Exploring separated fathers’ understandings and experiences of ‘home’ and homemaking

This paper considers fathers’ understandings and experiences of home after relationship separation–an issue that has received little research attention to date–through interviews with four separated fathers conducted as part of a larger qualitative study. Key themes to emerge were: the significance attached by participant fathers to home and homemaking through their focus on everyday interactions; the concern that their home might be viewed by children as secondary; and a sense of the vulnerability and transience of home arising from their children’s presence and absence. Viewed overall, the fathers in this study conveyed their determination to offer their children a loving, stable, and secure home life as a fundamental dimension of their commitment to post-separation fathering while also describing key challenges they experienced in doing so.