“Hallo, jeg er altså også med her, ik’”: - en socialkonstruktionistisk undersøgelse af mænds muligheder for at blive til som fædre i mødet med sundhedsvæsenet.

The idea for this thesis came from wondering why fathers who want to be involved in their childrens lives do not experience to be included in the contact with the healthcare system before nor after the birth of their children. Through document analysis’ and two group interviews, we are investigating the impact of the interactions between fathers to be and new fathers and the healthcare system by using a social constructionism subject understanding and a interactionist approach.
We identify two parallel and sometimes competing discourses which position fathers very differently. We have called them psycho-social parental discourse and biomedicial mother/child discourse. A broad health understanding adds meanings to the psycho-social parenthood and activate an ideal about equality. In this discourse fathers are positioned as important parents whose needs and involvement is also a goal for the efforts the healthcare system. On the opposite side we find that a narrow biomedical understanding of health give right to risk thinking and a legal understanding that places the woman as the most important and primary parent with legal rights. It is in this understanding that fathers are deemed less important and someone who should support but not take the attention away from the mother of the child.
The analysis of the two group interviews show that fathers negotiate their position as the less important parent. They experience a conflict between their personal ideal, understanding of identity as involved parents and the exclusion they meet in the healthcare system, particularly before the birth of the child. We see this as leading to loneliness and adding greater responsibility of the child onto the woman. We also see that fathers position themselves in relation to a hegemonic masculinity, whilst they negotiate new masculine identities that can include the ideal about the involved father. It is recognised that the research based knowledge about men’s development of identities as fathers is not very broad, which is why there is a need for more research. In practice we recognise a need that politics, policies and healthcare efforts are developed aiming towards a health promoting path that can support fathers in the psycho-social aspects of parenthood.