THROUGH THE SMOKE: A VOICE-CENTRED EXPLORATION OF SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD by DANIEL HECTOR ANDREW MESZAROS Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, Simon Fraser University, 2016 Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology, Trinity Western University, 2019 Thesis Submitted in Addition to the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN COUNSELLING PSYCHOLOGY in the SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES TRINITY WESTERN UNIVERSITY December 2025 © Daniel H.A. Meszaros, 2025 SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD DECLARATION OF COMMITTEE The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled: Through the Smoke: A Voice-Centred Exploration of Self-Compassion in New Fatherhood submitted by Daniel H.A. Meszaros in additional to the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology. Degree Committee Members Larissa Rossen, PhD, RCC Counselling Psychology Trinity Western University Thesis Advisor Phillip R. Sevigny, PhD, RPsych School & Clinical Child Psychology & Counselling Psychology University of Alberta Degree Committee Member Kelly Dean Schwartz, PhD, RPsych School & Applied Child Psychology University of Calgary Degree Committee Member ii SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, to my wife, Darby: Without you I would not be a father, without you I would have lost myself in my own harsh judgement, without you this thesis would have just stayed a note on my phone. Your unwavering belief in me and sacrificial strength made this project possible. Ironically, you had to parent alone so much while I holed up in coffee shops and libraries writing about involved fatherhood. Thank you for all that you have done for me and our beautiful family. You are my truest teammate. To my research participants, John, Kabir, James, Ryan, Fox, Paris, Peter, and Mark: Thank you for your willingness to share your experiences with me. Your courage to share openly and honestly is what gave this project depth and richness. Your stories validated my own struggles and offer such hope for other new dads just trying to do the best they can. To my thesis advisor, Larissa: Your support for me as a researcher and as a father has meant so much to me from the beginning. Thank you for your grounded positivity, your thoughtful feedback, and shared humanity and humour as another parent of young children. You have helped me feel invaluably seen and understood throughout this process. To my advisory member, Phil: Thank you for taking a chance on me when I cold emailed you for your input and involvement. As a professor, fatherhood researcher, and dad yourself, I have so much respect for who you are and what you do. To my research assistants, Dane, Shana, Joel, Janessa, Jill, and Fred: Thank you for volunteering your time and energy to help this project come alive. And thank you for your encouragement, feedback, compassion, and belief in this project along the way. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD iv To those who went before, Jill, Chelsea, Hilary, Liz, Darcie, and Genevieve: You created counselling psychology master’s theses that guided and inspired me. Thank you for doing excellent work that has impacted so many. To my brothers, Nathan and Joel: You are my best friends. I always feel like you have my back and somehow after all these years you still believe that I’m smarter than you. Knowing you think I can do this has helped me through some of the hard moments. To my parents, Mom and Dad: Words cannot express all that I owe to you. Thank you for always thinking that I’m the best and for supporting me and believing in me through all the twists and turns of my schooling and career. Thank you for nurturing my creative and loving self to help me become the husband, father, and therapist that I am today. Thank you for taking care of my girls whenever we needed it, especially while I worked on this thesis. To my daughters, to whom I dedicate this work: You are the sunshine that makes every day more beautiful and the precious treasure that I would trade the world over for. Thank you for your patience with me. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD v ABSTRACT Although the first year postpartum is recognized as a period of vulnerability for fathers, limited research has explored how they effectively cope during this transition. This study addresses this gap by centering the voices of new fathers who identified themselves as coping well in their first year of parenthood and who perceived growth in their selfcompassion. Self-compassion, an internal coping strategy, has been shown to enhance psychological well-being and relationship satisfaction while mitigating postpartum mental health challenges. Eight fathers participated in narrative, semi-structured interviews about their experiences of becoming a parent. Transcripts were analyzed using the Listening Guide method. Four distinct yet interconnected groups of voices emerged from the analysis: (a) voices of vulnerability, (b) voices of protection, (c) voices of self-compassion, and (d) voices of fathering. The relationships among these voices are discussed in relation to meaningfocused coping, hybrid masculinity, and the developmental process of self-compassion over time. The findings highlight the importance of self-compassion as a resource for fathers and offer implications for psychotherapists supporting men in the transition to parenthood. Keywords: fatherhood, first-time fathers, self-compassion, coping, listening guide, qualitative SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD vi TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION OF COMMITTEE ........................................................................................ ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT...............................................................................................................................v TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................................................... vi LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................... xi LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................ xii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................................1 Where This Project Came From.....................................................................................1 Research Background ....................................................................................................3 Purpose of this Study .....................................................................................................5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ...................................................................................7 Shifting Conceptualizations of Fathering ......................................................................7 Transitioning to Fatherhood .........................................................................................12 Paternal Perinatal Mental Health Challenges ..................................................16 Stress and Coping ........................................................................................................19 Mindful Self-Compassion ............................................................................................21 Self-Kindness vs. Self-Judgement ...................................................................22 Common Humanity vs. Isolation .....................................................................23 SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD vii Mindfulness vs. Overidentification ..................................................................23 Benefits of Self-Compassion ...........................................................................24 Self-Compassion and Parenting .......................................................................25 CHAPTER 3: METHODS .......................................................................................................30 Research Paradigm.......................................................................................................30 Social Constructionism ....................................................................................31 Feminist Lens ...................................................................................................34 The Implicated Researcher ..........................................................................................37 Research Method .........................................................................................................39 Rationale for Using a Narrative Interview .......................................................39 Rationale for Using the Listening Guide .........................................................39 Steps of the Listening Guide ............................................................................42 Participants ...................................................................................................................44 Participant Demographics ................................................................................44 Sampling and Recruitment ...............................................................................46 Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria ......................................................................48 Informed Consent and Confidentiality.............................................................49 Data Collection ............................................................................................................49 Interviews .........................................................................................................49 SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD viii Reflexive Journals ............................................................................................50 Data Analysis ...............................................................................................................50 Research Team Approach.................................................................................50 Transcription ....................................................................................................51 Coding ..............................................................................................................52 Member Checks ...............................................................................................52 Methodological Rigour ................................................................................................53 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS .........................................................................................................55 Participant Narratives...................................................................................................56 (1) John ............................................................................................................56 (2) Kabir ...........................................................................................................68 (3) James ..........................................................................................................77 (4) Ryan............................................................................................................85 (5) Fox..............................................................................................................94 (6) Paris ..........................................................................................................101 (7) Peter .......................................................................................................... 110 (8) Mark ......................................................................................................... 