Abstract
Little is known about the experiences of widowed men with dependent children. With such limited knowledge it is not clear how mental health professionals can assist this population. In this qualitative case study the researcher describes the experiences of ten widowed fathers from the Southeastern United States as they struggle with their new parenting responsibilities after the death of their wives and their children's mothers. The researcher used an inductive constant comparative method to reveal themes. The interview data revealed three themes: Ways to Cope, Concerns, and Newfound Respect. These themes and their subcategories are presented together with suggestions on how to assist widowers with dependent children.
Melvin came home to shower and change out of his dirty construction work clothes before picking his 10-year-old son up from school. His wife had left around lunch for a business trip out of town, or so he thought. The open garage door and a pick-up truck in the driveway confused him. As he entered the home and walked up the back stairs to the couple’s bedroom he made the grisly discovery. In the bedroom were the bloody bodies of his wife and an unknown man. Tom and his wife thought that her shoulder pain would be gone by now. It had been several days since it started, but the pain pills had stopped working. They decided to go to the emergency room when her breathing became labored. She never came out of the exam room – she had died from undiagnosed pneumonia. Tom had to go back home to tell their six children, ranging in ages from 6 to 16, that their mother had died.
There are an estimated 100,000 children living with widowed fathers in the United States (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). This is a relatively small population, which may explain why very little research has addressed the challenges of this parent group. Researchers know more about single mothers (Carlson & Corcoran, 2001), widowed women caring for young children (O’Neill & Mendelsohn, 2001), or older widowers with or without grown children (Scott & Lilja, 2010) than widowers with dependent children. The grieving process after the loss of a spouse may negatively impact parenting (Kennedy, McIntyre, Worth, & Hogg, 2008), and a child’s loss of a parent may impact the child’s performance at school (Graydon, Jimerson, & Fisher, 2010). In addition, a lack of social support may have lingering negative affects into adulthood on parentally bereaved children (Ellis, Dowrick, & Lloyd-Williams, 2013). Therefore, it is important to know the experiences of men, who are left raising their children on their own after the death of a spouse, to be able to support them through the grieving process and the process of raising their children. There is a dearth of research exploring the experiences of widowers raising motherless children (Yopp & Rosenstein, 2012). This article is an attempt to fill this gap.
Literature Review
By nature, humans function in relationships (Castaneda & Burns-Glover, 2008). In the two-parent household, the tasks are divided between the parents to help make the household run smoothly. In a single parent household, however, where one person takes on all chores, role strain occurs (Parsons, 1955). Historically, children in the United States lived with two married parents (Brown, 2010), but when they did not, men were more likely than women to raise children on their own due to desertion and high death rates from childbirth (Greif, 1987). This is no longer true.
In the United States, the traditional two-parent household is diminishing, and the number of children who live in a household headed by a single parent has doubled during the past 50 plus years (Andersen, 2013). Births to unmarried women increased by 26% from 2002 to 2007 (Ventura, 2009), although the rate has now stabilized (Child Trends Data Bank, 2013). Twenty-million children live in single-parent households; of these, 15 million live without a father and close to 5 million without a mother. Of these five million, approximately 100,000 live with their widowed fathers (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010).
The relatively low number of widowers raising young children may explain why so little research has been done on this population. Yet, it is important to know the experience of fathers, who are raising their children alone after the death of their children’s mothers, to get a better idea of how to assist them and their families. People who are grieving the loss of their partners at the same time as their children are mourning the loss of their parent may not be able to adequately attend to their children’s needs (Kennedy et al., 2008). Children need support in the form of a consistent relationship and empathy (MacPherson & Emeleus, 2007), which may be difficult for a grieving parent to provide. The surviving parent’s coping style influences the bereaved child’s emotional health (Kennedy et al., 2008). Burgess (1995) explains that a widowed father needs to take on a therapeutic role with his children, helping them through their grief in spite of his own pain over the loss of the children’s mother, in addition to socializing and caregiving roles.
Widows
Although more research has been done among women raising children than men, experiences among young widowed women are not well documented (Lowe & McClement, 2010/2011). However, 11 young widows without children from across the United States expressed difficulties coping and experienced symptoms of depression, anxiety, fatigue, longing, and feelings of loneliness (Haase & Johnston, 2012). The loss of a spouse changed the widows’ identities which some struggled with and others embraced. To make the loss meaningful, widows wrote and blogged about the loss to cope with their feelings, to reach out to family and friends, and to influence others. The women also reported how their wedding rings have become important symbols. In addition, the widows stayed in touch with their husbands through dreams.
