 American Association of Teachers of French

Cousin Marvin's Secret

Cousin Marvin's Secret

The Group: Seven Widowed Fathers Reimagine Life by Donald Rosenstein Justin Yopp (review)

The Group: Seven Widowed Fathers Reimagine Life by Donald Rosenstein Justin Yopp (review)

Life Came to a Full Stop: The Experiences of Widowed Fathers.

This study investigated how the death of the mother affected four Danish families. In-depth interviews were undertaken with both children (N = 7, 7-19 years) and fathers (N = 4, average age: 46 years) within the same families. The results presented in this article focus on the experiences of the fathers. Thematic analyses as set out by Braun and Clarke resulted in three overall themes: Coping with Loss, Transitions, and Mismatch between Experienced Needs and Provided Help. The results bear witness to a group of bereaved individuals experiencing heavy demands on their time and mental resources while trying to cope with their own grief and that of their children simultaneously. This is especially the case for the three men with younger children. Implications for practice are highlighted, such as a need for focusing on the individual and not offering a one-size-fits-all approach to bereavement support.

Psychological and parental functioning of widowed fathers: The first two years.

Widowed parents play a critical role in promoting family adaptation and facilitating their children's adjustment to the loss of a parent; yet the psychological wellbeing of these parents has received scant attention. In this study we examined depressive symptoms and grief intensity in 252 spousally bereaved men with dependent-age children. Participants learned of the study and completed initial surveys at variable time points during their first 2 years of bereavement. Depressive and grief symptoms remained persistently high, with 45% of the sample exceeding screening thresholds for clinically significant depressive symptoms two years after the death of their spouses. In linear regression models, higher intensity or frequency of depression and grief symptoms were associated with poorer psychological adaptation, lower parenting self-efficacy, and lower parenting satisfaction scores. Relationships between fathers' distress and potentially modifiable end-of-life variables regarding their spouses were examined. Notably, those who reported that their wives were at peace with dying had lower depressive and grief scores at various intervals. Overall, the magnitude and duration of the depressive and grief symptoms suggests that widowed fathers' psychological distress does not quickly abate over the first 2 years of bereavement, which may be attributable to the unique set of bereavement challenges facing widowed parents such as facilitating their children's grief, assuming sole parenting responsibilities, and managing a household on their own. The findings underscore the need to further examine emotional distress in widowed parents and how their wellbeing impacts family functioning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

It’s the End of the World as I Know It by Matthew Landis

Reviewed by: It’s the End of the World as I Know It by Matthew Landis Deborah Stevenson, Editor Landis, Matthew It’s the End of the World as I Know It. Dial, 2019 [320p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-735-22801-6 $16.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-735-22803-0 $9.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 5-8 Derrick, known as Dee, has been prepping a survival room and polishing his plans to keep himself safe from the civilization-ruining mega-volcano he’s been warned about on a doomsday site. Now September 21, the portended day of the disaster, is drawing near, but things aren’t going smoothly for the eighth-grader: his [End Page 23] neighbor, Misty, ropes him into adventures and wants in on his plans, his friends are getting frustrated with his self-absorption, and he’s getting distracted, to put it mildly, by signs that his widowed father is dating. Landis effectively conveys Dee’s rising stress (sections are headed with the number of “days before the end”) while also sympathetically revealing his obsession as part of the devastating effect of his mother’s death in Iraq. His relationship with Misty, who after a kidney transplant is as determined to court experiences as Dee is to flee from them, adds a dimension that’s lively but also more deeply relevant to Dee than his narration admits; his kind but perplexed goofball guy friends (including one proud owner of a live-mice-eating snake) are endearing and plausible as they attempt to support their friend but only see him getting worse. The ending is a bit convenient, but Dee’s grief and anxiety will speak to many kids, and they’ll sympathize with his misdirected efforts. Copyright © 2019 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Trying to Be Good (with Bad Results): The Wouldbegoods, Betsy-Tacy and Tib, and Ivy and Bean: Bound to Be Bad