119 Integrative Summary ..................................................................................................128 The Interplay of Vulnerability and Protection ...............................................129 SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD ix Self-Compassion as a Bridge .........................................................................133 Negotiation Between Vulnerability and Traditional Masculinity ..................135 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION.................................................................................................140 Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping ...............................................................140 Problem-Focused Coping...............................................................................140 Emotion-Focused Coping ..............................................................................142 Meaning-Focused Coping ..............................................................................143 Transitioning to Fatherhood .......................................................................................147 Fatherhood and Masculinity ......................................................................................148 Mindful Self-Compassion ..........................................................................................151 Self-Kindness vs. Self-Judgement .................................................................151 Common Humanity vs. Isolation ...................................................................153 Mindfulness vs. Over-identification ..............................................................154 Relational and Developmental Insights .........................................................156 Diversity and Contextual Contributions ....................................................................161 Implications for Counselling Psychology ..................................................................162 Reflexivity in Therapy ...................................................................................162 Integrating Self-Compassion .........................................................................163 External Support ............................................................................................163 SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD x Limitations .................................................................................................................164 Future Research .........................................................................................................168 Conclusion .................................................................................................................169 REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................171 APPENDICES .......................................................................................................................199 Appendix A ................................................................................................................199 Appendix B ................................................................................................................201 Appendix C ................................................................................................................204 Appendix D ................................................................................................................209 Appendix E ................................................................................................................210 Appendix F................................................................................................................. 211 Appendix G ................................................................................................................212 Appendix H ................................................................................................................213 Appendix I .................................................................................................................214 Appendix J .................................................................................................................216 SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD xi LIST OF TABLES Table 1 ......................................................................................................................................45 Table 2 ......................................................................................................................................56 SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD xii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 ..................................................................................................................................129 Figure 2 ..................................................................................................................................158 SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Where This Project Came From I have wanted to be a father since I was a small child. There are numerous home videos of me, at age two, caring for my dolls and stuffed animals, rocking them to sleep and ensuring that the house remained quiet so they would not be disturbed. I know I was not unique in being an affectionate, nurturing two-year-old, but this tendency continued throughout my childhood. I had many Barbie and Ken dolls and would play ‘house’ with them, giving them children and full lives. Instead of playing videogames with friends at their house, I would ask if we could play with their sister’s doll house. I was happiest when playing relational make-believe games. Unfortunately, this did not go over well for me as a little boy in elementary school. During my school years, I was often teased and bullied for being too feminine, emotional, or compassionate. In high school, I remember wanting to be a young dad. I planned my postsecondary education in a way that could give me a career with financial stability to raise a family while also allowing me to be home on evenings and weekends to spend time with them. During my undergraduate degree, I was impatient to meet someone, fall in love, and “start my