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Article
Masculinity and Fathering
Alone during Parental
Leave
Berit Brandth
1
and Elin Kvande
1
Abstract
Based on interviews with fathers who stay home alone on parental leave in Norway,
this article explores how the masculine identities of employed fathers may be
affected by caring. Research on changing masculinities has been concerned with the
reworking of men’s gender identities into caring ones, and this article aims to add
empirical knowledge on ways that parental leave for fathers may contribute to
undoing gender. Findings support a development toward ‘‘caring masculinities’’ in
which values and practices of care are integrated into masculine identities without
degradation in masculine status. Self-worth is measured against building care com-
petence and being able to contribute love to their children rather than acquisition of
status and resources. Findings also show that fathers tend to interpret caring within
conventional masculine activities such as ‘‘hard work’’ and outdoor challenges.
Keywords
masculinity, parental leave, fathers, caring masculinity, fathering alone, Norway
This article explores men’s actual practices of caring for children when they
stay home on parental leave in Norway. While the avoidance of care has tradi-
tionally been seen as a feature of ‘‘being a man’’ (Elliott 2015; Hearn 2001),
1
Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
(NTNU), Trondheim, Norway
Corresponding Author:
Berit Brandth, Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of Science and
Technology (NTNU), Dragvoll, N-7491 Trondheim, Norway.
Email: beritb@svt.ntnu.no
Men and Masculinities
2018, Vol. 21(1) 72-90
ªThe Author(s) 2016
Reprints and permission:
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1097184X16652659
journals.sagepub.com/home/jmm
fathering has undergone many changes over the past decades. Parental leave for
fathers has been introduced in several countries (Moss 2013), and a plethora of
studies have shown how fathers have become more involved, nurturing, and
engaged with their children (Brandth and Kvande 2003a, 2003b, 2013; Doucet
2006; G. Wall and Arnold 2007; Dermott 2008; Miller 2011; Johansson 2011a;
McDonald and Jeanes 2012; Eydal and Rostgaard 2015; Brandth 2016).
Researchers seem to agree that change has taken place, though not on the
magnitude of the change, as there is a great variety in relation to the circum-
stances of fathering.
To encourage and enable fathers to participate in care, the Nordic countries have
introduced parental leave policies that give exclusive rights to fathers. The ‘‘father’s
quota’’ is an earmarked, nontransferable part of the parental leave introduced with
the aim of changing fathers into involved caregivers for children, and hence also
contribute to increased gender equality. Over the years, this policy has influenced
the norms of fatherhood; fathers are expected to use their leave quota and be more
than simply family providers. In the course of the twenty-three years that the insti-
tution of the father’s quota has existed, it has been extended from four to ten weeks,
and an increasing number of fathers have obtained eligibility. Nevertheless, there is
scant research into what fathers do when on leave.
Parental leave offers an opportunity for fathers to spend time in having sole
responsibility for their children. Studies have found that time spent caring for chil-
dren alone is qualitatively different from time when the mother is also present
(Brandth and Kvande 2003b; Radin and Russel 1983; Wilson and Prior 2010). The
care practices of fathers on parental leave alone may have a lot in common with stay-
at-home fathers. Research on stay-at-home fathering has provided knowledge on
fathers who have taken on the responsibility of childcare (Doucet 2006), but while
this group is out of work for a variety of reasons, fathers on parental leave are
returning to work. Moreover, stay-at-home fathers constitute a small group, whereas
parental leave is a common practice for fathers in Norway. This article explores
fathers’ solo practices of care during parental leave, and how care practices are
integrated into masculinities.
Theory and Research
Doing Fathering—Undoing Gender
In studying masculinity through men’s practices—what fathers do when they are
home on leave—we are inspired by the Doing Gender perspective (West and
Zimmerman 1987), in which gender is theorized as situated practice, something said
and done. Gender is understood as practices and processes constructed in situations
instead of existing a priori (West and Zimmerman 1987). This perspective also
points out that gender is relevant in all social situations as well as in social structures
and social inequalities.
Brandth and Kvande 73
The doing gender perspective has been criticized for focusing too much on the
persistence of gender differences (Deutsch 2007). With the notion of ‘‘undoing
gender,’’ Deutsch points to situations becoming sites of resistance in which gender
might be undone or gender differences reduced. Recognizing that fathers are enter-
ing a highly mothered context when caring for small children, the fathers can be
understood as ‘‘doing’’ or undoing gender. Applying the doing approach to the
understanding of fathering reflects a very open understanding, in which it is activ-
ities/practices that determine the meaning of masculinity.
Gendered practices are a situationally local matter (Acker 1997, x). Practices can
be similar from one location to the next but still be affected by the specific context in
which they take place; practices are therefore local, situational, and changeable. The
daily doings and sometimes undoing of gender occur within material and ideological
constraints that set limits or provide possibilities. For example, the boundaries of
gender segregation, themselves continually constructed and reconstructed, limit the
practices of particular women and men at particular times. Since ‘‘different cultures,
and different periods of history, construct gender differently,’’ masculinities must be
understood as multiple and dynamic (Connell 2000, 10).