Families headed by widowed mothers showed changes in roles and responsibilities, loneliness, and caregiver stress (Gass-Sternas, 1994). Five young Canadian widowed mothers described loss of companionship, hopes, dreams, and family relationships after the death of their husbands (Lowe & McClement, 2010/2011). The women struggled with their identities as single again and with new romantic relationships. They also spoke of changed relationships with friends and struggles with single parenting. The women strived to keep memories of their husbands alive both for themselves and for their children. Furthermore, the women described the struggles of adjusting during the first year of widowhood and taking on new responsibilities. Support was found in families, both biological and in-laws, friends, church, and support groups. Most of the women also found support in the health-care system that cared for their husbands, while some blamed the system for their loss.
Widowers
When searching the literature for the struggles and experiences of widowers, most studies found deal with older widowed men without dependent children. Some is known, however, about widowers with young children. Forty-six widowers, all fathers of school-aged children from 21 different states in the United States, revealed three influences on their experiences as widowers: social circle, personal rights—economic, and personal role behavior and function (O’Neill & Mendelsohn, 2001). Although a social circle of kin and nonkin was willing to help, the widowers did not always see them as helpful. The influence of kin by marriage was especially difficult. If the wife did not have life insurance, or the widower had other financial issues, the widower turned to relatives or social circles for help. As for social roles, the widowers were mostly concerned with their domestic position, and this readjustment in role often created stress (O’Neill & Mendelsohn, 2001).
Six fathers widowed by cancer divulged a lack of preparedness to be single parents, struggles coping with their grief and that of their children, and difficulties adjusting to the demands of single parenthood (Yopp & Rosenstein, 2013). The fathers questioned their ability to parent but found that meeting with other fathers who felt similar doubts helped them.
Finally, five father- and five mother-headed households, representing 24 children, where a spouse had died, shared their losses, their home life, their needs, their perception of each other’s needs, and their parenting styles in semistructured interviews at 4, 13, and 24 months after the deaths of their spouses (Boerner & Silverman, 2001). Looking at differences in coping styles between genders, females heading the households prioritized their children’s needs and were child centered, while fathers were parent centered and administrative in their approach to running the family’s life after the mother’s death. In addition, mothers described their losses as missing someone to talk to and share decisions with. Fathers spoke in terms of long-term results of the loss, such as not having a spouse after the children leave the household, that is, more in terms of their own losses. Fathers were also more likely to run an authoritarian household and to be less solicitous of their children’s needs, whereas mothers were more nurturing in their approach to their children’s needs (Boerner & Silverman, 2001). In this sample of bereaved fathers and mothers, all fathers but only one mother were dating at the second year of bereavement. In the household run by the mother, dating seemed to improve family life; in father headed households, it gave the father less time to be there for his children.
In conclusion, only a few studies of fathers caring for their children after the loss of their partners could be located in the literature (Boerner & Silverman, 2001; O’Neill & Mendelsohn, 2001; Yopp & Rosenstein, 2013). The studies represent small samples; one examines fathers with losses mostly to cancer (O’Neill & Mendelsohn, 2001), another examines fathers who had lost wives to cancer only (Yopp & Rosenstein, 2013), and the third fathers who lost wives to a long-standing illness (Boerner & Silverman, 2001). One study was composed almost exclusively of White participants (O’Neill & Mendelsohn, 2011), and the ethnicities of the participants in the others were not evident although one sample was said to be homogenous (Boerner & Silverman, 2001). Socioeconomic status of the men was also unclear. To add to the sparse knowledge of what is known about widowed fathers with dependent children, the current qualitative study presents the experiences of 10 widowed fathers, as they coped with their new parenting roles after the death of their wives. The sample covered Black and White families, low- to moderate-income families, as well as anticipated and sudden spousal deaths.
Method
Using the words of the fathers raising their children after their spouses’ deaths, this qualitative study adds to the literature by offering the lived experience of a population that appears to have received little attention in the literature. The researcher obtained approval for the study through the institutional review board of the local university, and all participants signed informed consents. Pseudonyms have been used for all participants to protect confidentiality during the interviews, transcriptions, analysis, and the final write-up. The researcher teaches death, dying, and bereavement at a Southeastern U.S. university and is also the founder of a nonprofit organization that provides bereavement services in the form of grief camps to children, adolescents, and their adult caregivers.