Trying to Be Good (with Bad Results):The Wouldbegoods, Betsy-Tacy and Tib, and Ivy and Bean: Bound to Be Bad Claudia Mills (bio) Ever since its origin in both rationalist and religious moralizing texts, children's literature has been pressed into the service of character formation, charged with the overt or covert task of helping children learn to be good. Or, that is to say, learn to become what the adult moral arbiters of each period believe goodness to be. So it is striking when texts written for children explicitly problematize the project of aspirational goodness, the enterprise of self-consciously and explicitly aiming at goodness itself. What interests me is the phenomenon of stories—forming a distinctive micro-genre of sorts—in which children join together in a collective effort at moral improvement that conspicuously backfires, where it is the very attempt to be good itself that leads to the bad behavior. While of course stories abound in which attempts at moral improvement fail and good intentions go awry, in the stories I highlight the failure is directly produced by the children's own attempts at moral improvement and the formation of their good intentions. Because they seem so clearly structured to problematize the didactic project, stories of this peculiar form are especially well suited, I argue, to offer insights on didacticism in children's literature. I propose for examination, as central examples of this micro-genre, The Wouldbegoods by E. Nesbit (1901), the chapter "Being Good" in Betsy-Tacy and Tib by Maud Hart Lovelace (1941), and the fifth Ivy and Bean chapter book by Annie Barrows, Bound to Be Bad (2008). Various other texts share certain features of this phenomenon (i.e., texts demonstrating the problematic effects of aspirational goodness), but in my view illustrate it less clearly. For example, the "Good-Conduct Club" chapters of Rainbow Valley by L. M. Montgomery (1919) present another failed collective attempt at goodness, but this aspect of her story seems to be deployed with a different purpose and to a different effect (to show the ill results of a lack of maternal guidance, thus helping to advance the romantic plot of a widowed father's remarriage).1 In Enid Blyton's The Put-Em-Rights (1946), the children create a club focused not on moral self-improvement, but on the righting of wrongs. But while Blyton amply demonstrates the moral unattractiveness [End Page 149] of appointing oneself the corrector of others' misdeeds, her story nonetheless shows the Put-Em-Rights achieving moral growth (i.e., amending their own moral faults) by virtue of their crusade, and so, despite its ultimate termination, the book closes with the rallying cry, "Here's to the Put-Em-Rights all over the world! … Good luck to them, whoever they are, and wherever they live. Here's to everyone who tries to put things right!" This hardly counts as a resounding rebuttal of aspirational goodness.2 The three focal books were published over the course of a full century—Nesbit's at the dawn of the twentieth century, Lovelace's in the mid-twentieth century (but set in the period of Nesbit's), and Barrows's at the dawn of the twenty-first, so we can see them as both expressing continuity in concern about the pitfalls of aspirational goodness and revealing evolving attitudes toward the didactic enterprise. On their surface, all three could be read as poking gentle fun at children's comic misunderstandings of the requirements and rewards of the moral life. But on a closer reading, the texts satirize, not silly childish errors about morality, but the counterproductive ways in which adult authorities—including earnestly moralizing adult authors—communicate morality to children. I argue that these three texts provide material for a more far-reaching critique of the problematic ways in which we, as adults, present the enterprise of morality to children—and to ourselves. If children's literature is, as Perry Nodelman has argued, fundamentally "a discourse about what children are, about how they are different from adults, and about the relative merits of the different qualities" (22), these texts complicate this picture by blurring the distinction between adult and...