The introduction of the father’s quota in the Norwegian parental leave system
represents a policy measure aimed at changing the gender-segregated field of caring
for small children. Generally, the caring about undertaken by fathers and understood
as breadwinning has been lauded, while the caring for of mothers has been devalued.
This article focuses on men’s caring in terms of caring for. It regards masculinity and
fathering as formed in historical moments, following shifts in policies and practices.
Three Models of Change
Fathers’ involvement in caring for children has been an important focus for scholars
concerned with changes to masculinity. Relevant theoretical approaches to how
masculine identities can be reworked into caring ones include concepts such as
‘‘caring masculinities’’ (Elliott 2015), ‘‘inclusive masculinity’’ (Anderson 2009),
and ‘‘critical positive masculinity’’ (Lomas 2013).
Combining insights from feminist care theory with Critical Studies of Men and
Masculinities, particularly hegemonic masculinity, Elliott (2015) proposes a
practice-based model of caring masculinities. Referring to men’s actual practices
of care, her ambition is to investigate how practices change men’s identities to
encompass care. At the core of caring masculinities is the rejection of domina-
tion—a characteristic of ‘‘hegemonic masculinity’’ that emphasizes domination over
femininities and other masculinities (Connell 1987). Caring masculinities also mean
integration of values associated with care, such as emotion, interdependence, and
relationality (p. 13). Caring offers common rewards, including feeling loved and
experiencing emotional intimacy (Hanlon 2012). Integrating values and practices of
care into masculine identity, for example by means of policies, can redefine
nurturing as normal for men (Scambor et al. 2014). Within a framework of caring
74 Men and Masculinities 21(1)
masculinities, Elliott contends that ‘‘‘competence’ does not mean ‘mastery’ over
one’s family or of a skill, but rather the ‘ability’ to care, in this case for children.
Respect is coupled with ‘love’ here, not with ‘fear’ of the patriarch’s authority’’
(p. 14). This illustrates how caring masculinities can be a more rewarding model for
men than hegemonic masculinity.
‘‘Inclusive masculinity theory’’ (Anderson 2009) provides another example of
how contemporary masculinity is understood as undergoing change. According to
Anderson homophobia, one element of which is fear of the feminine is used on a
daily basis to police the boundaries of masculinity, but as it gradually decreases, a
broader range of masculinities become valued, and men can engage in a greater
variety of previously feminine practices without this being a source of subordination.
Arguably, masculinities may be ordered horizontally as well as hierarchically: sev-
eral masculinities may coexist in a horizontal alignment, and one may dominate
numerically but not hegemonically. This is in contrast to Connells (2000) theory
where ‘‘different masculinities do not sit side-by-side like dishes on a smorgasbord’’
(p. 10) but where some are dominant and others subordinated. Although Anderson is
not concerned with fatherhood, his idea of a nonhierarchical ordering of masculine
practices also applies to issues of fathering (Johansson 2011b).
A third approach, critical positive masculinity (Lomas 2013), argues that men
may negotiate hegemonic masculinity to construct more ‘‘positive’’ masculine prac-
tices. Lomas’ research area is men’s health and well-being where hegemonic mas-
culinity is often viewed as detrimental to well-being. Men’s potential for change, he
argues, does not necessarily mean resistance to hegemonic norms and practices, as
complex social processes influence this change. Instead, care practices may be
incorporated within conventional masculinities and be able to both endorse and
challenge existing masculine norms and practices (Lomas 2013, 177). For instance,
when definitions of care are reframed to stress ‘‘masculine’’ qualities, housework
may be redefined to mean ‘‘exercise’’ (Brandth and Haugen 2010), and, as seen in
many television series on cooking, cooking may be reconstructed as a manly activity
by means of masculine props and settings (Gorman-Murray 2008). Caring for chil-
dren includes emotional aspects (love) as well as practical activities (housework,
playing). Also, ‘‘housework is a caring activity’’ (Silva 1999, 49), which may trans-
gresses previously gendered boundaries.
Stay-at-home Fathering
Fathers today are expected to be more involved in the daily care of their children,
and the literature has been concerned with exploring many aspects of involved
fatherhood and fathering. ‘‘Involved fathers’’ are those who engage in hands-on care
while continuing employment (Solomon 2014). Very little research exists about
‘‘stay-at-home fathers’’ (fathers who do not work) and their childcare practices from
a sociological perspective. Since this article is concerned with fathers on leave who
Brandth and Kvande 75
have cared for their children at home while the mothers worked, the literature on
stay-at-home fathering is particularly relevant.
In her comprehensive work on fathers as primary carers, Doucet (2006) explores
what stay-at-home fathering does to masculinity. The fathers in her study are in a
unique position to change their masculinity, and the question is whether this position
reconfigures or confirms current understandings of masculinity. She finds ‘‘abun-
dant evidence that masculinities do change’’ (p. 238), but also contradictions that
show how fathers simultaneously distance themselves from and embrace femininity
as well as hegemonic masculinity. The fathers move between femininities and
masculinities, sometimes achieving equality with women, while at other times stres-
sing masculine differences. In revisioning care practices, fathers are creating new
types of masculinities, but they also remain connected to traditionally masculine
sources of identity (Doucet and Merla 2007), for example, by differentiating their
rough-and-tumble care style from mothers’ more feminized care and by taking on
masculine activities such as home repairs to compensate. Chesley (2011) and Med-
ved’s (2016) studies confirm that at the same time as stay-at-home fathers reposition
themselves as carers, they also perpetuate notions of hegemonic masculinity.
