Late-adult fathers’ experiences of parenting across the lifespan

Abstract

While theoretical studies have stressed the lifelong development of father involvement, little is known about how fathers experience and describe their parenting of their children from childhood to adulthood. We interviewed 93 Swedish fathers in late adulthood about these issues to address the identified research gap. Our thematic analysis generated a set of core aspects of fathers’ parenting in the sense that they were persistent from childhood to adulthood, namely being engaged, present, and available. Our results also suggest that soft parenting was prominent in retrospect and that fathers balanced involvement with the independence of their adult children. These results can be applied within clinical settings that target parents in different phases of parenthood to help them navigate their everyday struggles and overall strivings as parents. This knowledge can also be used clinically in relation to individuals in late adulthood, as it highlights potential psychosocial challenges in their lives.

Introduction

Fathers today are substantially more involved with their children than was the case four decades ago (Schoppe‐Sullivan & Fagan, 2020). In parallel to this increase in father involvement, the definition of what it means to be a father has changed (Lamb, 2010, 2012). Despite the many different definitions of and changes in the meaning of fathers’ parenting, however, relatively few studies have focused on fathers’ own experiences of their parenting. The available studies have reported that breadwinning and being available to one’s family are experienced as central aspects of being a father (McLaughlin & Muldoon, 2014), but also that being a role model (Daly, 1993), protector, and caretaker (Olmstead et al., 2009) are common aspects of what fathers experience that their parenting entails. These studies have begun an empirical exploration and description of fathers’ subjective experiences of parenting of minor children. However, in order to support lifelong father involvement, we need to know more about how fathers experience their parenting throughout the lifespan. By definition, an experience-based lifespan perspective on parenting can only be provided by parents in late adulthood with adult children. Therefore, this study has focused on this group in order to address the identified research gap.

Our study group, Swedish fathers in late adulthood with middle-aged children born in the early 1980s, are the first generation to be covered by regulations initiated in Sweden four decades ago to encourage equality in parenting (Haas & Hwang, 2013). In addition, they have experienced the ongoing discrepancy between policy and practice in Swedish parenting norms. That is, despite the policy reforms and encouragement of sharing parenting more equally that began four decades ago, the policies only started having major effects in the early 2000s (Lidbeck, 2020). Having lived through these changes, Swedish fathers in late adulthood can give experience-based descriptions of lifespan parenting from a context in which policies have been designed to support long-term father involvement. While theoretical studies have stressed the lifelong commitment and development of father involvement (e.g. Palkovitz & Palm, 2009), little is known about how fathers experience their parenting and its meaning, from their children’s childhood to adulthood. It is unclear how fathers in late adulthood with adult children view their involvement both retrospectively and in relation to their adult children. Our study addresses this research gap.

Fathers’ experiences of their parenting

In general, the differences between fathers’ and mothers’ parenting appear much less important than the similarities (Lamb, 2010). Therefore, fatherhood and motherhood overlap to great extent and can be described in terms of parenthood. At the same time, there are both practical and normative differences between mothers’ and fathers’ actual parenting (e.g. Lidbeck, 2020; Schoppe‐Sullivan & Fagan, 2020). Thus, to understand different experiences of parenting, it is important to study both fathers’ and mothers’ viewpoints. Most previous studies on father involvement concern its relation to child outcomes (Pleck, 2010), and mothers have historically often served as proxy respondents for fathers (Mitchell et al., 2007), meaning that mothers are asked about fathers’ parenting. Indeed, a persistent challenge in parenting research is that it still focuses on mothers (Schoppe‐Sullivan & Fagan, 2020).

A salient aspect of fathers’ parenting are their own experiences and descriptions of parenting. This aspect of fathers’ parenting has been defined as the self-meaning of fatherhood (Pleck, 2010). Several previous studies have investigated fathers’ experiences of the transition to fatherhood (Habib, 2012; Höfner et al., 2011), but relatively few have examined fathers’ own experiences of fatherhood itself (Olmstead et al., 2009). One extensive empirical study on parenting from fathers’ own perspectives identified parental roles such as provider, being a loving parent, being there, being a role model, and acting as a teacher and a moral guide (Palkovitz, 2002). These results have been confirmed in three subsequent studies, which identified fathers’ parental roles such as teacher (Olmstead et al., 2009; Summers et al., 2006), being supportive (Olmstead et al., 2009; Summers et al., 2006), being available (McLaughlin & Muldoon, 2014), being authoritarian or strict (Olmstead et al., 2009), and providing security (Olmstead et al., 2009; Summers et al., 2006). Yet another study with fathers of young children revealed that the fathers experienced that they had lacked role models and that this led them to create models out of fragments of desirable behaviors and dispositions in their surroundings when shaping their own parenting (Daly, 1993). The study by Daly (1993) should be regarded alongside the changed norms since it was conducted. Such normative changes may have increased the public knowledge on fathers’ parenting and the availability of paternal role models for fathers (Schoppe‐Sullivan & Fagan, 2020). These previous studies concerning fathers’ own perspectives of their parenting have focused on how fathers describe their parenting in relation to their children and adolescents. As fatherhood continues beyond adolescence, however, more knowledge is needed about how fathers experience their parenting when their children are adults.

Transition theory suggests that parents are subject to long-term processes of psychological development that are specifically linked to the evolving needs of their children (Palkovitz & Palm, 2009). Such transitions lead to periods of equilibrium during which specific parenting behaviors are relatively stable. But as the child’s needs evolve, disequilibration occurs and the parenting behaviors need to be adapted to the child’s new needs and developmental phase. For example, the father of a toddler may redefine his primary parental task from being a nurturer to being a teacher as his child begins to socialize and interact with its environment (Palkovitz & Palm, 2009). Even though parenting has been described in terms of transitions and as a developing and lifelong commitment, relatively little is known about how fathers in late adulthood experience their parenting throughout their fatherhood. Such knowledge would provide new insights regarding the development of parenting beyond childhood and adolescence. Retrospective accounts of parenting from fathers in late adulthood may also suggest what parental behaviors are remembered as meaningful throughout fatherhood. Such knowledge can be used to help parents amid parenthood to navigate and prioritize their parenting behaviors. However, such retrospective reports are lacking in the scientific literature on fathers’ parenting.