Supplemental Material for Psychological and Parental Functioning of Widowed Fathers: The First Two Years

Supplemental Material for Psychological and Parental Functioning of Widowed Fathers: The First Two Years

‘Papa has now me only’: Charlotte Brontë and the Houses of Unwed Daughters and Widowed Fathers

By examining Charlotte Brontë’s domestic responsibilities in her West Yorkshire home after the deaths of her siblings, this essay considers the relationship of unwed daughters and widowed fathers in real life and nineteenth-century fiction. Early biographical depictions, beginning with Elizabeth Gaskell’s The Life of Charlotte Brontë, tend to present Brontë during these years as an angel-in-the-house literary figure, sacrificing her independence as an intellectual and writer in order to care for her ageing father and maintain the domestic sphere of the parsonage. This essay attempts to reconcile this romanticized, and perhaps mythologized, depiction of Brontë with a more realistic vision of her productive literary life.

The Long Shadow: The Lutcher-Stark Lumber Dynasty by Ellen Walker Rienstra and Jo Ann Stiles

Reviewed by: The Long Shadow: The Lutcher-Stark Lumber Dynasty by Ellen Walker Rienstra and Jo Ann Stiles Whitney A. Snow The Long Shadow: The Lutcher-Stark Lumber Dynasty. By Ellen Walker Rienstra and Jo Ann Stiles. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016. Pp. xvi, 600. $45.00, ISBN 978-1-4773-0871-4.) Extremely detailed and sourced with an impressive number of primary documents, this biography focuses on the family behind the Lutcher and Moore Lumber Company. The authors, Ellen Walker Rienstra, a historian under contract with the Nelda C. and H. J. Lutcher Stark Foundation, and Jo Ann Stiles, associate professor emerita at Lamar University, have divided this work into three parts that discuss and analyze the lives of Henry Lutcher, the company's founder, William Stark, Lutcher's son-in-law who diversified the company's holdings and embraced conservation, and Lutcher Stark, Henry Lutcher's grandson, a philanthropist and regent at the University of Texas. The thesis is very straightforward: "In the course of their lives, separately and together, these three generations significantly altered the course of the economic and cultural history of Orange, Southeast Texas, and the University of Texas" (p. xvi). Henry Lutcher, the son of German immigrants, created the Lutcher and Moore Lumber Company with Gregory Townsend Bedell Moore in 1868. By the late 1870s both men, recognizing the increasing need for uncut lands, looked to the South. Lutcher left Moore to operate their Williamsport, Pennsylvania, holdings and moved to Orange, Texas, in 1877. Though a northerner, Lutcher was a Democrat and easily assimilated into his new home. In addition to creating jobs, he and his family did much for the community of Orange. William Stark married Henry Lutcher's daughter Miriam Melissa [End Page 1000] Lutcher in 1888. Stark masterfully expanded Lutcher and Moore Lumber Company with diversified endeavors like the Yellow Pine Paper Mill Company, Orange Rice Mill Company, and the Vinton Petroleum Company. A diversified farmer and passionate conservationist, Stark sought to protect younger trees and advocated replanting. While the lives of Henry Lutcher and William Stark are thoroughly explored, the authors devote the bulk of the book to Lutcher Stark. The grandson of Henry Lutcher and son of William Stark, Lutcher Stark served almost twenty-four years on the board of regents at the University of Texas. His long tenure, including roughly twelve years as chairman, meant he was involved in a number of pivotal decisions relating to constructing Memorial Stadium and sanctioning oil revenue for a general university fund. Like his progenitors, Lutcher Stark was extremely charitable and donated substantially to the University of Texas and his hometown of Orange. He purchased a plane for the local hospital, built a country club, and opened an ornate garden to the public. This book provides an informative, sometimes humorous, and always human account of a family who dedicated much of their lives to aiding the community of Orange, Texas—first, by creating jobs and, later, by funding a church, school, and hospital, to name only a sampling. Rienstra and Stiles are to be commended for their efforts to place the Lutcher-Stark dynasty in the context of the Civil War, Reconstruction, World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II. The authors grant that some stories may be more myth than truth. For instance, they address the lore that the original German spelling of the name Lutscher was changed to Lutcher so as to better fit on a sign. Excerpts from letters are often amusing, such as one referencing Carrie Lutcher teasing her brother-in-law, William Stark, for balding prematurely. In another letter, Susannah Mitchell gave John Thomas Stark, William Stark's widowed father, a rather wry refusal to his abrupt marriage proposal: "as you have forgotten me this long I am willing to remain forgotten" (p. 74). Ironically, while much of the book revolves around Lutcher Stark, his maternal grandmother, Frances Ann Lutcher, paternal grandfather, John Thomas Stark, and third wife, Nelda Childers Stark, are described more vividly than the main characters. Due to the thematic chapters there is some repetitiveness, but given the number of family members discussed, such reminders are handy. The main flaws are...