That masculinities are dynamic and that fathers take up various elements to
construct new gender identities is further illustrated in Solomon’s (2014) article
on stay-at-home fathers in the United States. She finds that the fathers construct
fathering in ways that differ from both traditional and involved fathering in their
focusing on ‘‘gentle physical affection, emotional intimacy, shared leisure and being
in tune with their children’s emotional needs’’ (p. 61). They were not attempting to
reinforce traditionally gendered fathering, but instead focusing on emotional close-
ness with children and routine household tasks of which they were in charge. Solo-
mon refers to evolving cultural norms, changing discourses, and lived experience to
help explain this model of engaged fathering and egalitarian beliefs (p. 68).
Fathers’ being on leave alone for a period of time is a parallel situation to stay-at-
home fathering. Their period at home is shorter, it is temporary and it concerns many
more, but the processes of change are reported to be quite similar to those found in
research on stay-at-home fathers. Caring alone strengthens the father–child bond,
enables fathers to learn new skills, and strengthens their self-esteem (K. Wall 2014).
A qualitative study comparing fathers who stay home on leave alone and fathers who
are not home alone found distinct differences in care practices (Brandth and Kvande
2003b). First of all, fathering alone allowed the men to develop their care compe-
tence and enhance their sensitivity to children and their confidence in reading a
small child. Consequently, they learned to carry out a ‘‘need-oriented’’ care practice
letting the routines of childcare determine the content of what fathers did during the
day. In the cases in which fathers did not stay home alone, the mother continued her
caregiving and the father became her support person. These fathers needed the
mothers to mediate the child’s needs, and care practices based on them knowing
the child were not well developed. As a result, they felt more comfortable with older
children, often giving a priority to play and hands-on care for older siblings.
76 Men and Masculinities 21(1)
Staying home alone, then, means taking greater responsibility for the child,
something which helps facilitate a move from being the mother’s helper to being
a more equal co-parent. Thus, this study confirms what Radin and Russell (1983)
reported many years earlier, namely, that being in charge of the children alone seems
to be the cutting edge with respect to fathers’ positive feelings of involvement and
capability. This is also reported by Wilson and Prior (2010) who emphasize that solo
care is a qualitatively different dimension of fathering than simply spending time
with the mother present.
Being concerned with the meaning of care in men’s lives, Hanlon (2012) demon-
strates that masculinities and values of care are not incompatible to one another, but
rather intertwined. The men in Hanlon’s study spoke enthusiastically about being
fathers. Doing caring made them feel ‘‘‘responsible,’ ‘competent,’ ‘proud,’ ‘chal-
lenged,’ ‘joy,’ ‘fantastic,’ ‘happy,’ ‘brilliant,’ and wanted, especially—although not
exclusively—in respect of the care of children’’ (p. 137). Drawing on these findings,
in this article, we will empirically explore fathers’ solo practices of care during
parental leave and how care practices are intertwined with masculinities. We are
particularly interested in how caring masculinity is realized in everyday care situa-
tions, and in the possible way, the ideals of hegemonic masculinity are played out in
practices that traditionally have had low status in men.
The empirical analysis is organized as follows: first, we look at how caring for a
child is given a masculine framing. Second, how caring alone has the potential to
develop care competence and self-worth in men. Third, we ask how activities such as
playing and sports are intertwined with the intimacy of care.
Context: The Norwegian Parental Leave System
for Fathers
During the past two decades, fathers’ rights and obligations to provide care for their
children have been the most important focus in the development of parental leave
policies in Norway. Since the individual right to leave was granted to fathers as a
nontransferable father’s quota of four weeks, it has been prolonged and more fathers
have become eligible. Currently, the total parental leave period is forty-nine weeks,
with 100 percent wage compensation.
As seen from Table 1, since 2014 mothers and fathers have had an earmarked,
nontransferable period of ten weeks, and twenty-six weeks that may be shared
between mothers and fathers. The ten-week quota periods are down from fourteen
weeks after the conservative government reduced this in 2014, breaking the expan-
sive trend.
When fathers take their quota, the mothers may return to work or stay home with
the father on a full- or part-time basis. The rules also allow flexible use, with 25
percent of fathers taking their quota as part time (Nav 2015). This means that not all
fathers in Norway who take up the quota will necessarily have the experience of
fathering alone over a continuous period of time. Before the quota was extended
Brandth and Kvande 77
from six to ten weeks in 2009, approximately 50 percent of the fathers who used the
quota were home, while the mothers returned to their work on a full-time basis
(Grambo and Myklebø 2007). Unfortunately, there are no recent figures.
