Fictive grandfatherhood: the experiences of older involuntarily childless men

Hadley, Robin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4254-7648 (2016) Fictive grandfatherhood: the experiences of older involuntarily childless men. In: BSA Ageing, Body and Society Study Group 7th Annual Conference: Ageing and Culture, 26 February 2016, Manchester, UK. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

The global trend of a declining fertility rate and an increasingly ageing population has been extensively reported. Gerontological, psychological, reproduction, and sociological research have mainly focussed on family and women, with the fertility intentions, history and experience of older men being overlooked. Infertility research has shown that failure to fulfil the status of parenthood may lead to a complex form of bereavement and a significant challenge to identity. A qualitative study examined the experiences, attitudes, and behaviours of 14 involuntarily childless men aged between 49 and 82 years. The study used a pluralistic framework drawn from the life course, biographical, feminist, and gerontological approaches. The broad thematic analysis highlighted the complex intersections between men’s experience of involuntary childlessness and agency, socio-cultural structures, and biological and social clocks. This study challenges research that reports that men are not affected by the social, emotional, and relational aspects of involuntary childlessness. The participants’ narratives demonstrated the diverse elements that affected the men’s experience of involuntary childlessness: upbringing, economics, timing of events, interpersonal skills, sexual orientation, partner selection, relationship formation and dissolution, bereavement, and the assumption of fertility. The importance of relationship quality was highlighted in the social networks of both those with and without partners. The search for meaning for four of the men, as they aged, was seen in their negotiation of a form of ‘grandfatherhood’ role: Adopted, Latent, Surrogate, and Proxy. Awareness of ‘outsiderness’ and a fear of being viewed a paedophile were widely reported.