Design
The case study design (Creswell, 2013), bounded by time and place by fathers whose children attended one of two grief camp sessions provided by an organization the researcher founded, was used to focus the study while at the same time allow for multiple voices. The researcher posed one general open-ended question to the fathers: What has it been like to raise your children on your own since your wife died? Follow-up prompts, such as, “tell me more about what you just said about having to make decisions on your own,” were posed to elicit further information.
Participants
The participants in this study consisted of 10 fathers whose children attended one of two weekend bereavement camp sessions in the Southeastern United States. The fathers were raising 22 children between the ages of 2 and 16. Four of the participating fathers were Black and the remaining six were White. Ages ranged from early 30s to late 50s. Two fathers’ incomes consisted of their children’s social security death benefits only—benefits from the U.S. government for parentally bereaved children. Other fathers had yearly incomes between US$20,000 and US$60,000 in addition to their children’s social security incomes. Three of the fathers had experienced expected/nonsudden losses and seven unexpected/sudden losses. Eight of the fathers were interviewed right before or right after the first anniversary of their spouses’ deaths, one father a year and a half after the death of his wife, and one father 2 years after the death of his spouse.
Procedure
The interviewer contacted all the fathers who had brought their children to one of two grief camp sessions 6 months after participation in camp via e-mail asking for voluntary participants in the study. Fourteen of 16 recipients responded to the e-mail. Two other e-mails were inactive addresses and follow-up calls went unanswered. One man responded that he was in fact the child’s guardian grandfather, who had sent the child to camp after the grandmother’s death, so he did not qualify for the study. Another father explained that his son had been diagnosed with leukemia a few weeks after camp and they were traveling in and out of state to get treatment for the boy. Although this father was willing to participate in the study, he was not available for interviews. One father was willing to participate, but the schedules of the researcher and the father conflicted to a point where an interview was not feasible. Finally, one father responded to the initial e-mail stating he was not willing to participate.
The researcher telephoned those fathers who expressed willingness and availability to participate. The study was further explained and a place to meet was set up with each of them individually. The researcher met once with each participant during a 2-week period in a location selected by the fathers. For all but two, this meant the homes of the participants. One interview took place at the participant’s work and one at a local library. Each interview lasted from 1 to 1½ hr. Using the constant comparison method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), the researcher looked at apparent themes after each interview and would on occasion explore issues that had emerged when following participants were interviewed. Saturation of data (Polit & Beck, 2006) was reached after seven interviews, but the researcher decided to complete all scheduled interviews. Each interview was audio recorded by the researcher and subsequently transcribed by a professional transcriptionist. In addition to the interviewed tapes, the researcher made field notes during the visits with the fathers.
Analysis
Once the interviews were transcribed, the researcher used a phenomenological approach, which is used when little is known about the studied topic (Patton, 2015). The researcher read the transcripts several times and analyzed the data looking for themes using inductive analysis to “build a systematic account of what has been observed and recorded” (Ezzy, 2002, p. 86). The researcher used Microsoft Word 2013 “track changes” to highlight words and sentences to section the content into elements of discrete ideas. Using these discrete ideas, the researcher developed broad categories. Content of the interviews was subsequently put into subcategories within these broad categories. The categories were constantly adjusted and refined looking for patterns. In this way, themes and categories were revealed from the interview data. Next, a colleague familiar with qualitative analysis reviewed the data, themes, and categories. A discussion ensued as the colleague felt one theme should be divided into two themes. The researcher consulted a third colleague, and it was decided not to divide the theme. Analyst triangulation was thus accomplished by using three reviewers of the data. Data source triangulation was accomplished by multiple interviews and use of field notes. Credibility of the analysis was thus created (Patton, 2015).
Findings
The analysis of the qualitative data disclosed the themes within the fathers’ shared experiences after the loss of their wives and their children’s mothers. These themes were ways to cope, concerns, and newfound respect. Subcategories identified within the first theme were setting new priorities, committing, and making use of resources. Subcategories under the second theme included own mortality and lonely authority. Newfound respect did not have subcategories. These themes and their subcategories are presented here.
Ways to Cope
To cope with their new single parenting status, the interviewed men used three ways: setting new priorities, committing, and making use of resources.
Setting new priorities
Many of the fathers took stock of their lifestyles after the death of their spouses and from this followed new priorities. For some of the fathers, this meant finding a new job; for others, it included taking a demotion or spending less time at work.