Parenting adult children

When it comes to both fathers’ and mothers’ parenting beyond childhood and adolescence, several previous studies have described parenting in relation to emerging adults. Emerging adulthood is defined as a developmental stage (approximately between the ages 19 and 25) during which the adult child transitions into independence (Arnett, 2000). This transitioning stage involves increased negotiation between the emerging adult and the parent (Seiffge-Krenke, 2016). Parents need to balance care and control to avoid conflict (Branje, 2018), and this balancing act continues throughout emerging adulthood (Yahirun & Fingerman, 2015). The general delay in becoming economically independent among emerging adults has led parents to provide economic support longer than before (Nomaguchi & Milkie, 2020). It has been reported that parents in industrialized societies act as safety nets for their adult children even beyond emerging adulthood, when the children are in their early thirties (Swartz et al., 2011). Emerging adulthood also involves the shift to being more self-sufficient while still asking for parents’ advice (Arnett, 2014). One aspect of becoming more self-sufficient is having a home of one’s own. Not sharing a household carries with it several positive effects on family relationships (Seiffge-Krenke, 2016), such as the lessening of children’s dependence and the heightening of mutual respect between parent and emerging adult (White & Rogers, 1997).

Parenting adult children can also involve providing childcare and household assistance when the adult children become parents themselves (Bucx et al., 2012). The parent-adult child relationship has also been described in terms of mutual support (Umberson et al., 2010). For example, caring for grandchildren increases the likelihood of being supported by one’s adult children later (Geurts et al., 2012). When the child grows into adulthood, the relationship between child and parent changes in several ways. Even though the previous studies described here do not focus on fathers’ perspectives per se, they do suggest how parenting can develop beyond childhood and adolescence. Building on this knowledge, we wanted to better understand fathers’ perspectives on how their parenting has developed throughout fatherhood and in relation to adult children who are beyond emerging adulthood. By examining fathers’ experiences of their parenting in relation to children who are in their late thirties, we wanted to provide knowledge on how the experiences of parenting adult children develop beyond emerging adulthood, and in a phase of life where many of the children have started their own families. Both fathers’ retrospective experiences of parenting throughout parenthood and experiences of parenting adult children in their late thirties can provide important knowledge for supporting father involvement throughout fatherhood.

This study

The aim of this study was to explore experiences of parenting from childhood to adulthood as described by fathers in late adulthood with adult children. To achieve our aim, we conducted and analyzed interviews with fathers in late adulthood, all with children in their late thirties. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to empirically investigate parenting throughout fatherhood based on the experiences of fathers themselves. Because of the exploratory nature of this work, qualitative methods seemed best suited for the investigation of this scientifically unexplored phenomenon (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2017).

Methods

Participants

This study is part of the project Father Involvement from Early Childhood to Adulthood (FIECA). The data collection was carried out in 2019/2020. Most of the interviews (84) took place before the covid-19 pandemic started. However, a few (9) interviews took place after the start of the pandemic and four of those were rescheduled from in-person to telephone to ensure the safety of the participants. The 98 participating fathers were recruited from Gothenburg Longitudinal study of Development (GoLD), initiated in 1981/1982 (Lamb et al., 1988). The 144 families that participated in GoLD were drawn from municipal records (waiting lists for public childcare facilities in all areas of Gothenburg, Sweden) that included families representing all social strata living in Gothenburg region (Broberg, 1989). The common factor among the families was that they—in their then current family constellation—had recently had their first child and were registered on the municipal record waiting list for public childcare. The GoLD study is still ongoing, and has focused on the children born in 1981/1982. The fathers recruited to FIECA participated in GoLD until their children turned 15.

Eight fathers from the original sample of 144 from the GoLD study had chosen not to participate further in the longitudinal study prior to this study. Sixteen of the individuals who had previously participated did not wish to participate, and seven individuals were unreachable at the time of the data collection for this study. Thirteen fathers who had previously participated were deceased, and two had a severe health issue or were subject to other circumstances that made them unable to participate. In total, 98 fathers participated in a background interview and survey 2019/2020. However, for this study, only those 93 who agreed to take part in an extended interview were included. Out of the 93 fathers, 77 participated in the first wave of data collection for the GoLD study. In wave 2-6, 92, 91, 86, 75, and 79 of the fathers in our study took part, respectively. This study only uses cross-sectional data from the 93 fathers who took part in the FIECA data collection in 2019/2020.

The 93 fathers were between 59 and 89 years old (M = 68.3, SD = 4.8) when interviewed. A majority (n = 83) of the participants were in a relationship, 68 of them with the mother of the child in GoLD that had been born in 1981/82. Eighty participants lived with their partner, 12 lived alone, and one lived with another person. The participants had between one and four children (M = 2.5, SD = 0.8). The mean age of the first-born children at the time of the study was 39.5 years (SD = 4.8), the second born children were on average aged 36 (SD = 4), the third born children were on average aged 31 (SD = 3.5), and the fourth born children were on average aged 31 (SD = 3). Eighty-one of the fathers had grandchildren. The number of grandchildren ranged between one and nine (M = 3.5, SD = 1.7).