The length of the leave affects the pattern of use, and a longer father’s quota has
made it more difficult for mothers to be home during the entire father’s quota period,
as a ‘‘double leave’’ will reduce the total leave length. Most parents are interested in
reducing the care gap between leave and the start of kindergarten, and in many cases,
this implies stretching the leave period as much as possible. The extension of the
leave and its flexibility open up for many choices and variations in how it is used,
including what mothers do during the father’s quota. Because the father’s quota has
been extended, a combination of models has become quite common.
Sample and Data
The focus of this article is on the group of fathers who have used the entire quota
(and more) to be home alone on a full-time basis. Interviews were conducted with
heterosexual fathers living and working in Norway, with twelve fathers who had
been home alone on leave being singled out from a larger sample of fathers in a study
on parental leave use. Except for one father who worked every Friday, all twelve
fathers had been home alone on a full-time basis for a minimum of eight weeks. As
seen from Table 2, the leave length ranged between eight and forty weeks. This
variation in leave length is caused by some fathers using more than the father’s quota
weeks and some less, whereas the father’s quota length itself also varied during the
interview period (see Table 1).
To help ensure a sample of fathers who had taken a leave of some length, the
criteria for choosing participants were that they had become fathers after the father’s
quota was extended from six to ten weeks in mid-2009 and to twelve weeks in 2011.
This was a considerable extension that opened up more time and space for fathers to
stay at home. Moreover, at the time of the interview, their stay-at-home experiences
were quite recent. Most fathers normally take their leave after the mother, that is,
starting when the child is from nine to twelve months old, and at the time of the
Table 1. Norwegian Parental Leave; Changes in the Distribution of Weeks with a
100 Percent
a
Wage Compensation between Mothers and Fathers during the Project Period.
Year Total Parental Leave Length Mother’s Quota Divisible Part
b
Father’s Quota
2009 46 3
a
þ627 10
2011 47 3 þ626 12
2013 49 3 þ14 18 14
2014 49 3 þ10 26 10
a
Mothers have the right to three extra weeks before birth.
b
If parents choose 80 percent wage compensation, the sharable leave period is prolonged with one
month.
78 Men and Masculinities 21(1)
interview, the oldest child was two and a half years old. Several of the fathers also
already had a child, and some were expecting their next child.
Considering the Norwegian eligibility rules, in which the right to parental leave is
earned through employment, the fathers and mothers had been employed previous to
the birth of the child. From our earlier experience with interview studies, we have
experienced that people with a higher education more easily accept being inter-
viewed, so an extra effort was put forth into finding interviewees with lower
educational backgrounds. Half the sample had a higher education, and the occu-
pational variation is quite broad. Half the sample also had immigrant backgrounds,
mostly from Western countries. All the interviewees lived in one of the Norway’s
largest cities.
The interviews were conducted in late 2012/early 2013. Some participants were
located through the researchers’ professional networks, and the snowballing method
was also employed, as interviewed fathers were asked whether they knew of other
fathers who might be contacted for interviewing. Information letters to the partici-
pants explained the objectives of the project, the ethical research rules, and the rights
of the participants. To help maintain the anonymity of the interviewees’ identities,
names were not recorded and pseudonyms have been used. The interviews were
semistructured, lasting from one to two hours, and for the most part, the fathers were
interviewed in their homes. Nearly all the quotations used in this article have been
translated from Norwegian into English by the authors.
The analysis started with an open, inductive approach, in which each author
separately read the interviews, with attention focused on how fathers described their
doings when being home alone on leave. The practical and affective were important
categories in this reading, and many issues emerged such as the different tasks done
and feelings of love, joy, pride, and anxiety, in addition to competence and embodied
Table 2. Overview of the Sample.
Name Occupation
Total No. of Leave
Weeks Taken
Full-time (F);
Part-time (P)
1 Adam Electrician 15 F
2 Douglas Designer 8 F
3 Emil Painter 40 F
4 Ian Social worker 14 F
5 Omar Warehouse worker 12 F
6 Simon Graduate engineer 12 F
7 Roberto Engineer 10 F
8 Mons Photographer 20 P (80 percent)
9 Steinar Graduate engineer 14 F
10 Martin Architect 16 F
11 Johannes Architect 16 F
12 Max Painter 11 F
Brandth and Kvande 79
intimacy. The next stage involved interpreting these themes in a dialogue with
theory and literature on masculinity and childcare. In this phase of the analysis, the
authors had continuous discussions before reaching a consensus, and the final step
was carried out to connect issues that could contribute to a coherent story for
presentation in this article. This way of working together, using each other as
validity checks, increased our confidence in the findings.