End-of-life parental communication priorities among bereaved fathers due to cancer

ObjectivesTo elicit widowed fathers’ perspectives on which domains of parenting-related communication they consider most important for dying parents to discuss at the end of life (EOL). MethodsTwo hundred seventy nine fathers widowed by cancer completed a survey about their own depression and bereavement symptoms, their wife’s illness, and EOL parental communication priorities. Chi square and Fisher’s exact tests and logistic regression were used to evaluate relationships between maternal EOL characteristics and fathers’ responses to parenting-related EOL communication priorities. ResultsFathers identified raising children in a manner that reflected maternal wishes, whether/how to talk with children about their mother’s death, and how the mother wanted to be remembered as the most important EOL communication domains. Fathers who reported that their dying wives were worried about the children were more likely to prioritize raising children in ways that reflect her wishes (p=0.01). Other EOL characteristics were not associated with communication domains. ConclusionsCommunicating with children and maintaining emotional connection with the deceased parent are important priorities for bereaved fathers who lost a spouse to cancer. Practice implicationsHealth care providers working with seriously ill parents may improve family outcomes by supporting communication at the EOL between co-parents.

Draft, or saving the son from becoming one of the nation’s prospects

Abstract Draft tells about the last night that an 18-year-old boy spends with his widowed father at home before beginning his compulsory military service. The situation between the two is tense, not only because of the objective circumstances, but mainly because the father tries to project his own military experience onto his son.

Planning in the Poncini Family Business

The case relates the history of a diversified family business, Poncini Enterprises, located in the Trentino region of northern Italy. The firm began in the late 1940s with trucks and gradually diversified into property investment, retailing of bricks and construction tools and, more recently, grape growing. These various stages of diversification have stretched the firm’s resources and heightened long-standing family difficulties and conflicts. The family business includes four siblings, three sons, a daughter, and their elderly, widowed father, who has recently experienced health problems. The youngest son, Lorenzo, has recently returned to the business after an extended period of accounting and wine business studies in Italy and abroad. Lorenzo asked his older brother, Carlo, to explain how the firm became so diversified, an important question, as the family needed to decide whether to maintain its involvement in grape growing. In addition, levels of conflict in the family increased as the family patriarch, Gianni, continued to make the important decisions despite his recent health issues. The case requires a decision regarding how the family should make its decisions in future, while meeting the need to safeguard the interests of both the family and the business.

End-of-life experiences of mothers with advanced cancer: perspectives of widowed fathers

End-of-life experiences of mothers with advanced cancer: perspectives of widowed fathers

End-of-life experiences of mothers with advanced cancer: perspectives of widowed fathers

ObjectiveDespite the importance of parenting-related responsibilities for adult patients with terminal illnesses who have dependent children, little is known about the psychological concerns of dying parents and their families at...

