Presences and Paternal Absences: Men's Experience of Mexico City

Abstract

We are currently experiencing a series of transformations in the family and paternity settings. Faced with uncertainty, Mexican families try strategies to conciliate work and family life by confronting gender stereotypes. The objective of the research is to analyze the processes of construction of the presence and paternal absence in paternity practices from the experience of men of medium socioeconomic level in Mexico City. Integrates a qualitative investigation where semi-structured interviews were carried out, the corpus of data formed from the analysis of categorical content gives an account of the experiences of 8 men who are parents, four maintain a relationship and four in a condition of separation. The results show that the presence or absence as parents ceases to be a strictly individual problem but socially constructed in relational terms, the meanings may vary depending on the couple's relationship, the trajectory and paternity practices of men.