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Abstract
Issues of time and change are foregrounded in qualitative longitudinal research (QLL1) and are considered here in the context of contemporary fatherhood. From a wider sample of 46 men interviewed as part of the QLL Timescapes network, we draw on two case studies of men who became fathers for the first time in 2000. This paper considers the men’s relationship to involvement and the linked concepts of exclusion and redundancy, terms which emerged from the data and changed over time in the men’s accounts. We seek to emphasise the value of QLL methods for providing a more complex understanding of the lived experience of life transitions and their longer‐term implications, contrasting this with existing studies offering a ‘snapshot’ approach.
Acknowledgements
Two Economic and Social Research Council Awards have supported the research reported in this paper: Grant nos.: R02225016 and RES‐347‐25‐0003. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful guidance on an earlier version of the paper.
Notes
1. There is no standard shorthand to distinguish between qualitative and quantitative longitudinal study. QLL is used here (QuaL Longitudinal); its opposite would be QTL (QuanT Longitudinal).
2. The ‘men as fathers’ study also involves another cohort of 16 men from South Wales who became fathers in 2008, interviewed once before and twice after the birth.
3. We do not suggest that a future orientation is always indicative of dissatisfaction with the present as other men in the sample noted their concerns about the future, or suggested that they would like their futures to continue in a similar way to their much‐enjoyed present lifestyles. However, we maintain that for the two case study fathers their future‐orientation was a sign of dissatisfaction with the present, which was a reason why they were selected for discussion.