Regarding their occupational status, 47 participants were retired and did not work, 28 were retired but also worked, 17 worked and had not yet retired, and one did not work and was not retired. The Hollingshead measure (Hollingshead, 1975) was used to evaluate socioeconomic status. The mean score for Hollingshead was 49.6 (range = 21-66, SD = 11.8) on a scale from 8 to 66, where a higher score means higher socioeconomic status. The mean value for our sample indicates that the fathers represent the second-highest social stratum according to Hollingshead’s five-level model of social strata. However, our sample had a relatively high standard deviation of Hollingshead scores and a spread between 21 and 66. Thus, our sample included fathers from all social strata except the lowest (Hollingshead score = 8-19).

Procedure

Prior to the data collection, the participants were informed about the study in a written letter. The letter included information about the project, terms of participation, and a notice that the research team would attempt to contact the participant about one week after the letter had been sent. The fathers were then contacted by telephone, and an interview was scheduled if they agreed to participate. All participants gave written consent to participate in the study. Most interviews (n = 75) took place at the Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg. Eleven participants were interviewed in their homes, two at their workplace, four by phone, and one by online video call. All interviews were conducted by the first and third authors (here referred to as GG and AMS). All interviews were conducted in Swedish, and extracts presented in the Results section have been translated into English. All quoted participants have been assigned pseudonyms. The research was approved by the Regional Ethical Review Board in Gothenburg, protocol number 1014-18. This study was not preregistered. Data and study materials are not available for this study due to the sensitive nature of the data.

Measures

Structured background interview

A structured background interview focusing on demographic, psychosocial, and relational topics was conducted with all participants. For this study, we used information drawn from the background interview regarding the participants’ relationship status, number of children and grandchildren, living situation, educational level, and occupational status.

Semi-structured parent identity interview

The Ego Identity Status Interview (Marcia et al., 1993) with the identity domain concerning parenthood was used when interviewing the fathers about their parenting throughout their fatherhood. Due to its developmental focus (Kroger & Marcia, 2011), the interview is suitable for investigating fathers’ self-meanings of their parenting and involvement with their children. The interview, previously translated into Swedish and adapted to Swedish conditions (Frisén & Wängqvist, 2011), was further adapted for this study to better encapsulate the long-term perspective on fatherhood, but was also adjusted to the participants’ current life stage. For the purpose of this study, we analyzed the answers to the questions: a) What has it meant to you to be a parent and what does it mean to you to be a parent now? b) How do you want to be as a parent now that your child/children is/are grown (and may have their own children)? c) Have you always thought the same way about your parenting role? Or have you thought differently at some point in your life? d) Have your thoughts on how you want to be as a parent changed over time? and e) If yes, can you describe the change? Follow-up questions were asked to encourage participants to elaborate on their answers. For example, we asked about the oldest child specifically and asked the fathers to elaborate differences in parenting between children.

Data analysis

Our analytic focus was on how fathers experience their parenting and its development throughout fatherhood. For this purpose, we conducted an inductive semantic thematic analysis with a critical realist approach (Braun & Clarke, 2021). That is, we did not use a predetermined theoretical frame and we viewed the fathers’ answers as descriptors of their actual experiences, while also realizing that their descriptions are subject to contextual influences. Next, we specify how the six phases of thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) with revisions (Braun & Clarke, 2019, 2021) were conducted within this study:

1. First, AMS created a random sample of verbatim transcripts from 25 of the 93 interviews. These were read and re-read by GG to become familiar with the material and generate initial codes. In this phase, GG aimed to be open to the material, even though the focus of the analysis was to serve the aim of the study.

2. In the second phase, GG generated initial codes for all relevant answers to the selected interview questions. GG listened to the remaining 68 interviews and transcribed relevant extracts. These were used to confirm or revise existing codes or to generate new ones. GG created an initial list of codes for the entire material, which was examined and commented on by the AMS. After discussing and adjusting the codes, they were further processed by AMS, who re-coded all extracts. Thereafter, GG and AMS discussed every code that they disagreed on and its corresponding extract to reach a consensus decision regarding each coded extract in the dataset. AMS provided several new codes, which were discussed among all authors and included on the code list.

3. In the third phase, we created themes from the initial coding. This process did not imply passively searching for themes but rather actively generating them. All authors participated in this phase, and took part in meetings where we collectively thematized the codes by discussing and illustrating their associations. In this phase, we refrained from finalizing the thematization and instead contemplated different versions of it.

4. In the fourth phase, we created a thematic structure based on the analysis in Phase 3 to test the fit of the themes in relation to both the code level of the data as well as the dataset as a whole. Thereby, this phase helped us get a sense of whether the themes could be regarded as coherent and sound. GG and AMS revised the thematic structure several times.

5. The fifth phase comprised the process of naming and defining the themes through discussion. GG and MW conducted this phase by reviewing the descriptions for each theme several times. In this phase, we excluded some themes and subthemes as they did not sufficiently fit the aim. We also merged or reorganized some themes and subthemes to increase the coherency of the final thematization.

6. In this final step, we chose relevant extracts from the transcripts to exemplify the themes and generate a descriptive story of how the themes corresponded with our aim. In this phase, GG wrote a description of each theme and subtheme and exemplified it with quotes from the interviews, and thereafter all authors took part in revising these descriptions.

Additionally, we counted the prevalence of each subtheme in order to report our results in a transparent way. In our analyses, extracts were allowed to be coded in multiple themes. We coded extracts from the interviews using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. We did not use any software for qualitative analysis.