Jerry, who works as a project manager and has an 11-year-old daughter, lost his wife 2 years prior to the interview to breast cancer. He currently lives in a small, older home in a run-down neighborhood. Prior to his wife’s death, he lived in a new home in an expensive subdivision. He voluntarily changed jobs after his wife’s death. He commented on his new lifestyle, I had to find a company that understood me, you know, believed in family. I didn’t want to [change jobs] but it is just the fact. I mean, you know, you are putting me under pressure … you’re asking me to choose between my child … I..I … can’t choose the job over my child.
Jerry’s new job situation means no more fancy cars, “I have downsized, you know … I had a Mercedes parked outside. I had another car, a new car, a Charger. You know, most of these things I got rid of … I wanted to re-build.”
Melvin, who is a construction manager in his early 50s and lost his wife to murder a year ago at the time of this interview, has a 10-year-old son. He sold his home, which was under renovations, after his wife’s death and moved into a rental property. Although he did not change his place of employment, he changed his lifestyle drastically as far as hours and income: I don’t work as many hours. Before I probably worked average fifty-five hours a week. Now I probably average forty-five, forty a week. Probably average forty. I went from making $70,000-80,000 and this year I think I’ll make $40,000 or just under $40,000, but I have no choice. I’ve got to, I’ve got to do what I got to do. I can’t leave the house at 5:30 in the morning and get home at 7:30 at night. It’s not an option. I am giving up a few dollars, but at the same time, I don’t see it being an option.
Fortunately for Melvin, this is not a financial difficulty since his wife, who had a salary in the six figures, left a sizeable life insurance settlement.
However, changing job situations has meant financial hardship for some. Doug, in his 50s, has two young daughters, 2 and 7, and retired from his job with a pharmacy chain after his wife died from complications from a simple tonsillectomy a year prior to this interview. Doug and his daughters live in a small, old house, reminiscent of a trailer, but the home is well taken care of and situated on a beautiful piece of land. He commented: I’ve actually had to quit work. I couldn’t handle the girls and work, and all that. I worked for CVS [pharmacy chain], and I would do a lot of traveling for them and training and stuff. It’s Gertie’s and Charlotte’s [daughters’] disability $1,100 a month what we live on. So, it’s really rough.
Doug is currently in litigation with his wife’s doctor, who Doug feels disregarded his calls for assistance after the surgery, but the process is slow.
For others, the change of work meant giving up something they enjoyed. Robert is in his early 40's and now works as a private investigator. He lost his wife to an accidental drug overdose a year before the interview and is raising two young daughters ages 10 and 12. Robert spoke of his past excitement working his search and rescue team and had this to say about his change of jobs: I had a search and rescue team. But of course I had to stop getting out in the streets … I did have to quit because the hours were too much, and I need to be there for my girls during regular hours … and I had so say, OK, now I have to focus on my children and my children alone … now I just work a job and I come home.
Committing
Another way these men coped is by committing to their new role of single parenting. These men showed a tremendous devotion to their children. They are now the primary and sole caregivers of their children. Although this means a lot of work, they were clear that they were a 100% committed to being there for their children. Jerry stated, “Washing clothes, washing hair, you know, cleaning room … homework done … You know, doing it by myself. I have to structure my whole life around her. She is my life, that’s my heart.” Melvin, who a year after his wife’s death still struggles with the impact of her murder by a lover he only found out about at the time of her death, echoed the same commitment: My mentality is, is, one hundred percent my son, but I need to … guide him to the future, and that’s the biggest thing. I try to do what’s best for him. I truly do. I’ll do the best I can and hope it’s good enough is all I can say.
Ben, a young teacher in his 30s, is now raising his 7-year-old daughter after his wife died suddenly from an aneurysm little less than a year before Ben was interviewed. He verbalized commitment as well, “Henley [daughter] is my motivation, she’s all I’ve got left ….”
For many of these men, this commitment means no time to themselves. Tom, a man in his late 30s, is raising six children on his own after his wife’s sudden death to pneumonia 11 months prior to the interview and has found himself laid off from work and unemployed. After getting his children ready for school in the morning, Tom spends his days looking for a job or doing some odd jobs repairing neighbors’ cars before his children come back from school and he needs to prepare dinner and help with homework. He stated, “As for a social life or my personal life, I can’t really have one.” Jerry made a similar comment, “My social life is just … it’s kind of dead.” However, when some of these men do get some time for themselves, they often cannot enjoy it. Elmer, an engineer in his 40s, who lost his wife suddenly to a lung embolism a year before the interview, is rearing one preteen son and two teenager daughters. He reported: I took them on that cruise that me and momma was planning. Seven day Disney cruise, and I will be honest with you. That’s the longest time I’ve ever had. You know, they running around the ship, they doing all kinds of stuff, and [sigh] I just did not … I was waiting for that cruise to be over.