Childcare Defined as ‘‘Hard Work’’
In this section, we focus on fathers’ experiences with caring for a small child and ask
how care work is constructed as a masculine practice. On the one hand, the fathers
demonstrated great enthusiasm at being given the opportunity to be home with their
babies, while on the other, they were humbled by this responsibility. To begin with,
they felt insecure caring for a small baby since they had no experience with this type
of work. Martin said, ‘‘It has been very, very nice and a bit frightening at times. Not
being home alone with her, but being responsible for something so tiny and frail. I
was afraid she would fall down or something.’’ Johannes, who at the time of the
interview was home on leave with his second child, described his experiences much
like Martin: ‘‘With the first child, you know, you really have no idea at all if you’ll
cope with it. That’s only what I thought. So at first ... it was a bit ... well, half and
half. But this scepticism disappeared quite quickly, because it’s just fun.’’ Although
many of them were looking forward to the leave, they were also a bit apprehensive as
to whether they would manage, since they lacked confidence due to having no prior
experience. Such tensions and contradictory feelings may affect all parents under
similar conditions.
In the fathers’ narratives, caring assumed the character of work. They described it
as hard work and talked about caring as challenging, tiresome, and more time-
consuming than they had expected. Many of them also compared care work to their
own world of work when having physically demanding jobs, and they even claimed
they became much more tired from being home. When these fathers took on the
primary responsibility for caring, they also acquired an understanding of the work
effort that mothers had to do. This was illustrated by Adam, a thirty-two-year-old
electrician married to Siri. He stayed at home alone for fifteen weeks and described
his experience in the following way:
It’s a big responsibility. You have to put them first. Before we had kids, you only had to
think about yourself. Whereas now you have to think every day okay, there’s someone
else you have to think about. And that’s the way it was when I was on leave, my
shoulders were always kind of like this (raises his shoulders) because I had responsi-
bility for this little person. And as soon as mommy came home I could relax, and I
didn’t feel that [relaxed] until after maybe eight weeks. And we talked about it, and Siri
was like, ‘‘Now you understand what it was like for me for a year.’’ I was like: ‘‘Wow,
yeah.’’ So I bought her champagne and flowers, and said: ‘‘You’re the champ!’’
80 Men and Masculinities 21(1)
By rewarding her caregiving, Adam heightens its status. Care has generally been
recognized as nonwork, because of its loving and affective character (Hanlon 2012,
34) and because it is not rewarded financially. When fathers define caregiving as
hard work, this may be interpreted as masculine reframing, as work is assumed to be
a major basis of masculine identity (Morgan 1992). But when hard work is also
attributed to mothers, it no longer implies hegemony in the sense of domination over
the feminine. Rather, it may indicate ‘‘undoing’’ the gendered character of caring.
Part of the exhaustion they felt seemed to be connected to them not having time
for themselves and being constantly interrupted. Steinar was a thirty-three-year-old
graduate engineer with two daughters, one who was two and a half and the other four
months when we interviewed him. He stayed home alone with the oldest daughter
when he had his father’s quota of twelve weeks and started out thinking that he
would have ample time for himself, that care work would mean pleasant times, and
that he might even be a bit bored. Although he was warned by his more experienced
friends that he would have little spare time, he tried to combine care and renovation
work. He described this combination as ‘‘awful’’:
You’re chasing breaks from the kid to get things done and every time you’re like doing
something and just need to get finished, then you hear her quack and start crying, and
then you’re working with a totally different sense of stress. You’re not only working
with the stress of having to hurry to mind the baby, but you’re also full of guilt because
you aren’t there already. And then you can’t let go of whatever you’re doing, because
then water will leak or whatever you were busy with. It really sucks, in other words.
Steinar did not define renovating the apartment as part of caregiving. Trying to
combine it with caregiving was experienced as a stressful situation, and not being
totally committed to the child made him feel guilty. Adam, who started his leave
when his daughter was six months old, described her as a very active child who slept
much less than he had anticipated she would. ‘‘Kids that age usually sleep for three
hours maybe ... she never slept that long. Maybe one and a half hours, and then I
had to [entertain her]. ( ...) I would start with something [in the house], and then I’d
just give that up.’’
When experiencing being home on leave as very work intensive, housework was
included in their stories about the workload they had to deal with. Steinar’s opinion
was that doing housework was expected from men today: ‘‘It’s been two generations
since men couldn’t manage to do the laundry on their own.’’ He explained that
young men have had to learn to do it when they were students and/or living alone
before starting a family. This is now a taken-for-granted competence with men.
‘‘However, the amount of work as single ...’’ he said,
... can’t compare to what you have to do when you have a partner and children. That’s
how it is ... a whole world of difference!And, you can’t understand this before you
have children yourself. Before I had children I thought that this would be a ‘‘piece of
Brandth and Kvande 81
cake,’’ and I couldn’t see why people made such a fuss about running a house. I could
do it with my little finger along with all the rest.
Being home alone, he learned what house work and care work really meant in terms
of effort. For first-time fathers, the hard work of nurturing and caring often comes as
a surprise (Miller 2011, 44). After the first months of trial and error, when the daily
routines were better established, things were running more smoothly, and they
described it as less tiring.