Results

The aim of this study was to explore experiences of parenting from childhood to adulthood as described by fathers in late adulthood with adult children. To address this aim, we analyzed 93 fathers’ retrospective and current descriptions of their parenting and its development from the birth of their oldest child until these children were in their late thirties. We generated three themes with ten subthemes that jointly addressed our aim. These are presented in Table 1 along with example quotes for each subtheme, as well as its prevalence. We report prevalence on the subtheme level to transparently communicate the differences in prominence among our results. The prevalence of a few subthemes is presented separately for childhood and adolescence on the one hand and adulthood on the other to communicate how common it was that the fathers described the behaviors in relation to these periods in their children’s life. Our analysis concerned descriptions of salient and valued parenting behaviors that the fathers in our study associated with different phases of their children’s lives. In our analysis, themes serve as descriptors of related subthemes (Robinson, 2011) while subthemes illustrate experiences of specific parenting behaviors that we generated from the fathers’ more or less explicit descriptions of such. We want to stress that the prevalence reported throughout this study is indicative of the fathers’ spontaneous associations and answers to the interview questions.

Table 1. Overview of themes, subthemes, example quotes and prevalence.

Theme	Subtheme	n and (% of N)	Example Quote
The Core of Parenting – Stable but Evolving Parenting Behaviors	Engaged and Supportive Childhood and Adolescence Adulthood	46 (49.5) 57 (61.3)	“Support and help, I’ve had to be very involved.” (Leif)
	Present Childhood and Adolescence Adulthood	22 (23.7) 16 (17.2)	“It’s been a guiding principle to be present.” (Christian)
	Available Childhood and Adolescence Adulthood	16 (17.2) 37 (39.8)	“If they need me, I’m here for them” (Bror); “I want to be available.” (Mikael)
Soft Parenting as Prominent in Retrospect – Childhood and Adolescent Specific Parenting Behaviors	Moderately Guiding and Organic Growth	28 (30.1)	“Make sure you don’t control them, that they’re allowed to do what they themselves want, but also make sure they succeed in doing it then. Instead of telling them “you have to do this, and you shouldn’t do this” … just let them grow, and that’s important.” (Bertil)
	Communicative and Responsive	13 (14.0)	“I’ve wanted to be responsive as well as conversational.” (Magnus)
Comparative Opposite →	Strict or Authoritarian	9 (9.7)	“Quite authoritarian in the sense that […] you have to have boundaries.” (Georg)
Balancing Involvement and Independence – Parenting Adult Children	Not Interfering	29 (31.2)	“You don’t want to step on their toes, it’s a balancing act.” (Christian)
	Giving Advice	26 (28.0)	“My oldest has always listened to me … when she asks for it, I give advice.” (Jörgen)
	Equal Relationship/Friendship	18 (19.4)	“I see my son often and we do things together. It feels more like an adult relationship, I know I’m his father but that’s not the thing. Even with my daughter, it’s the same thing there; I don’t feel that I need to take on any father role.” (Benny)
	Leading Separate Lives	13 (14.0)	“We have our own lives, they and I, and I think it should be that way. But you should still try to keep in touch.” (Åke)

The core of parenting – stable but evolving parenting behaviors

This theme describes core aspects of parenting throughout fatherhood from the accounts of the fathers in our study. In our analysis, parenting behaviors that were described as stable in terms of their function, but that evolved in terms of adaptation throughout different phases of the child’s life, were coded to the theme the core of parenting. In other words, the core of parenting comprised behaviors that were described as consistent throughout fatherhood, but also responded to the changing needs of the child and other circumstances. Thus, this theme addresses our aim by suggesting what parental behaviors are described as salient throughout fatherhood. Three parenting behaviors constituted the core of parenting theme: being (1) engaged and supportive, (2) present, and (3) available. Fathers described these behaviors when referring to their involvement not only during childhood and adolescence but also in adulthood. Importantly, the term core does not refer to the prevalence of these behaviors in the descriptions of all the fathers in our study; rather, it refers to how the fathers’ descriptions suggested a continuity of these behaviors throughout fatherhood. Further, the core parenting behaviors can be seen as a prerequisite for more specific aspects of parenting. That is, a fair degree of presence, availability, and sense of engagement in relation to one’s child is needed in order to be involved in the more specific aspects of parenting that we describe in the second and third themes. In the following, we describe the subthemes to illustrate how the fathers’ descriptions of these parental behaviors were analyzed as illustrating a continuity while also evolving in relation to the changing needs of the child throughout fatherhood.

Engaged and supportive

Descriptions by the fathers in our study suggested that they continuously fulfilled the function of being engaged and supportive throughout the lives of their children; hence, we analyzed this as a core aspect of parenting. However, the meaning of being engaged and supportive changed throughout fatherhood in accordance with the needs of the child. In this sense, the behavior evolved in terms of adaptation and how the fathers applied it. For example, in childhood this behavior had to do with being engaged in the child’s activities, such as sports or other hobbies. In adolescence it involved helping with choices concerning what high school program to choose, or being on standby, ready to respond when the adolescent was out with friends. Being supportive in the life of their emerging adult child had to do with helping economically, with practical concerns when they moved out, and other concerns associated with early adulthood such as the choice of career or education. Now that the children were in their late thirties, the fathers described their support in terms of babysitting grandchildren, providing economic support, and acting as a handyman and helping with home renovations or other practical concerns.

Present

Another core aspect of parenting was presence, which referred to fathers taking an active part in their child’s life in terms of spending time with the child and being actively involved. Being present was a core aspect of parenting, in the sense that the fathers used it to describe their parenting throughout fatherhood. That is, it had a continuity in terms of its function. But presence could also be understood as a core aspect of parenting based on the emphasis some fathers placed on it. Some not only described presence as an aspect of parenting but viewed it as the very essence of it. This subtheme stands in contrast to the subtheme being available, which referred to a more passive or laid-back aspect of parenting.