life” with kids. In graduate school I wrote papers on fatherhood and masculinity, eager to learn as much as I could. Towards the end of graduate school, I finally fell in love with my now-wife, and we married a year later. After spending We had a few years together as newlyweds, we had the privilege of choosing a time that was right for us to try to get pregnant—and the even rarer privilege of experiencing no complications in conceiving or during pregnancy. I share this because with each sentence, I add layers of privilege and protective factors to my SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 2 experience as a new dad. Being a father was something I always wanted. I came from a nuclear family with an involved dad, I had the educational privilege of having access to literature on fatherhood, my wife and I had choice throughout our pregnancy journey, we could afford to take 12 weeks of paternity leave, and we had incredible social support from close friends and both of our families. I had all this going for me and still, the difficulty of being a new dad—especially in the first 10 months—was suffocating. There were miraculous moments and inexpressible joy and meaning throughout, but I have also never felt so helpless, inadequate, or alone. I could not believe that no one told me how hard it was going to be or what challenges might come up. It was like I was surrounded by smoke that isolated me from others (that were truthfully close by), and the smoke made it hard for me to breathe. Amidst constantly disappointing myself and struggling with feeling useless and inadequate, I remembered previous trainings I had done and had even taught on mindful self-compassion (Neff, 2003a). By intentionally journaling about and practicing self-compassion, I was able to de-escalate my frustration quicker with my crying baby, be less panicked when I lay awake at night feeling alone, and have more compassion for my partner and baby, which helped to rebuild connection (Neff & Germer, 2018). At a time of overwhelm—feeling at a loss for how to move forward—selfcompassion was a practical tool that helped me find my way through the smoke. When reviewing the literature, I was surprised by how much my experience aligned with that of other new dads. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 3 Research Background For decades the fathering role has been limited to providing financial resources for the family, giving moral leadership, and modeling masculine behaviour for their sons (Marsiglio et al., 2000). It was not until the 1970s that cultural shifts began to take place. The feminist movement brought necessary change: women’s right to divorce led to a research emphasis on understanding the impact of absent fathers, and increased female participation in the workforce necessitated the expansion of the fathering role. Since Lamb et al.’s (1985) introduction of the concept of involved fatherhood, that measured paternal engagement (e.g., changing a diaper), accessibility (e.g., time available to be involved), and responsibility (e.g., making childcare arrangements), there has been an abundance of research demonstrating that involved fatherhood predicts positive social, behavioural, psychological, and cognitive outcomes in children (Diniz et al., 2021; Downer et al., 2010; Lamb, 2000; Palm & Fagan, 2009; Rollè et al., 2019; Sarkadi et al., 2008). Due to these cultural shifts, most first-time fathers now enter fatherhood having a strong desire to be more involved in their infant’s caregiving (Molloy et al., 2022; Shorey & Ang, 2019). This is often influenced by their own relationship with their father—whether they had a close relationship and wanted to enact what had been modelled to them, or whether they had a challenging relationship and wanted to provide their child with what they never experienced (Molloy et al., 2022; Shorey & Ang, 2019). However, new dads tend to have difficulty navigating the tension of work and home, and most did not grow up with fathers that modelled engagement in both (Adamsons et al., 2022; Diniz et al., 2023; Williams, 2008). Fathers reported that their work commitments and SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 4 the felt responsibility of providing for their family hindered them from building a relationship with their infant and from being present with their partners as they wished (Shorey & Ang, 2019). They are also often not prepared to manage the sleep deprivation, natural relational challenges with their partner, and recurring feelings of uselessness that are perpetual in the perinatal period (Baldwin et al., 2018; Genesoni & Tallendini, 2009). These factors contribute to fathers lacking confidence in caring for their infants, feeling distant from both their partner and their infant, and at perceiving themselves as insignificant to the process. At the same time, Shorey and Ang (2019) highlighted that fathers’ closeness with their infants grows over time. As fathers spend more time and physical contact with their infants, they come to know them better and find reward in caregiving and play. More research is needed to clarify the usefulness of established paternal parenting programs; at the same time, dads require effective internal resources to help them cope. Lazarus and Folkman’s (1987) transactional theory helps us understand that emotion-focused coping and meaning-focused coping strategies are needed when individuals have little control to change their situation, which is the case when having a newborn baby. However, there is limited research outlining what internal strategies first-time fathers—or fathers at any stage—draw upon to cope. Mindful self-compassion is a specific tool and attitude towards suffering that involves treating yourself with the same compassion that you would offer a close friend who is suffering. Mindful self-compassion has demonstrated aptitude in regulating distressing emotions, improving psychological well-being, preventing postpartum mental health challenges, and decreasing stress in parenting (Guo et al., 2020; Neff, 