Adam put value on the housework, as it made him feel busy while his daughter
slept, ‘‘It’s like what I’m used to doing at work,’’ he said. Ian described a typical day
as follows: ‘‘He [the son] slept twice a day, normally an hour each time, perhaps a
little more. ( ...) In the mornings, I did tasks around the house, like tidying, remem-
bering to take bread out of the freezer and making lunch. And then an activity and a
trip in the afternoon.’’ Max had thought that he and his daughter ‘‘would go for trips
in the woods, sleep in a tent, do some climbing and enjoy ourselves,’’ but ‘‘I had to
be home to make dinner every day,’’ he explained. Steinar experienced that he had
little spare time. ‘‘You need to do the laundry and you must ... really, take over the
housekeeping.’’ Even though he had been warned by his friends, he was
disappointed that he did not get more done, for example, such as reorganizing his
computer files: ‘‘I had to rename the ‘father’s-quota-to-do list’ to the ‘when-I-have-
retired list.’’’ Having to take the main responsibility for the child and the household
during their leave, they learned that childcare required a reorganization of priorities
to focus on the child.
Generally speaking, the fathers described periods of little sleep, exhaustion, and
loneliness, but at the same time, they praised the leave period as having been very
positive and productive. This ambivalence was expressed by Steinar, who said,
‘‘You really get completely worn out, and then it’s worth it. And nobody will
understand this before they have their own kid.’’ There was no contrast between
hard work and delight since everyday life practicalities and delight were embedded
within each other. This is the two sidedness of caring: hard work and emotional
satisfaction (Hanlon 2012, 39).
Self-confidence and Relational Competence
The fathers in this study have entered a field that has traditionally been gendered as
feminine and inhabited with mothers. It is therefore interesting that many of the
fathers talked about how being home alone and caring for their child had boosted
their self-confidence and their masculinity. The fathers connected increased self-
confidence to developing competence in a new area of activity—being able to do the
caregiving alone. Experiencing the children responding to them and even preferring
them to mothers gave them a feeling of worthiness and capability. Coping with new
tasks that felt rewarding made caring an integrated part of fatherhood and masculine
identity. Steinar illustrated this in the following way:
82 Men and Masculinities 21(1)
I think that the father’s quota, or the time I have been home with Amelia, has given me
a lot of self-confidence in relation to children. I didn’t have any younger brothers and
sisters, so I never had responsibility for children, and I felt uncertain of my way with
children. For a long time I was uncertain about becoming a dad as well. Up until I was
30, my attitude was that I didn’t need to use my resources on children. So, to stay at
home and manage that role ... and notice that it gives me something, it has been very
rewarding.
From being hesitant about fatherhood, he experienced caring for his baby daughter
as fulfilling. Coping with the care work, he said, ‘‘gives me a lot of pride and self-
confidence—things you usually associate with masculinity. I feel strong!’’ I t i s
interesting that he explicitly connected his new care competence to masculinity.
Despite his increase in strength, this is a masculine practice that does not seem to
feed on domination; rather, it connects care values to masculine identity (cf. Elliott
2015).
Also obtaining an intimate relationship with the child produced self-esteem.
Simon experienced that the daughter confirmed their close relationship when she
started to speak: ‘‘She says bluntly that she is fond of me!’’ He related that their
mutual feelings of love would affect their future relationship:
I think it [our relationship] has a positive influence on her development as a human
being. So, regardless of my own increased self-confidence, I feel I have coped well and
given her a security that she will take with her in life—and which our relationship will
continue to thrive on. When she turns 14, it will be hell anyway!
The fathers thrived on being able to communicate and understand their toddlers’
unspoken words and expressions. For instance, they were able to recognize different
types of crying. ‘‘The sounds they make and how you interpret them and everything.
It is funny how it is a range of expressions that just develops all by itself.’’ Adam
said, ‘‘She would come up and grip the chair, and I knew after a while that it meant
she was hungry.’’ Because he spent a lot of time with her, they developed this way of
communicating.
When reflecting on the changes that he had undergone by becoming a father and
caring for the baby, Steinar repeatedly stated how fantastic it was. Now he under-
stood why people again and again made it a priority to have children in spite of all
the work it entailed. He talked about it as having very little rational choice: ‘‘You
invest absolutely everything—more than you’ve got of time and resources. When
you get a child, you get something that is completely unmeasurable. You wear
yourself out, and it is worth it!It is a strange, divine mathematics that is still
lucrative.’’ In order to understand why people have kids, he could not use ordinary
rational thinking because it was almost beyond what can be imagined.
Mons was home alone with his son during twenty weeks of father’s quota. He was
certain that caring for him alone had affected their relationship and benefited him
Brandth and Kvande 83
emotionally. The child accepted both parents as his care persons, and this made him
feel like a person of worth. It produced many feelings in him:
It’s wonderful!You really go all soft and are touched and proud. Many strange emo-
tions come to the surface in this context. But there aren’t so many of these ‘‘finally I
have managed to procreate’’ emotions. It’s a bit more infinite, sounds a bit tacky, but
infinite love. And I get even more emotional over these feel-good stories than before. I
get a feel for things more in situations others may have experienced. I’m probably
getting more empathetic, if that’s what it’s called? Sympathetic to the situations of
others? And then it’s how you understand that he’s more important than you are. There
is no half-way, plain and simple. It’s difficult to explain.