Elmer realized that time to himself gave him time to miss his wife. Interestingly, Elmer is the only man in this study who has started dating, which has not been met with the approval of his wife’s mother. His mother-in-law, upon hearing the “dating news,” contacted the family’s neighbor to arrange living with the neighbor to “spy” on her son-in-law.
Being singly committed to your children can also be overwhelming. As Melvin shared: It’s just, it’s difficult now, I mean, as far as time wise it’s just hard to make time for everything … like every day there’s something else, and something else, and something else, and you know at ten at night I’m folding clothes … or at CVS [pharmacy chain] getting folders for school.
Sometimes the stress is so much they want to give up. Elmer stated, “I mean, I feel, I feel like, well the things I’m doing I have to do for them. But, there are some days I wish I could just collapse and leave.” However, the commitment toward the children trumped wanting to escape. Tom, in spite of the pressures of raising six children, stated: I try to make it work, but sometimes, I just want to run away, but you know, you can’t. We are going through it … this is the situation … I’m sticking with it. I can’t run from my responsibilities, you know. I’m sticking with it, we are gonna try to make it work.
Making use of resources
All the interviewed fathers relied on some type of assistance to cope in their new roles as single fathers. They realized that they could not manage the day-to-day lives of single parenting without the help of others. They looked for practical assistance caring for their children but also received financial help sometimes from unsolicited resources. Other unsolicited help came in the form of unwanted advice from family members. Flexibility from the place of employment was unanimously considered helpful. Foremost among the resources were church, workplace, the children’s schools, neighbors, and family.
Church
Most of the fathers attended a church at the time of the death of their spouse and found this support invaluable. Brim is now raising his 10-year-old daughter by himself after his wife died from septic shock. He is making ends meet between his daughter’s social security and his own meager salary as a school-bus driver. Brim felt that his church was his lifeline when his wife died unexpectedly a year before this interview and continues to be so. He is not hesitant to reach out for practical or financial assistance when needed, If it wasn’t for the church, I mean, I don’t know what I would have done at that time, because they just basically came in, took over … Sometimes I set the pastor and his wife down and say, OK, this is what’s going on, you know, help me out here.
Work
Although some of the fathers had to change their place of employment because the job duties interfered with their fathering responsibilities, work was for the most part supportive of their situations. Melvin had to cut his hours from 80+ a week to a more manageable 40, but his employer accommodates his needs. Yeah, I mean, I couldn’t ask for a better deal. Couldn’t ask. You know there’s days I have to take off or, you know, or go to the school for whatever, and it’s just, you know, I try to plan stuff the best I can and they’ve [work] just been super great about it.…
School
All fathers stressed the tremendous support they received from their children’s schools. Robert was teary eyed when he said this about his daughters’ school, “That school helped out in ways you couldn’t begin to imagine.” Melvin was equally enthusiastic about his son’s school staff, “We had so much support from the school counselors, teachers … we just had all the support in the world.”
Neighbors
Although church and school were the top support systems for the men interviewed for this project, many also relied on their neighbors. Terry, a computer programmer in his early 30s, is raising his two elementary school sons after his wife died from a liver disorder a year before this interview. After having cared for his wife during an extended illness, Terry’s financial situation has greatly improved since his wife’s death. He received what he calls an incredible bonus and incredible raise some months ago. Although Terry’s place of employment is not overly demanding in terms of hours at the office, he relies on his neighbors to transport his children home from school and to after-school activities. He stated, “Having that support system [neighbors] there, it’s been great bouncing back with all that help. Um, I know, I know it would be immensely, immensely more difficult if we didn’t have that support system there.”
Family
Many of the fathers relied on their families or that of their wife’s to tend to their children’s needs and to keep going. Tom, who sometimes finds it stressful to be a single father to his six children, said of his wife’s family, “My wife has [sic] sisters and brothers. They help me out from time to time, you know. They keep them for the weekend, ‘Cause we know you stressed out sometimes.’” For others, however, family support gets to be too much. Doug has had to rein in his wife’s mother, I’ve had to like push her [mother-in-law] away. I’ve had to tell her, you know, I’m … I could handle this. But I mean she wanted to come in and be the mother. Like, she would want to come in and clean my house all the time, and do my laundry and all that kind of stuff. And I’m like I don’t need that. I don’t need a personal servant to be there to cook us dinner every day. I don’t need that. I mean … I’m a grown man, I can handle things.