2003a; Neff, 2023; Sirois et al., 2019). Although many quantitative parenting studies claim to be SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 5 about parents of both sexes, fathers only make up an average of 20% of the total sample (Cabrera et al., 2018; Psychogiou et al., 2016). Further, despite there being some evidence that a father’s increase in self-compassion impacts children differently than a mother’s increase in self-compassion (Psychogiou et al., 2016), there have been no qualitative studies to better understand how fathers experience self-compassion in general, especially in the perinatal period. Purpose of this Study This study aimed to understand the narratives of first-time fathers’ experiences during their child’s first year. I was interested in learning from the participants about how they managed the challenges of their first year postpartum and how they used self-compassion as a means of coping through the chronic stressors of having a baby. The research questions were: (1) How do first-time fathers cope with the challenges faced in the first year of their child’s life? and (2) How do first-time fathers experience self-compassion in the first year of their child’s life? For this study, I used the listening guide—a voice-centred, feminist, relational, qualitative method that focuses on bringing forward marginalized voices and honouring the participant as the expert of their experience (Gilligan et al., 2003; Gilligan, 2015). This method fits the current study as the relational and emotional lives of men, and fathers specifically, have been largely overlooked in the parenting literature and broader culture, given that relationality has traditionally been considered feminine or motherly (Chu, 2014). Research on father’s experience has more often focused on how many hours fathers spend taking care of children or how much money they contribute to the household, as examples, SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 6 rather than their emotional and relational contributions (Cole et al., 2022). Further, as culture and male socialization tend to limit men’s use of language in attuning to and describing emotions, the listening guide’s ability to pay attention to the intonation, cadences, rhythms, and silences of voice helped interpret participants’ narratives and capture more vulnerable emotional experiences. The listening guide also leads the researcher to embrace their own subjectivity regarding the co-constructed, inherently relational process of research, which fits as my personal experience has shaped the pursuit of this project. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter begins with a brief overview of how fatherhood and fatherhood involvement have been conceptualized in dominant Western culture to give context for the current research landscape of fatherhood and masculinity. This section is followed by an overview of well-supported literature on fathers’ transition to fatherhood, from pregnancy to one year postpartum, and a discussion of stress and coping. Finally, the benefits of selfcompassion are reviewed and discussed in the context of being an effective tool to help new fathers cope. Shifting Conceptualizations of Fathering Men have been fathers and a part of families since the beginning of time. As many Western societies have patriarchal structures, men’s working and leading roles have been assumed in Western culture and literature; however, research on their roles in the family and as a parent have been neglected (Adamsons et al., 2022). Research on fathers as significant parental figures first began in the 1970s (Adamsons et al., 2022). This was largely due to the higher divorce rate and debates around the value of sole maternal custody, which created an impetus for understanding how children were impacted by an absent father. Initial research conceptualized father involvement as financial contributions to their children’s care and literal time spent in the home, without any mention of emotional relationship or direct care (Molloy et al., 2022). This conceptualization reflected a rigid adherence to traditional masculinity ideology, a set of cultural norms of what a man should and should not be, the standards they strive to meet, and the criteria by which they feel judged (Levant, 1996; Molloy et al., 2022; Pleck, 1995). 7 SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 8 To understand how these gendered expectations influence fathering, it is useful to examine how masculinity itself has been defined in the literature. Brannon and David (1976) were among the first to attempt to define traditional masculinity ideology in the United States. They posited that there are four components to masculinity: Men should not be feminine (“no sissy stuff”), men should strive to be respected for successful achievement (“the big wheel”), men should never show weakness (“the sturdy oak”), and men should seek adventure and risk, even accepting violence if necessary (“give ‘em hell”). Since their conceptualization, researchers have developed and refined numerous measures to assess masculinity ideology (Thompson & Bennett, 2015). Through a review of 16 such measures used between 1995 to 2014, Thompson and Bennett (2015, 2017) found that the dominant standards of masculinity in Western cultures cluster into 10 categories: relational power, importance of work/breadwinning, being respected, primacy of avoiding femininity, control of emotionality, toughness/self-reliance, physical toughness/violence, risk-taking, (hetero)sexuality, and heterosexism. These beliefs collectively represent what is referred to in this study as traditional masculinity norms. The psychological construct of traditional masculinity norms is similar to the sociological construct of hegemonic masculinity, initiated by Connell and colleagues and largely used in Australian and European literature (Carrigan et al., 1985; Connell, 1982; Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005). Hegemonic masculinity refers to the dominant version of masculinity practice, in a