The quote describes very well the emotional impact of caring and getting to know
the child well. Mons felt that he had changed, though not dramatically, but he felt
that he had become less categorical, and he explained how his newly acquired caring
qualifications had made him more ‘‘empathetic.’’ This way of embracing the affec-
tive, relational, emotional, and interdependent qualities of care (Elliot 2015) is what
caring masculinities are all about.
Caring, Playing, and Sporting
Contemporary fathers are shown to spend increased time with their children, and
active play, sports, and outdoor recreation are important features of the father–child
relationship (Creighton et al. 2015). The fathers in our study usually take their quota
after the mother has returned to work and the child is approaching one year, which
often means that the children were awake many more hours than when they were
newborns. This led to caring consisting of a lot of activities with their children, and
these activities were experienced as very emotionally rewarding. Steinar in partic-
ular recalled when his daughter went on the swings:
It was great fun. She still thinks it’s great fun. But it’s one of the first times I remember
where I really know she had one of those special moments. Sitting safely on a swing
and gaining speed, swinging back and forth, and it was all wonderful laughter. Because
that’s the true original definition of joy, complete joy, no conditions. So this is one of
those moments you always recall.
Describing what he did together with his child, Adam said, ‘‘After she woke up, we
would sing and read. Old songs and stuff, and she’d enjoy that.’’ Because he was
from another country, he wanted to teach his daughter his native language so he read
and sung for her. He took great pride in being able to teach her, and he loved being
with her:
It was just being with ... Seeing her grow, and her understanding of my language. And
everything was just coming, and she just changed so much. I saw her saying her first
84 Men and Masculinities 21(1)
words, and teaching her how to eat and everything. It was great!She just makes you
laugh as well; Thea, she’s a great character!
Seeing her saying her first words implied a combination of interpreting her words
and her body language in a special context. Because he had spent a long time with
her alone they had connected, and he understood what she was trying to express. He
compared the communication with his son who was older and with whom he had not
been home on leave, stating, ‘‘It seems that it worked out a lot better when I had the
time.’’ In fact, in the end, the baby understood his language better than Norwegian,
and therefore understood the mother less well. He said,
After a while I think ... I saw that Thea didn’t understand Norwegian after the 15
weeks [of father’s quota]. Siri would talk to her after she came home from work, and
Thea would be like: ‘‘Huh, what are you saying?’’ And then I would talk to Thea and
she understood. Later, she went to day care so she understands both languages now, so
it’s just amazing that they can adapt like that.
Concerning play, his best memory from when he was home with his daughter
illustrated their close relationship:
I had a hammock sitting out on the lawn, and on sunny days she would lay on top of me
and I would read my book, and she would just play with the trees and stuff. It was
awesome. And I bought a trampoline, and that is what we did in the morning. We would
go on the trampoline and roll some balls, and I would just lie in the middle and she
would just roll around on top of me and it was a great time.
Both in the hammock and on the trampoline, the baby girl would be close to his body
while he was reading or while they were playing. This is a story about how he
experienced the days on leave as ‘‘slow time,’’ in which he could concentrate on
the child and be emotionally absorbed with her.
Another example of caring and masculine embodiment is Steinar’s way of orga-
nizing the baby’s breast-feeding. Steinar’s wife was working as a preschool teacher
in a day care center and had time off to breast-feed while he was home on parental
leave. He would bring the baby daughter to his wife’s workplace every day so that
she could be breast-fed:
I would put on my cross-country skis every morning and ski with Anna strapped to
my body, and I would ski to her mother’s workplace in the morning. And when I
arrived, she would have her break for breastfeeding, and I would sit and read part
of a book for Andrea while she was breastfeeding. Fantastic to have an hour or one
and a half hours off in the middle of the busy working day, where we just sat and
read a book and enjoyed being with the baby. And then ... skiing back home.
Really nice!
Brandth and Kvande 85
Strapping the baby to his own body and skiing to the mother’s workplace is more
corporeal than taking the child in the car. Besides, he actually took an active part in
the breast-feeding situation by reading for both of them while his wife was feeding
the baby. In this way, they could both be together with the baby during the feeding
session, and the baby could also hear her father’s voice while she was being fed. By
constructing a place for himself in the breast-feeding, he also deconstructed this as a
strictly motherly or feminine practice.
Many of the fathers in the sample worked in male-dominated work organizations
and had occupations such as electrician, carpenter, house painter, policeman, and
engineer. When they were on leave, they also wanted to carry out many of the
outdoor activities that are defined as masculine and that they liked doing. Max, a
twenty-seven-year-old house painter married to a preschool teacher, stayed at home
with his daughter for eleven weeks. When the mother had her leave, he had time off
from work and went on an expedition across Greenland. Because he was a very
active outdoor man, he had planned to take his daughter camping, do mountain
climbing, and have a nice time outdoors. However, he experienced that he could
not carry out all his planned activities, but he still had many trips in the woods with
the baby. After he had been on the father’s quota, he changed his routines and
skipped going to the gym after work because he wanted to be home with his
daughter. Mons also adjusted his activities. He had planned a lot of outdoor activities
with the baby, which he very much enjoyed, but as he reflected this was a ‘‘kind of
ego trip.’’ As a result, he reduced his ambition to fewer and shorter trips in order to
meet the needs of his baby. ‘‘We have a very nice time together. I talk to him all day
long. He is my pal,’’ he said.
