Generativity as Second Chance: Low-Income Fathers and Transformation of the Difficult Past

Abstract

Few studies have focused on disadvantaged men's efforts to seek a second chance to remake their lives. In this article, we examine expressions of generativity in life history interviews with a diverse sample of 77 Black and White low-income fathers. We explore what constituted "the difficult past" of men's failures as providers, partners, students, sons, and even parents. Fathers in the study attempted to make up for the difficult past through acting generatively as parents. We identify two narrative types: second chance for self in which fathers remake their own past failures and second chance for family in which fathers redo painful experiences during their own childhoods and repair broken generational ties. Finally, we consider how social disadvantage—through race and class differences—shapes fathers' narratives of second chances. The past is difficult, you know? Pain is never ending. If you know what it feels like, if anything has been taken away from you and you've been at the bottom of the bottoms … it's hell. You can't make up for it. You can take different bits and pieces from the past to reinsure a hope that your future does not go into the same thing that already happened. Otherwise, it hurts. You're living in the past and can't change it.