specific culture, that functions to perpetuate masculine dominance over women and subjugated masculinities (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005). Hegemonic masculinity is not normal in the statistical sense but is instead viewed as the most esteemed SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 9 way of being a man; the closer the adherence, the more privilege afforded. Men tend to position themselves against some form of this unattainable standard and inevitably fall short (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005; Migliaccio, 2009). For the sake of simplicity, hegemonic masculinity and traditional masculinity norms will be used interchangeably in this document to refer to the list of traits and beliefs mentioned above, as outlined by Thompson and Bennett (2017), which constitute a common patriarchal masculine ideal privileged across broad Western culture (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005). Pleck (1981) identified that men and fathers who experienced a discrepancy between their own behaviour or personality and traditional masculinity norms experienced psychological strain that could result in stress, irritability, and even physical aggression. As a result, dads may feel conflicted about being more hands-on with their newborns or more emotionally engaged with their children, as doing so risks violating traditional gender role expectations. This is despite the abundance of evidence showing the destructive long-term consequences of rigid adherence to these masculinity norms (Levant & Pollack, 1995; Levant & Richmond, 2016). As the feminist movement brought more women into the workforce and society was re-evaluating gender roles, Lamb et al. (1985) published their pivotal work on a new conceptualization of paternal involvement that measured paternal engagement, accessibility, and responsibility. In 2010, Pleck conducted a synthesis of paternal involvement literature and updated Lamb et al.’s (1985) model to include three components: (a) positive engagement (e.g. helping or playing with their child), (b) warmth and responsiveness (e.g. showing affection), and (c) control (e.g. setting limits on television watching or who they can SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 10 spend time with), with two auxiliary domains of indirect care (e.g. making child-care arrangements), and process responsibility (e.g. noticing what is needed without being asked). Despite this updated conceptualization, the original framework (Lamb et al., 1985) remains the most widely used in quantitative father involvement literature, even though it excludes aspects of warmth or closeness with the child (Adamsons et al., 2022). There has been a more recent push in fatherhood literature to focus on what dads are specifically doing in the time that they spend with their children; for example, playing, reading, engaging in caregiving, and/or building emotional relationships with their children (Honikman & Singley, 2020; Molloy et al., 2022). This is influenced by the positive psychology-positive masculinity paradigm (PPPM; Kiselica et al., 2016; Kiselica & EnglarCarlson, 2010). To counterbalance the decades of research that have focused on deficits of the male and fathering experience, PPPM seeks to identify what men and fathers are doing right, such as recognizing the benefits of male relational styles, acknowledging male ways of caring, valuing male courage and risk-taking, appreciating the connecting use of humour, and highlighting how dads engage with their children in a way that helps the next generation thrive (i.e., “generative fatherhood”; Cochran, 2010; Cole & Patterson, 2022; Dollahite & Hawkins, 1998; Honikman & Singley, 2020; Molloy et al., 2022). This approach emphasizes various masculinities—acknowledging and inviting intersecting identities in men, and thus many ways of what it means to be a man and a father—rather than restricting men to one set of patriarchal masculine and paternal norms that police other expressions (Carrigan et al., 1985). SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 11 As the Western socio-cultural context has changed, so has our understanding of the multidimensional construct of fatherhood (Cole et al., 2021). No longer are fathers viewed simplistically as patriarchal economic providers and disciplinarians, but they have a more expansive intersection of roles that include active engagement, nurturance, presence, and support for their children. In line with Pleck’s (2010) updated model, Diniz et al.’s (2023) systematic review of qualitative studies highlighted that fathers emphasize the importance of engaging in the every-day activities of their children and sharing household responsibilities with their partner. For example, Summers et al. (2006) shared one dad’s perspective on fatherhood: Being there when [your children] need you, helping them when they get hurt, playing with them, having a good time with them, just showing them you’re a part of their life, and they can always be dependent on you to be there for them (p. 150). Although many fathers today invest in being more emotionally available for their children and more involved in household duties than their own fathers were, traditional masculinity norms continue to influence the experience of fatherhood (Segev, 2025). Despite intentions to be more involved and counter traditional masculinity roles, especially in households that prioritize both partners working full-time to meet economic demands, mothers still end up doing most of the household and childcare responsibilities (Borgkvist et al., 2020). Fathers face tensions between what they have grown up to learn what being a man and being a father mean (e.g. bread-winner, protector) and shifting cultural expectations to be more involved and more emotionally aware (Lewington et al., 2021; Segev, 2025). Many have not grown up with father figures that have modelled this for them, and it is rare to have SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 12 peer-dads in the same life stage for