In different ways, Steinar, Max, and Mons incorporated caring within conven-
tional masculine activities (Lomas 2013, 177). Outdoor activities like skiing, hiking,
and camping were not just expressions of masculinity. When bringing the child,
these activities were also defined as caring, and it was the joy of being together with
the child that was emphasized in their stories.
Conclusion
Research literature on the increased involvement of fathers in childcare is abundant;
even the literature on fathers on parental leave has flourished over the past few
decades. This article has been concerned with exploring what fathers in a Norwegian
context do when they are home on leave alone and how their activities are connected
to masculinity, which is a topic that has been less studied internationally. Drawing
on the literature on stay-at-home fathering and connecting the fathering practices to
models of change in masculinity, the findings support a development toward caring
masculinities (Elliott 2015), in which men assess the values and practices of care and
integrate them into masculine identities and practices.
From having had a low confidence in their caregiving abilities, the fathers in this
study reported a growth in experience, as they acquired confidence and increased
86 Men and Masculinities 21(1)
feelings of self-esteem, thriving on being loved, and appreciated by the child, all of
which seems to have provided their life with a new meaning and purpose. Findings
indicate that self-worth is not measured against the acquisition of status and
resources, but against building care competence, intimate relationship with one’s
child, and being a person contributing love and security to their children. The
feelings of joy and pride in being needed and wanted seem to compensate for the
intense and unrelenting character of the care work. We find parallels to ‘‘inclusive
masculinity’’ (Anderson 2009), as the way they include caring into their masculine
identity does not seem to mean masculine degradation or that they adopted different
(and better) care styles than mothers. Describing their fathering, their stories have
concentrated on their emotional relationship to children and not to status differences
to women or other men.
Nonetheless, it is important to remember that these fathers are not stay-at-home
men who have had to give up their breadwinner identity. Receiving their salary
during the leave period and returning to work when the leave is over, they exist
firmly within a hegemonic category of employed men which makes it less probable
that they will face challenges in relation to the broader system of hegemonic mas-
culinity. This is an advantage of the sample, as it shows how employed men can
incorporate caring into their masculine identity.
Despite indications of a new caring masculinity into which love and affection are
integrated, there are many examples that the fathers incorporate caring within con-
ventional masculine constructions (cf. Lomas 2013). Defining care work as hard
work, insofar as drawing parallels to their occupational work is one such example.
The characteristics of caring for a one-year-old—that it is time-consuming, inten-
sive, encompassing many tasks and that they can do little else—contribute to its
definition as hard work.
In the literature on fatherhood and fathering, fathers are reported to spend the bulk
of their childcare time in the more enjoyable activities of playing and outdoor life
(Craig 2006), in which such activities tend to reflect the construction of their own
identities. The fathers in our study also spoke of play as an aspect they enjoyed, but
rather than the competitive aspects of outdoor challenges, they emphasized the joy of
connecting with their children and the pleasure of nurturing their development and
growth in connection with such activities. Skiing and participating in breast-feeding
is an awesome illustration of the combination of symbolic masculine and feminine
activities. Moreover, it emphasizes the physicality of care where also men’s bodies
are caring bodies.
By means of parental leave, the men in this study have been home alone to
provide care for their children. The results highlight effects of a policy that makes
employed men devote more time and priority to childcare. As the fathers in this
study show, this may have highly beneficial effects in terms of developing caring
masculinities. Thus, the study is an answer to the question of whether parental leave
may represent a change to the ways men do masculinity. Given the opportunity to be
full-time caregivers, the fathers learn childcare, have many of the same experiences
Brandth and Kvande 87
as mothers, and become empathetic caregivers. Giving more research attention to
men’s emotionality and nurturing capabilities may be crucial when it comes to
changing the idealized cultural forms of hegemonic masculinity into caring ones.
More international and comparative studies on the conditions for developing caring
masculinities may further enrich our understanding of these processes of change.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research has been funded by the
Research Council of Norway (grant no 219116/F10).
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Author Biographies
Berit Brandth is a professor of sociology at the Department of Sociology and Political
Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim. Her
main research areas are rural sociology, gender, family, and questions of work–life reconci-
liation. Her latest publications include ‘‘Rural Masculinities and Fathering Practices’’
(Gender, Place, and Culture 2015) and Feminisms and Ruralities (Lexington Books 2015)
coedited with Barbara Pini and Jo Little.
Elin Kvande is a professor of sociology at the Department of Sociology and Political Science
at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Her research focuses on
gender, work and family reconciliation, and welfare state policies. Central areas of study have
been fathers’ use of parental leave, internationalization, and the Nordic model. Her latest
publications include ‘‘Fathers and Flexible Parental Leave’’ (Work, Employment and Society
2015) with Berit Brandth.
90 Men and Masculinities 21(1)