Interestingly, while fathers reported that being present was of the essence throughout fatherhood, some also reported regret at having neglected this behavior. Sixteen fathers reported wishing they had been more present in their children’s lives. These reports of a lack of presence were not coded to the theme of presence. Seven of the sixteen fathers who expressed regret due to a lack of presence also reported presence as a salient parenting behavior. In the words of Christer, “I probably haven’t been the best parent because I’ve often been away from home working”. Expressions of regret due to a lack of presence, such as Christer’s, further suggest that being present is a core aspect of parenting.

Available

Being available was another core aspect of parenting, according to our analysis of the fathers’ descriptions. This aspect continued to be of the essence throughout fatherhood. In contrast to presence, being available was a more passive core parenting behavior as it did not imply that the fathers themselves actively interacted with their children. Being available involved the fathers’ descriptions of being at hand or being ready to help or support their child when needed. In the same way as engagement and support had different meanings at different phases of the child’s life, being available also meant different things depending on the needs of the child. For example, being available as a core function of parenting evolved from childhood, when it could mean being ready to pick the child up from sports activities, to adulthood, when it could mean being on standby, ready to take care of grandchildren when their adult child asked for this. In addition to the parenting behaviors we coded to the theme the core of parenting, the fathers in our study provided retrospective descriptions of several parenting behaviors that were specifically related to childhood and adolescence.

Soft parenting as prominent in retrospect – childhood- and adolescent-specific parenting behaviors

Our analysis of fathers’ retrospective descriptions of parenting in childhood and adolescence suggested a prominence of soft childrearing behaviors, defined here as parenting with fewer rules and less correctional behaviors. In contrast to previous studies on fathers’ parenting in childhood and adolescence, this theme concerns the fathers’ retrospective views on their parenting. Thus, we captured parenting behaviors that the fathers remembered as salient. Three reported parenting behaviors constitute this theme: (1) moderately guiding and organic growth; (2) being communicative and responsive; and the comparative opposite, (3) being strict or authoritarian. In the following, we describe the subthemes to illustrate how soft parenting was prominent in retrospect.

Moderate guidance and organic growth

Moderate guidance and organic growth were both aspects of soft parenting in retrospect, indicating parenting with fewer rules and less correctional behavior. In our analysis, moderately guiding referred to the behavior of leading the child on the right track without too much interference. Our analysis suggests that moderate guidance is a parenting strategy and a valued behavior that was prominent in retrospect. Along these lines, our notion of organic growth stressed that the fathers’ retrospective descriptions suggested that they wanted to let their child develop relatively freely. Moderate guidance and organic growth are not to be confused with a lack of commitment from the father. Rather, from the accounts of the fathers in our study, such behaviors seemed compatible with being a caring father who responds to the needs of his children and aids their development, but does so without too many rules or constant monitoring.

Communicative and responsive

Being communicative and responsive was another dimension of soft parenting as prominent in retrospect, highlighting the importance of responding to the child’s emotional and cognitive needs. We suggest this because the fathers mentioned listening, being understanding, and talking with their children as salient aspects of their parenting in retrospect. We viewed descriptions coded to this subtheme as indicative of the desire to have a relationship based on social exchange and mutual trustworthiness with one’s child. These communicative aspects of parenting implied that fathers were open to the child’s perspective and willing to take it into account. While this aspect of parenting can seem self-evident, it is not prominent in previous research on fathers’ own perspectives on parenting.

Strict or authoritarian

Soft parenting as prominent in retrospect can also be illustrated by the relatively few fathers (n = 9) who expressed parenting behaviors in clear opposition to those of soft parenting, namely strict or harsh parenting behaviors. This subtheme had the lowest prevalence, and contrasted the general tendency to describe softer parenting behaviors. One of these nine fathers and four additional fathers expressed regret due to having been too strict in their own opinion. Descriptions of strict parenting were dialectical counterpoles to those of soft parenting, and can be used to illustrate a comparative relationship (Robinson, 2011) between harsh and soft parenting.

Balancing involvement and independence – parenting adult children

The third theme in this study of fathers’ experiences of lifespan parenting comprised four parenting behaviors specific to the fathers’ parenting of adult children. These involved the fathers’ descriptions of having to find a balance between being involved with their adult children and letting them be independent, sometimes by resisting the urge to interfere. The four parenting behaviors were (1) not interfering in the life of the adult child, (2) giving advice, (3) equal relationship or friendship, and (4) leading separate lives. These behaviors suggested that the childrearing phase of fatherhood was over, and a more grown-up relationship was now established with the adult child. The fathers had to acknowledge their adult child’s autonomy and adjust their own behaviors accordingly. In the following, we describe these four behaviors to illustrate how balancing involvement and independence were prominent in the fathers’ descriptions of what parenting an adult child involved.

Not interfering

The fathers described a behavior of trying not to interfere in the lives of their adult child, which illustrated a balancing act between involvement and independence. In some instances, fathers described this behavior but also mentioned that they sometimes carefully offered suggestions or advice if they deemed it necessary. These descriptions were all examples of the overarching theme balancing involvement and independence. This balancing act could be seen, for example, in the fathers in our study sometimes seeming to feel that their guidance was needed, but realizing that they had to stand back to avoid conflict. These descriptions implied that interfering meant a trigger of conflict or at least some kind of negative response toward the father himself. Thus, these descriptions of avoiding interference revealed the stakes involved in the balancing act between involvement and independence. Fathers could miss the opportunity to give advice or show their concern if they did not interfere. At the same time, interfering carried the risk of initiating conflict by giving unsolicited advice or showing undesired concern. To maneuver this balancing act and avoid negative responses, or to offer suggestions or advice in a careful manner, seven fathers described what we called diplomatic interference. Diplomatic interference involved the fathers sharing their opinion with the aim of not upsetting their child. Thus, it was a way to interfere cautiously—a balanced hybrid between blunt interference and avoidance.