Concerns
Own mortality
Several of the fathers had concerns in their new single-parenting role. These men frequently mentioned thoughts of their own mortality and a strong pressure to survive to care for their children until their children are grown. Melvin shared in regard to his 10-year-old son, “I have to make it till he is grown. I just have to. I’m 52 and I just have to make it another ten years. At least. He depends on me. He needs me.” Doug has a heart condition and at over 300 pounds is overweight. He expressed similar, for him, very real concerns: See, that’s [dying] what I worry about with my heart. That’s why I quit work, because I felt like, yeah, I could work and make the money, but you know my doctor told me you’re just going to get weaker and weaker. You know the more stress you are under it will go quicker [pause]. It’s not worth it for me anymore to beat myself for the money. I mean I’m struggling [financially]. It’s like what if I died where would the kids go? That’s a major, that’s a major point for me.
In regard to thoughts of his own mortality and pressure to survive long enough to raise his daughter, Jerry explained, I live so safely. I drive extra, extra safe. I work out. I go to the doctor regularly. Check my health. I find a bump here, a lump there, a pain there, I go see a doctor. If I disappear on her, she is stuck.
Terry lost his own father before he was born and expressed sadness over his sons going through a similar experience. He shared his feelings of pressure to survive with a strong determination: You know, it’s enough, you know. Losing one parent. I can’t let them lose another one. You know they only have two and they’ve already lost one of them. I have to be here to, to help them finish growing, you know, to help them become adults. And once they’re adults, once they’re living their own lives, then whenever it’s my turn, it’s my turn, but not until then. That’s the, that’s, my fight is that I have to make it that far, because they’re already down one parent.
Lonely authority
Many of the fathers felt that it was difficult to be the one to make decisions without having somebody to bounce things around with. Tom stated that making decisions for six children comes with uncertainty, Make decisions is kinda hard … I’m not sure about this decision. I’m not 100% sure about this decision. ‘I need to talk to you … make sure it’s the right decision, if it’s not right … ’ Now, I gotta make my own decision.
Likewise, Robert expressed the burden of being the sole decision maker for his two daughters: It was me and me alone. It [making decisions] was almost like taking the world and putting it on my shoulders, like Atlas. If I mess up, it hurts them. It’s going to affect them because I don’t have backup anymore … yeah, it’s still scary.
Doug is adjusting to raising his two young girls without female input and often doubts he makes the right decisions, It’s hard, you just, I find myself questioning everything that I do. It’s like if I go buy Gertie—like if she want to go and help me pick out her clothes of course she’s going to want the shorter shirts and everything like that, but I mean, I don’t let her get it. And then I see these other girls with it on, and then her friends with it on, and I’m like, am I being unreasonable? And now there’s nobody here. You know, every now and then I’ll ask my sister-in-law, or my brother-in-law, you know. I don’t have to ask my mother-in-law anything, she’s going to tell you.
Terry shared the other men’s feelings of lone authority. He commented, “You know, I don’t have that sounding board, the other person to bounce ideas off of … that’s really tough … it’s a lonely feeling.” For others having to make decisions on your own is not only a lonely feelings—it is daunting and scary. Ben stated, “I’m doing the best I can in the decisions I make … so it’s frightening. What if I made the wrong decision? Which aspect of life is going to steer her in the wrong direction?”
Newfound Respect
The third and last theme was newfound respect. Touchingly, these men were now respecting their wives in a way that they had previously not. Tom is left raising six children on his own and his admiration for his wife came through in his words, “I gotta do what she used to do: cook, cleaning, all that stuff. Now I see … as a man, I see what women going through now … women work real hard … I really do, I see what they go through. I really do.” Jerry expressed, not only his newfound respect, but also his regrets, … all in all, I didn’t know what my wife did a lot of times and I think as I had to do it by myself I really took for granted her mother period, because you know that, I was a father, I was there. But she did most of the things I’m doing now: register for school, shots, shopping, feeding, making sure she brushes her teeth, hairdo … and I’m doing all this by myself. I just really found myself really saying aloud: “I’m so sorry, sorry, I didn’t help you more, so sorry that I just took you for granted, cause you worked a full time job … now I have so much more respect for what you do” and wish I could have appreciated it more when she was alive … I just … I applaud all mothers.
