Abstract

NIERI, Liliana. Transition and construction of fatherhood . Interdisciplinaria [online]. 2017, vol.34, n.2, pp.425-440. ISSN 1668-7027.

For decades, the researchers agreed that the father's role was just being an economic provider and he was considered secondary in the function of parenting. Thus, most of studies focused in the mother's psychological processes through the pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum, letting of father's role side out. However, according with historical changes as French revolution, industrial revolution and the both world wars, the psychologists throw their interest into know which the father role is and how he influences in the psychological development of their children. One of the first psychologists to study the role of the father was S. Freud, he thinks that father's role was to distance the mom to their son; the father represents authority, rules, law, order, the opening to the world. In this theory, the interaction between father and son begin around 2 years of the child. Later this theory was refused for different psychologist who found that the father's early involvement has a positive impact on the development of their children. From the 70's the interest was to know how is the man's psychological change that became a father, and how the transition to the construction of parenthood is. As the research progressed, the researchers discovered that the parents during the pregnancy of his wife manifested the need to feel included in this process. So, the psychologists began to ask questions about what happen to the father in childbirth? Greenberg and Morris (1974) think that the childbirth is the most intensive moment in an emotional level to build the parenthood, so they start to study the emotions and concluded that there is a stage called: engrossment, it is about a father's innate potential and it develop with the childbirth. Based on these theories the aim of this research is make a bibliographic review to better understand the father's transition, including researches that explained different father's emotional processes and how this emotional processes influence in the relationship with his family of origin, his couple and his sons. The method used was a bibliographic search in the databases: PubMed, Redalyc, Scielo, MEDLINE, EBSCO, and APA, from 1970 to date. We found 150 articles and books. After a first reading 63 articles were not included because it did not meet with the criteria. Finally, we included 89 articles and books for this review. This studies shows that the transition to paternity is a multidimensional process in terms of individual, partner, work, family of origin, among others. This means that the father goes through a process of transition, in which: his history as a child, the relationship with his partner and his current situation play an important role in the development of his paternal identity. Researches highlights the importance of understanding what happens to the father during his transition, as the way he crosses it affects the relationship with his son or daughter. Thus the fatherhood is not just a biological act, but there are some factors that join in for construction and organize the fatherhood (Palkovitz & Palm, 2009). Like the mother, a father has a vital and evolutionary crisis; in this period interact his personal history, personality, currently situation, relationships and baby´s characteristics (Nieri, 2015; Oiberman, 2008). Know these studies allow understand and explains the father's affective process through the fatherhood, and how the father develops a meaning about his new state is and what the consequences are. Also, previous bibliography shows evidence to the necessity to understand what is happening and how this influence in his relationship with his wife and baby (Habib & Lancaster, 2010; Moreno-Rosset et al., 2016).

Keywords : Transition; Parenthood; Construction; Identity; Relationship; Pregnancy; Birth.

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