Giving advice

Fathers’ descriptions of giving advice also suggested a balancing act between involvement and interference. Giving advice when it was requested (n = 12) was the most common way to describe giving advice, and indicated a balancing of involvement and independence—it was on the conditions of the adult child that the advice was given. Thus, the adult child’s independence and integrity remained intact. That is, the risk of conflict that came with providing unwanted advice could be maneuvered by sharing advice when the child asked for it. The fact that the fathers stressed that they provided advice when it was asked for insinuated that giving advice could be infused with tension, even when handled carefully. Other descriptions involved advice being given when the child was on the wrong track (n = 3), or when opinions differed (n = 2) and the father felt the need to express his opinion.

Equal relationship/friendship and leading separate lives

While the subthemes of not interfering and giving advice illustrated potential struggles in the balance between involvement and independence, the subthemes equal relationship/friendship and leading separate lives were examples of how equilibrium was reached in the balancing act. That is, these subthemes illustrated behaviors that seemed to imply less struggle in the balancing between involvement and independence. Fathers who expressed such behaviors seemed to have reevaluated their parenting, or had even caused it to evolve or fade into a new shape. From the father’s perspective, this change in the relationship with the child seemed to be exclusively positive. This could be understood as the fathers accepting that certain aspects of their parenting had become redundant. Thus, they were ready to take on a different form of parenting that better corresponded to the needs of their adult child or themselves. Fathers’ descriptions coded as leading separate lives also suggested that parenting adult children can mean being substantially less involved in day-to-day activities and spending less time with one’s children. If the father accepted this change, this could also imply equilibrium in the balancing act between involvement and independence.

Discussion

With this study, we wanted to extend the knowledge on parenting from fathers’ own perspectives. We did this by interviewing fathers in late adulthood about their experiences of parenting from their children’s childhood to adulthood. Through our analysis we captured the fathers’ own perspectives of parenting over time. We described how they talked about salient parenting behaviors that persisted throughout their fatherhood—which we labeled the core of parenting. Analyzing the fathers’ experiences of retrospective accounts of salient and valued parenting behaviors related to earlier and later phases of their children’s life, we suggested that parenting was described as developing in terms of how some parenting behaviors seemed to fade away as new ones emerged in accordance with the needs of the child. These results give empirical meaning to transition theory, which suggests that parenting changes in relation to the evolving needs of the child (Palkovitz & Palm, 2009).

Fathers’ description of being engaged and supportive as a salient parenting behavior confirmed previous research on fathers with minor children who described parenting in terms of being supportive (Olmstead et al., 2009; Summers et al., 2006). However, we have extended these previous studies by suggesting how this behavior evolved across fatherhood and can be seen as a core behavior of parenting over time. Further, the parenting behavior of being present confirmed previous research identifying “being there” as an important aspect of fathers’ parenting (Palkovitz, 2002). While previous studies have described being available as an aspect of fathering minor children (McLaughlin & Muldoon, 2014; Palkovitz, 2002), our results suggest that it is a prominent aspect of fathers’ parenting throughout fatherhood. Our analysis also suggested that moderate guidance combined active engagement with letting the child develop independently, make their own mistakes, and learn from them. However, it is unclear whether moderate guidance and organic growth are compatible with being sufficiently responsive, controlling, and engaged. These are important aspects of authoritative parenting, which has been identified as the preferred parenting style for supporting healthy child development (Larzelere et al., 2013). The retrospective descriptions of being communicative and responsive are also seemingly associated with the warmth and responsiveness dimension of authoritative parenting (Larzelere et al., 2013).

Descriptions of the need to be strict or authoritarian are in line with descriptions of the father role of disciplinarian, described in previous research on parenting (Olmstead et al., 2009). The fact that relatively few fathers in our sample described their parenting in terms of being authoritarian, and some of them expressing regret due to this behavior, is in line with the general change in parenting norms and the decline in authoritarian parenting in the past 50 years (Trifan et al., 2014), but could also be an effect of the retrospective perspective in this study. That is, when remembering and looking back on their parenting, the fathers might have focused on positive parenting behaviors while avoiding negative ones.

The result regarding diplomatic interference corresponds well with knowledge concerning how family relations transform when children grow into emerging adulthood (a developmental stage approximately between ages 18 and 25). Processes of becoming independent—beginning in adolescence—have been described as involving an increased negotiation between adolescent and parent (Seiffge-Krenke, 2016). Parents must balance care and control to avoid conflict (Branje, 2018), and this balancing act continues throughout emerging adulthood (Yahirun & Fingerman, 2015). Interestingly, our results suggest that fathers still displayed such behaviors of balancing care and control in the form of avoiding interference even when their children were in their late thirties. Several questions can be generated from these results: Why do some fathers experience the need to not interfere while others do not? Does the behavior of not interfering affect the relationship negatively, positively, or both? And are fathers who do not want to interfere less involved with their children than fathers who do not experience the need for this parenting behavior? More knowledge concerning these questions on the relationship between parents and adult children beyond emerging adulthood can yield important information to be used in supporting sustainable parenting throughout life.

Asking for parents’ advice has been described as an aspect of emerging adulthood (Arnett, 2014). Our results extended this knowledge by suggesting that, from the perspective of the fathers, giving advice was relevant even when their adult children were in their late thirties. In accordance with our results, research on emerging adults also suggests that leading separate lives in terms of not sharing a household has several positive effects on family relationships (Seiffge-Krenke, 2016). Examples of such positive effects are the lessening of children’s dependence and the heightening of mutual respect between parent and child (White & Rogers, 1997). We argued that some fathers seemed to have reached equilibrium in the balancing act between involvement and independence, or even transcended it. They had done this by creating equal relationships or friendships with their children or by leading separate lives.