Ben, who had teased his wife at times when she complained about being stressed about parenting, also expressed his regrets and guilt, “But that’s one situation that I think about, that now here I am raising a child and all the scoffing that I did of her.”
Discussion
In this case study, 10 widowed men with young children gave voice to their experience of raising motherless children. The themes were discovered in the analysis of the interview data. The themes unveiled were ways to cope, concerns, and newfound respect. Ways to cope had three subcategories: setting new priorities, committing, and making use of resources. The theme of concerns had two subcategories: own mortality and lonely authority. The third theme, newfound respect, had no subcategory. Some of the themes and categories revealed here have been discovered in previous literature among young widowed women. The men in this study relied heavily on support from various sources to manage the care of their children. Churches provided emotional, financial, and food support; neighbors helped with transportation of the children; and neighbors and families helped with childcare. This corresponds with young widowed women interviewed by Lowe and McClement (2010/2011). Widowers in O’Neill and Mendelsohn’s (2001) survey also sought support from others, family, and nonfamily but did not always find the support from kin by marriage helpful, which was the case for Doug interviewed here. Doug had to ask his mother-in-law to stop interfering because he can handle taking care of his family. He stated with some frustration the interference would not happen if he were a woman. Most of the fathers in this study were just as likely to be supported by their own families as by that of their wives. Research has shown that single custodial fathers experience the same levels of parental support as single-custodial mother families (Bronte-Tinkew, Scott, & Lilja, 2010). A richness of support was found among the participants in this study. What was also evident in this study and which is supported in research on two parent families is that social support allowed these single fathers the flexibility they need to balance work and childcare (St. George & Fletcher, 2012). Social support is associated with less parenting stress (Tornello, Farr, & Patterson, 2011) and increases well-being of bereaved (Villacieros, Serrano, Bermejo, Magana, & Carabias (2014), which may explain how these fathers coped fairly well.
Notions of feeling lonely in decision-making expressed by widowers in this study correspond with widows with dependent children in Boerner & Silverman’s (2001) study, but the finding differs from fathers in that study. The fathers in this study were lamenting how difficult, frightening, and lonely it was to make all the decisions for their children without anyone to share their ideas with. Most were frightened to make mistakes that would have lasting effect on their children. Parental decision-making is crucial as children use their parents as role models for how to make healthy decisions in the future (Ozturk, Kutlu, & Atli, 2011; Wolff & Crocket, 2011). It thus seems natural that it would be scary to be the sole parental model in this regard.
The fathers of this study had a category in common with the fathers in O’Neill and Mendelsohn’s study (2001)—committing. In O’Neill and Mendelsohn’s study, committing was described as the fathers’ having their domestic role as one of the highest priority. The fathers in the current study unequivocally put their children’s needs before their own, even when caring for them became overwhelming. These fathers believed it was important to be involved with their children, and this positive belief is an important predictor of fatherly involvement (Perry & Langley, 2013).
New themes and categories not previously found in the literature among widowed fathers with young children also emerged. The men in the current study were child centered and put their children’s needs first, which usually meant little time for themselves. Fathers set new priorities and changed jobs with hours more conducive to caring for their children. Some took substantial pay-cuts. This approach by the fathers in this study differed from the parent-centered style of fathers found in the Massachussetts General Hospital (MGH)/Harvard Child Bereavement study (Boerner & Silverman, 2001). The child-centered approach exhibited by the fathers in this study bodes well for their children, since child-centered parenting is related to a better adjustment of the children (Saldinger, Porterfield, & Cain, 2004).
Another category not previously noted among fathers raising their dependent children after the death of their mothers came to light: own mortality, a subcategory under the theme concerns. Concerns and worries regarding their own mortality was a dominant category among the current participants. These fathers wanted to live long enough to guide their children through childhood and into adulthood, not so much to imprint their values but to make sure that they were loved and taken care of. This was a theme across ages, ethnicities, and mode of loss. The feelings of own impending death or the feeling that the world is dangerous can be a symptom of posttraumatic stress disorder (American Psychological Association, 2013). This may account for the men’s preoccupation with their own mortality. These men used problem-focused coping, a more common coping mechanism among men (Eaton & Bradley, 2008) to deal with this stress as they went to great lengths to try to take care of themselves by going to regular medical checkups. They also tried to cut out stress when possible by changing jobs and/or cutting down hours at work.