Witherwood Reform School by Obert Skye (review)

Reviewed by: Witherwood Reform School by Obert Skye Amy Atkinson Skye, Obert Witherwood Reform School; illus. by Keith Thompson. Ottaviano/Holt, 2015 [240p] ISBN 978-0-8050-9879-2 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 4-6 Siblings Tobias and Charlotte Eggers have pushed their widowed father too far with their latest horrible trick played on their latest horrible nanny. Furious and exasperated, he drops them off at the top of a remote mesa with the intent of teaching them a lesson. Unfortunately, when he circles back after twenty minutes, he crashes his car and winds up with amnesia, forgetting his name and, alas, his children. Tobias and Charlotte, in the interim, have made their way through the gates of the eerie Witherwood Reform School—a move they soon regret as they find themselves prisoners of the institution, where hard labor, cold showers, and systematic brainwashing are all de rigueur. Author Skye has a knack for gallows humor, tempering the bleakness with plentiful humorous asides directed at the reader and occasional grossout moments spot on for the age of the intended audience (not to mention certain adults). Charlotte and Tobias are believable as spunky eleven and twelve-year olds, respectively, and while the ending is somewhat inconclusive, it sets the stage for sequels. Overall, it’s dark and funny, and it will appeal to kids with a sharp sense of humor and a budding interest in Lemony Snicket. Copyright © 2015 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

With the help of kin? Household composition and reproduction in the Netherlands, 1842-1920.

Relatives play an important role in human reproduction according to evolutionary theories of reproductive behavior, but previous empirical studies show large differences in the effects of kin on fertility outcomes. In our paper we examine the effect of co-resident kin and non-kin on the length of birth intervals over the reproductive life course of Dutch women born between 1842 and 1920. We estimate Cox proportional hazard models for parity progression based on the presence of kin and non-kin in the household while controlling for a large number of individual and community-level characteristics. We find that couples living with their brothers experienced shorter birth intervals whereas couples residing with a widowed father had relatively longer birth intervals. The effects of these types of kin on reproduction were most pronounced up to the birth of the fifth child, but not thereafter. We found no effect for mothers or other types of kin.

An exploratory study of end-of-life prognostic communication needs as reported by widowed fathers due to cancer.

Effective physician communication about prognosis is a critical aspect of quality care for families affected by terminal illness. This is particularly important for spousal caregivers of terminally ill parents of dependent children, who may have unique needs for communication about anticipated death. The objective of this study was to explore end-of-life prognostic communication experiences reported by bereaved fathers whose wives died from cancer. From October 2012 to November 2013 we surveyed widowed fathers whose wives died from cancer through an open-access educational website. The survey included the following open-ended questions regarding prognostic communication: 'What is the most important thing you would like us to know about whether/how your wife's doctors communicated with you about her anticipated death? What do you wish had been different, if anything?' We performed traditional content analysis of responses. Two researchers coded and categorized the data. Two hundred forty-four men responded to the survey questions on prognostic communication. Major themes addressed by respondents were the importance of clear and honest communication and physician bedside manner. They also identified unmet information needs, including wanting to know prognosis sooner. Relevant sub-themes included death coming as a surprise, avoidance, and caregiver regret. Surviving spouses due to cancer can provide important insights for health care providers about optimum prognostic communication at the end of life. Increased physician attention to the communication preferences of both patients and their partners may improve bereavement outcomes for family members.

On <em>Shtisel</em> (or the Haredi as Bourgeois)