like-minded support (Ghaleiha et al., 2022; Roy, 2006; Williams, 2008). Fathers tend to go into the transition to fatherhood expecting themselves to be an actively involved dad, but they do not feel equipped to do this well (Diniz et al., 2023). Many dads struggle to navigate the balance between their work and home expectations and obligations, constantly facing a sense of incompetence and inadequacy. The transition to fatherhood is a particularly vulnerable time for dads where they must confront these tensions in new ways. Transitioning to Fatherhood Becoming a father can be one of the most fulfilling odysseys that a man can undertake. Perhaps this is because of the stress and turmoil that fathers move through in the transition to fatherhood and throughout their lifetime. Although men do experience positive moments of connection, joy, and meaning throughout their transition, it is also a time fraught with unexpected realities, identity challenges, role confusion, relationship upheaval, and a recurring sense of inadequacy (Baldwin et al., 2018; Molloy et al., 2022). After a 20-year gap without a published review of the literature on the psychological transition to fatherhood, Genesoni and Tallandini (2009) reviewed 32 qualitative studies from Westernized countries between 1989 and 2008 that spanned the perinatal period. Their findings provided an overview of the challenges that fathers face from pregnancy to one year postpartum. They found that the prenatal period was the most stressful and demanding period for first-time fathers as they began the process of reorganizing their identities and anticipating the kind of father they wanted to be, particularly compared to past fathering rolemodels in their lives. Although fathers expressed desire to be involved in pregnancy, they SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 13 often felt stressful ambivalence surrounding connection with their unborn child, powerlessness over the future, and instability in their relationship with their partner due to differing expectations. In the labour and delivery period, fathers felt unexpectedly helpless, vulnerable, unprepared, and out of place, despite their intention to be involved. Their child’s delivery and birth were the most emotionally turbulent period for fathers where they experienced wanting to flee while also experiencing pleasure and pride. Fathers’ negative experiences during childbirth predicted future depressive symptoms in the postnatal period. The year following an infant’s birth was the period that was most challenging and most influenced by environmental factors. From the moment of coming home from the hospital, fathers reported trouble managing the pressures of wanting to provide for their families financially while also wanting to be involved dads. First-time fathers experienced frustration that they could not spend more time with their babies, and they felt feelings of inadequacy and incompetence in caring for their infant. Although changes and challenges in the partner relationship were evident throughout the perinatal period, they were most salient in the postnatal period where fathers reported not being prepared for the relational deterioration that occurred as both partners coped with competing demands and expectations, exhaustion, and changes in their lifestyle and sexual relationship. In contrast to previous studies, Genesoni and Tallandini’s (2009) literature review highlighted the relatively new duality of expectations that fathers experience when providing both financial and emotional support to their infants and partners. The fathers represented in this review were reportedly ill-equipped to manage this tension of expectations and values— in that they did not change much about their work or social life and thus mothers tended to SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 14 continue to bear the childcare and household responsibilities. Genesoni and Tallandini only included studies with residential fathers who were in stable relationships with their partners to limit the variables involved, so the challenges reviewed may be different than those experiences by less traditional fathers, such as non-biological fathers (adoptive, step, or otherwise), adolescent fathers, or fathers in gay relationships. Of note, although some of the studies that were included involved positive aspects of fathers’ experiences and healthy ways of coping, these experiences were not articulated in the review (e.g., de Montigny & Lacharité, 2004; Hudson et al., 2003, Magill-Evans et al., 2007). Despite these limits, Genesoni and Tallandini set the stage for more researchers to dive deeper into understanding what it is like for men to become fathers for the first time. A more recent systematic review of the qualitative literature on first-time fathers’ experiences and needs reviewed 22 studies between 1990 and 2017 that included 341 fathers (Baldwin et al., 2018). The review intended to include biological and non-biological residential fathers; however, no studies that involved non-biological fathers were found. The authors synthesized 23 categories into seven key findings across the perinatal period: • New fatherhood identity: First-time fathers felt like having a baby was fulfilling their role as men, they recognized that they had to change priorities and responsibilities, and they worried about being a good dad and doing it right. • Competing challenges of new fatherhood: Fathers spoke of the difficulty of balancing work demands with time spent at home. They experienced relationship deterioration with their partner which included unexpected changes in their sexual relationship, SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 15 feeling helpless while their partner breastfed, and difficulty bonding with their baby, both during pregnancy and in the first few weeks after the birth. • Negative feelings and fears: Fathers had multiple fears relating to themselves, their partner, and their baby. They felt unprepared to know what to expect in each stage, and they often felt