The third theme, “newfound respect,” was not found in the previous literature. The majority of the fathers expressed a newfound respect for their deceased wives. They expressed admiration for how much their spouses did to care for their children and households. They also expressed regret that they did not appreciate their wives while alive and sometimes also feelings of guilt. Researchers may argue whether empathy can be taught or not (Karp, 2015; Teding van Berkhout, & Malouff, 2016), but it seems natural that if you have not assumed or lived a role, it would be difficult to imagine what it would be like. It was only when the fathers took on their children’s mothers’ tasks that they realized the magnitude of childcare. Unfortunately, levels of regret have not shown to decline among bereaved with time (Stroebe et al., 2014).
Limitations
Although this study had participants from diverse backgrounds in ethnicity, income, age, and number and gender of children, there were only 10 participants, all of who resided in one specific area of the United States. The findings, therefore, cannot be generalized to a larger population. However, generalization was not the purpose of this study but rather to get a deep and rich understanding of these widowers’ experiences raising dependent children. Furthermore, these were fathers who had brought their children to a healing camp for bereaved children, meaning that they may have a more child-focused attitude than other fathers. In addition, the fathers may have wanted to please the researcher, who is the founder of the grief camp their children attended, by stressing child-focused orientation toward parenting. However, to minimize this and other bias, the researcher used thorough qualitative methods such as both analyst and data source triangulation (Patton, 2015).
Implications for Practice and Future Research
In this study, the widowers stressed the support received from others, such as neighbors, family, church, work, and schools. These men saw school social workers and counselors as invaluable in the assistance they provided. They helped these men with referrals to various resources; and in all of these families, the school social worker and counselor were the ones to refer the children to the healing camp. Although most children manage their grief well (Brown, Sandler, Tein, Liu, & Haine, 2007), because of their place of employment, school social workers and counselors are in prime positions to help guide children and teens who have lost a mother. From there it follows that it is important for school systems to support the education of their professional support staff in regard to the needs of bereaved children. It is incumbent upon social workers, counselors, and other professionals who work with families of parentally bereaved children to help educate the surviving spouse about research findings that will help them and their children through the course of grieving.
In addition, Yopp & Rosenstein (2013) found evidence of the benefits of support groups for widowed fathers with dependent children. All the fathers interviewed in this study expressed the benefit of talking with the researcher. Mental health professionals in schools, hospitals, and hospice settings could help organize peer-support groups. Such bereavement peer groups have shown to increase posttraumatic growth among its participants (Richardson, 2016) and would also be a place for widowers to get support in decision-making and process feelings of regret.
Most of the fathers in the current study expressed their appreciation for support received from their places of employment, but this was not the situation for all of them. Therefore, social workers and other mental health professionals need to advocate for policies at work places that assist widowed fathers and mothers, when they try to pick up the pieces after the loss of a spouse.
This study does provide suggestions for further research. More fathers need to be interviewed to get clarity on how the loss of a mother affects the homes of children living with their widowed fathers as the primary caregiver. This study gave voice to only 10 fathers in one geographic area in the United States. Other studies that address the lived experiences of widowers with dependent children in other geographical areas and of other ethnicities are warranted. Likewise, a longitudinal study of widowed fathers as they continue their journeys as single fathers would bring further insight into their experiences. Nor does this study hear the voices of the children living in father-headed families where the mother has died. Such a study, focusing on the experience of living with a widowed father, would give further understanding of widower-headed family systems. Several studies have found that children living in families where the father is absent can be influenced negatively both socially and emotionally (Waldfogel, Craigie, & Brooks-Gunn, 2010). Less is know about how children and adolescents fare living with widowed fathers. This area begs for further research.
Conclusion
The current study was conducted to help understand the lived experiences of fathers raising motherless children after the loss of their spouses. This population appears to have received little attention in the literature, perhaps because the number of widowed fathers raising motherless children is relatively small. However, it is vitally important that we understand the experiences of these families, so that we may assist them toward their healing.
All of the fathers in this study are to be congratulated on successfully picking up the pieces of their families and carrying on to meet their children’s needs. In concluding this study, two quotations from these fathers speak to the strengths of the 10 men interviewed: Ben stated, “There’s some good tasting parts because of the sweetness I get to have with her [daughter] in that relationship. And successes that I am having doing it.” Robert put it this way, “Sometimes it is overwhelming, but there is just sometimes when, you know, something good would happen. It is actually like, ‘man, look at what I’m doing, you know, look at this, I am kicking butt.’” These fathers live up to Burgess (1995) description of widowed fathers as “ … capable and successful custodial parents” (p. 460).
Footnotes
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) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.