On Shtisel (or the Haredi as Bourgeois) Yaron Peleg (bio) Shtisel. 2013. Created by Uri Alon and Yehonatan Indursky. Produced by Dikla Barakai and Yonatan Aroch. Israel: Yes TV. The proliferation of shows about Israel’s various religious communities has been one of the most notable changes in television programming in Israel recently. In the last decade such shows have been crowding Israeli TV screens, exposing viewers in increasingly more nuanced ways to parts of society that were until fairly recently uncharted TV lands. The tipping point was probably the hit series Srugim, which ran for three seasons between 2008 and 2012 (Yes TV). Focusing on the love lives of religious singles in contemporary Jerusalem, the show was a sexless version of the popular American TV series from the late 1990s and early 2000s Sex and the City, an innovation that speaks for itself, as I discuss in my article included in this issue. Indeed, the marriage of religion and love—pun intended—seems to be one of the most successful recipes for updating the otherwise “unsexy” image of religious people in Israel, and probably elsewhere. It has also proved to be a commercially viable way to make politically problematic communities popular, at least in some ways. The popular television show Shtisel, the latest evolution in religious television programming in Israel, is a good case in point, because it deals with Israel’s most strictly religious group, the Haredi or Orthodox community, and exemplifies the dramatic changes in the perception of Jewish religiosity in the Jewish state. [End Page 113] The winner of the Israeli Academy Awards for Television best TV drama series in 2013, Shtisel focuses on the personal lives of members of an ultra-Orthodox family in the religious neighborhood of Me’ah She’arim in Jerusalem. The innovation of the show comes from the fact that it is a usual show about fairly unusual people, the Jewish Orthodox community in Israel. In other words, the drama series takes religious characters, omits most of the controversial issues associated with them, and presents them as so-called regular people. Moreover, the show focuses on the love lives of its characters, which include a widowed father, Sholem Shtisel (Dov Glickman); his young and good-looking bachelor son, Akiva (Michael Aloni), who is in love with the slightly older and twice-widowed Elisheva Rotstein (Ayelet Zorer); Sholem’s married daughter, Giti Weiss (Neta Riskin); and Sholem’s old mother, Bube Malke (Hanna Rieber, who died after the first season was completed). The fact that love preoccupies Shtisel’s cast of Orthodox characters is obviously aimed at the show’s secular viewers. Similarly, the presentation of the religious world on the show as restrictive seems like another reflection of secular rather than Orthodox sensibilities. Although the show is named after the widowed patriarch and follows his relationships with members of his family, the main focus of the show is on the youngest son, Akiva, and his tortuous love life. When Akiva falls in love with the twice-widowed older woman Elisheva, he pursues her despite pressures from his family and community to marry a virgin his own age, and even despite being rebuffed by Elisheva herself. Having been married twice before and having had a son with one of her previous husbands, Elisheva is reluctant to get involved again. Although the show is not focused exclusively on their relationship, its ups and downs comprise the series’ dramatic core. It is here, at this romantic juncture, that the show engages in the kind of cultural exchange I mentioned earlier. Matrimony in the Orthodox world is a practical arrangement that has little to do with romance. It is preferable, of course, that the couple like one another, but it is by no means a requirement. Eligible young singles are expected to make their decision after meeting once or twice, which allows them little time to develop any meaningful feelings. Akiva goes on an awkward date with an “appropriate” single woman in the show’s very first episode. The meeting is off to a bad start when he realizes the woman he meets is humorless. But the date fails completely when he learns that she...

Overlooked and underserved: Widowed fathers with dependent-age children

Widowed fathers and their children are at heightened risk for poor coping and maladaptive psychosocial outcomes. This exploratory study is the first to explicitly examine the psychological characteristics of this population of fathers. Some 259 fathers (mean age = 46.81; 90% Caucasian) with dependent-age children and whose wives had died from cancer within the previous five years completed a web-based survey that consisted of demographic questions, the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), the Texas Inventory of Grief-Revised (TRIG-R), the Psychological Adaptation Scale (PAS), the Kansas Parental Satisfaction Scale (KPSS), and items assessing perceived parental efficacy. Fathers were found to have elevated depressive (CES-D mean = 22.6) and grief (TRIG-R mean = 70.3) symptomatology, low adaptation (PAS mean = 3.2), and high levels of stress related to their parenting role. They reported being satisfied with their parenting (KPSS mean = 15.8) and having met their own parental expectations. Multivariate analyses revealed an association between father's age and depression (p = <0.01), with younger fathers reporting greater depressive symptoms. Psychological adaptation was positively correlated with being in a romantic relationship (p = 0.02) and age of oldest child (p = 0.02). The results of our exploratory study suggest that, while widowed fathers perceive themselves as meeting their parental responsibilities, it comes at a substantial psychological cost, with particularly high stress related to being a sole parent. These findings may help guide interventions for this neglected population and underscore the importance of developing targeted therapies and research protocols to address their needs.