Extensive normative changes in fathers’ parenting have taken place throughout the lives of the fathers in our study. For example, father involvement has increased substantially in the last four decades (Schoppe‐Sullivan & Fagan, 2020) while authoritarian parenting has declined during the same period (Trifan et al., 2014). Descriptions from the fathers in our study strengthen this picture. As these fathers have lived through an era of extensive changes in norms surrounding fathers, they would be expected to be prone to reflect on their own behaviors in relation to the evolving parenting norms from salient developmental processes in late adulthood. Indeed, our results concerning fathers’ regrets and desires for improvement in their parenting behaviors suggest that this is the case. Interestingly, the theme the core of parenting incorporates elements that both characterize a more traditional and a more contemporary father role and could thus be seen an an illustration of the cultural shift in parenting views that have taken place throughout the lives of the fathers in our study: Being available is a traditional and passive kind of father involvement in which the father does not participate directly in the daily tasks of caring for the child, more in line with a traditional father role. Being present, engaged, and supportive on the other hand, are examples of fathering behaviors that correspond to the contemporary view of father involvement (Schoppe‐Sullivan & Fagan, 2020). Thus, the results concerning the core of parenting incorporate nuances of both traditional and contemporary views of parenting that relates to the normative transition period that the fathers in our study have experienced.

We can view these fathers’ experiences with the consideration that they are situated within the Swedish context. Both the regrets concerning a lack of presence and the emphasis on this behavior by many fathers in our study can be understood in relation to the normative changes and the discrepancy between policy and everyday practices in the Swedish parental context (Lidbeck, 2020). For example, some fathers in our study expressed regret at having been absent due to work, even though policies allowed them to take parental leave. Further, fathers’ perceptions that their relationships with their children became more peer-like as the children became adults could be culture-specific, as could the tension surrounding interference and advice-giving. As suggested here, both policies and norms can impact how parents view their parenting. Further research is needed in contexts other than Sweden to review contextual similarities and differences in how fathers recall their parenting in retrospect and how they parent adult children. In addition to acknowledging the unique contextual setting of our study, we also acknowledge the substantial diversity in fathers’ parenting between individuals and contexts (e.g. Schoppe‐Sullivan & Fagan, 2020). Although some aspects of our results confirm previous results from Anglo-Saxon contexts (e.g. McLaughlin & Muldoon, 2014; Palkovitz, 2002), our results should be interpreted with their specific sociopolitical context in mind.

Parenting should also be understood as part of a family context, which consists of the relationships between parents, parents and children, and siblings. For example, parenting is commonly situated in the romantic relationship between parents. Additionally, parents can parent their children differently so that the parenting of siblings within the same family can differ (Klahr & Burt, 2014). We have chosen not to focus on either of these aspects of parenting in our study. Instead, for our explorative purposes concerning the lack of research on fathers’ experiences of parenting, we chose to focus on fathers’ own experiences of their parenting throughout the lifespan. By asking broad, big-picture questions, we allowed the fathers’ spontaneous answers to guide the interview and thus gained width concerning potential answers. Future research could be informed by our results when targeting specific aspects of parenting over the lifespan. Interviewing fewer fathers with more precision and follow-up questions might yield further knowledge concerning our findings.

From a broad scientific perspective on human parenting, parents of any gender seem to influence their children in similar rather than different ways. That is, the differences in parenting between parents of any gender appear much less important than the similarities (Lamb, 2010). Therefore, fatherhood and motherhood can be described in terms of parenthood. That said, there are differences in practices of parenting between mothers and fathers, and also differences in the norms regarding how mothers and fathers should parent (e.g. Lidbeck, 2020; Schoppe‐Sullivan & Fagan, 2020). We do not view fatherhood as something essentially distinct from motherhood, but have framed our study in terms of fathers’ parenting rather than parenting in general. The reason for this is that we view our results in the light of our participants being fathers and living in a context where there are normative and practical differences between fathers’ and mothers’ parenting. Building on this, our study could be expanded by future research investigating how our results relate to fathers’ relative responsibilities in the family. Fathers have been said to be less involved than mothers in noticing the needs of the child (e.g. Coltrane, 2005), an aspect of parent responsibility known as process responsibility (Pleck, 2010). Additionally, knowledge from previous data collections concerning our study group suggests that many fathers in our study exhibited a lower degree of parental responsibility than their children’s mother when their children were between ages 1 and 16 (Chuang et al., 2004). More research is needed to understand whether moderate guidance, being available, leading separate lives, and developing friendships can be symptomatic of a lack in process responsibility, a laissez-faire attitude to parenting, or if these behaviors fit within responsible parenting as reported by the fathers in our study.

In addition to being related to sociopolitical and family contexts, the fathers’ experiences are related to their fatherhood life stage, their personal life stage, and the intersection of the two. For example, the fathers’ experiences of their parenting could be influenced by processes of psychological development related to their life stage. For example, individuals in late adulthood are commonly subject to several major life changes, such as perceiving one’s future time as limited (Carstensen, 2006) and retirement (Henning et al., 2021). Our results can be understood in the light of developmental processes that arise in conjunction with these changes, such as life review (Westerhof & Bohlmeijer, 2014) and emphasis on generativity (Jones & McAdams, 2013). For example, fathers mainly reported behaviors with a positive connotation, such as being present, but also reported regret at having neglected the very same behavior. To further illustrate, only a few fathers (n = 9) described strict or authoritarian behaviors. One developmental aspect that is prominent in late adulthood and that might help explain these aspects of our results is the process of life review, in which people reflect on and evaluate their lives retrospectively (Westerhof & Bohlmeijer, 2014). The process of life review has many different functions and can be used as a coping strategy. Life review as a coping strategy entails using positive memories to help regulate one’s emotions in the present. The fathers’ emphasis on parenting behaviors with positive connotations, such as being present and moderately guiding, are examples of such positive memories, while regret could be viewed as the present emotion that needs regulation.

