Determinants, costs and meanings of Belgian stay-at-home fathers: an international comparison

Data gathered from 21 at-home fathers living in Belgium were analyzed and compared to results from research conducted in Australia, Sweden and the USA on fathers taking primary responsibility for childcare. The dynamic process of managing the tension between assigned norms and personal iden- tity was studied through a comparative overview of how at-home fathers come to assume the primary responsibility of childcare, the norms they are con- fronted with in their daily interactions and the strategies used by these fathers to (re)construct a positive self-image. The fathers’ increased involvement in childcare challenged masculine self-definitions and self-presentations in nor- mative contexts where men’s predominant involvement in paid work is priv- ileged and childcare is largely defined as feminine. In response, Belgian fathers developed strategies and discourses that drew on a multiplicity of mas- culinities that appear in many cases to be both transgressive and yet complicit with hegemonic definitions of masculinity