Another aspect of psychological development that is particularly salient in the participants’ stage of life is generativity; that is, the ability and willingness to invest in future generations (Jones & McAdams, 2013). While generativity has a much wider application than parenting per se, it is relevant for understanding fathers’ retrospective and current views on their parenting. For example, the tendency of the fathers in this study to retrospectively describe behaviors that could be viewed as generative, such as being engaged and supportive, could be seen as an expression of a reflecting process associated with generativity. Some fathers’ tendency to regret not having been present enough as a father or having been too harsh could also be seen as an expression of the saliency of generativity in the fathers’ current development. Thus, in addition to seeing the results through the lenses of normative changes concerning fatherhood in recent decades, our results can also be understood from a developmental perspective in terms of life review processes and generativity, whereby fathers deal with present doubts, regrets, and reflections concerning their parenting by remembering valued parenting behaviors such as being present and communicative. Only fathers who have followed their children into adulthood and experienced the different phases of fatherhood can evaluate their fatherhood from a lifespan perspective. Comparing across fathers who are at different life or fatherhood stages to construct an understanding of how fatherhood evolves over time could be another fruitful way to research lifespan parenting. However, such a design would lack the evaluative lifespan perspective that is provided by the fathers in our study.

Applications

Theoretical studies have stressed the lifelong commitment and development of father involvement (e.g. Palkovitz & Palm, 2009). Our exploratory study strengthens this theoretical assumption from the perspectives of fathers in late adulthood, suggesting how parenting continues to develop and pose challenges to the parent throughout the lifespan. Furthermore, our results highlight aspects of fathers’ parenting that stand out as important in retrospect as well as current challenges in late adulthood. Thus, our results can be applied within clinical contexts that target parents in different phases of parenthood. For example, our results revealed that fathers tried to avoid interference in the lives of their adult children while still wanting to be supportive and engaged. This suggests that parenting may continue to pose challenges for the fathers themselves, even when their children are adults. This knowledge can be used by professionals working with individuals in late adulthood, as it highlights potential psychosocial challenges in their lives. That is, our results suggest that parenting is a lifelong responsibility that can impact a parent even when his or her children are in their late thirties. Our results also described parenting behaviors that were valued in hindsight, such as being present, available, and supportive. This knowledge of what aspects of parenting stand out as important in retrospect can be relevant when working with parents amid parenthood to help them navigate their everyday struggles and overall strivings as parents.

Limitations

In this study, the prevalence reported for the subthemes is indicative of fathers’ spontaneous associations or answers to the interview questions. It is therefore important to keep in mind that more fathers in our sample might have confirmed that they performed a certain behavior if we had asked them specifically whether they did or did not. In exploratory research, like this study, spontaneous answers have the advantage of not being derived from biases evoked by interview questions. That is, if we had explicitly asked the fathers whether they performed certain parenting behaviors that are socially desirable (e.g. being a present parent) or undesirable (e.g. being rigid and harsh), they might have answered in line with the notion of social desirability bias (Bergen & Labonté, 2020).

We have studied fathers’ experiences of their parenting throughout the lifespan; we have not studied the development of these parenting behaviors per se. As this study focused on retrospective and current descriptions and experiences of parenting throughout fatherhood, our results do not concern whether the descriptions are accurate accounts of what took place. However, knowledge of subjective experiences is complementary to objective behavioral data (Welchman, 2001). In our case, subjective experiences concern fathers’ own descriptions of what kind of parenting behaviors they have performed and valued throughout fatherhood. Such descriptions are needed in order to describe a relatively unexplored topic. However, a design that examines behavior directly, or evaluates the accuracy of fathers’ descriptions, would generate a more valid account of their actual involvement. Even though this was not the purpose of the current study, such an approach would complement our findings by providing objective behavioral data. We therefore encourage future research to do this, in order to further understand how fathers’ parenting develops throughout fatherhood. The conclusions drawn from our results do not exceed the limits of a broad, cross-sectional qualitative study. Our results provide retrospective and scarcely explored perspectives on lifespan parenting and the parenting of adult children. However, further prospective longitudinal studies are needed to generate evidence concerning how parenting behaviors and fathers’ experiences of such develop in real time throughout fatherhood.

Conclusion

As fathers in late adulthood have been overlooked in developmental science, we aimed to provide an exploratory analysis of their experiences of parenting. Our results from the analysis of interviews with 93 fathers have contributed to developmental theory on fathers’ parenting in two ways: firstly, by capturing behaviors that can be viewed as the core of parenting from the perspective of fathers in late adulthood, and thus highlighting stable but evolving aspects of parenting throughout fatherhood that stand out in retrospect; and secondly, by empirically strengthening and exemplifying how parenting develops throughout fatherhood from the experiences of fathers in late adulthood with adult children. We suggest that the Swedish context as well as developmental processes related to the fathers’ life stage, such as life review and generativity, help in understanding both the fathers’ emphasis on socially desirable behaviors and their expressions of regret. Our results can be applied within clinical contexts that target parents in different phases of parenthood to help them navigate their everyday struggles and overall strivings as parents. In addition, our results can be used by professionals who work with individuals in late adulthood as they highlight potential psychosocial challenges in their lives. We conclude that the fathers in our study had experienced relatively stable core components of parenting throughout fatherhood. They had also experienced the development and replacement of parenting behaviors as their children grew, and this continues into their children’s adulthood. We encourage future studies to build on these results.

Acknowledgments

The study presented in this article is part of the project Father Involvement from Early Childhood to Adulthood. We thank the participants for their contribution to this study. This study was not preregistered. Data and study materials are not available for this study due to the sensitive nature of the data.

Disclosure statement

The authors have no known conflicts of interest to declare.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare 2016-00529