useless and excluded throughout the transition to fatherhood. • Stress and coping: Lifestyle restrictions and changes increased fathers’ stress levels throughout the transition leaving them feeling exhausted, irritable, and frustrated. Fathers tended to ignore the problems outright or cope by escaping into activity such as substance use, smoking, or listening to music. • Lack of support: Fathers lacked emotional and practical support from their work or social friends and reported a lack of acknowledgment by health professionals and a lack of resources specifically for them as fathers. • What new fathers want: Fathers resoundingly wanted more support and guidance in preparing to be a father for the first time and in preparation for how their relationship with their partner would change. Their suggestions included parenting groups with father-peers whom they could learn from, more support from pre-existing friendships and community, and making professional perinatal supports more father-friendly and father-inclusive. • Positive aspects of fatherhood: Many fathers who tried to be involved with their child described the experience as rewarding and many were able to adjust and change to build more confidence and mastery in the role, especially when they found ways to work well with their partners. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 16 The stresses mentioned above align with Philpott et al.’s (2017) quantitative systematic review which highlighted that stress levels in new dads increase over the perinatal period, peak at birth and the six weeks postpartum, and then decrease at six months and 12 months after birth. Stress remains a critical risk factor for the development of depression, anxiety, and psychological distress in new dads and contributes to decreased marital satisfaction (Cohen & Janicki-Deverts, 2012; Cohen et al., 2007; Kamalifard et al., 2014; Philpott et al., 2017). Although Genesoni and Tallandini’s (2009) and Baldwin et al.’s (2018) reviews provide rich qualitative information on the challenges that dads go through in their transition to fatherhood, there remains a gap in the literature on understanding how fathers adapt and cope through these stresses. Paternal Perinatal Mental Health Challenges Even though there has been more academic interest in recent decades on the experiences and interventions for mothers’ perinatal mood disorders, the father’s experience continues to be comparatively overlooked. Based on the most recent meta-analysis of 74 studies (over 40,000 participants across five continents), approximately 8.4% of fathers experience depression in the time between the first trimester of pregnancy and 12 months after birth, with the highest rates for fathers being between three and six months postpartum (Cameron et al., 2016; Paulson & Bazemore, 2010). The 8.4% prevalence increases to 13% if only looking at North American studies (Cameron et al., 2016). This rate increases up to 50% for fathers whose partners experience perinatal depression and, further, mothers who have partners with perinatal depression tend to experience a worsening of symptoms (Goodman, 2004; Molloy et al., 2022; Paulson & Bazemore, 2010 Paulson et al., 2016). Other risk SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 17 factors for postpartum depression in fathers include low income or low educational status, limited social support, exclusion from bonding with their baby, low parenting self-efficacy, marital distress, and a personal history of depression (Azzam et al., 2022, Bamishigbin et al., 2020; Chhabra et al., 2020; Goodman, 2004). A man’s chance of experiencing depression more than doubles once his partner is pregnant (8.4% perinatally vs. 3.8% outside of prenatal period; Cameron et al., 2016; Ferrari et al., 2013) and many of the risk factors researched are for biological dads with a healthy pregnancy and normal birth in a stable relationship, as demonstrated by qualitative work summarized above (e.g. limited social support, feeling excluded, and marital distress; Baldwin et al., 2018), let alone that which is experienced by fathers undergoing added stressors such as unplanned pregnancy, teen fatherhood, not living with their baby, or health complications for the baby or the baby’s mother. The perinatal period is also a time of higher risk for anxiety disorders in fathers. A recent meta-analysis with over 40,000 participants demonstrated a 10.69% prevalence in anxiety in fathers during the pre and postnatal periods, which is again more than double the global prevalence rates of anxiety in men in general (4.7%; Baxter et al., 2013; Leiferman et al., 2021). This is consistent with other reviews that depict a range between 3.4% and 25% prenatally and between 2.4% and 51% postnatally, which peaks at the time of birth and then slowly decreases over the first year of the infant’s life (Azzam et al., 2022; Leach et al., 2016; Philpott et al., 2019). Risk factors for paternal anxiety in the perinatal period include fatigue, health concerns for the father, mother, or child, witnessing birth trauma, and feelings of inadequacy (Leach et al., 2016). Dennis et al. (2022) looked at comorbidity of depression and anxiety in fathers up to two years postpartum and found that 22.4% of dads had SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 18 comorbid depression and anxiety in the first year and 13.2% of dads still had comorbid symptoms in the second year. Dennis et al. (2022 confirmed the risk factors mentioned above and added significant adverse childhood experiences, a positive Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder screen, and intimate partner violence. Rates for depression and anxiety in men are underrepresented as men tend to have differing symptoms than most women (Cochran & Rabinowitz, 2004). For example, instead of typical expressions of sadness or low mood in depression, men who are depressed report the inability to cry, numbness, and aggression and irritability (Azzam, et al., 2022). Similarly, men’s experiences of anxiety are often externalized in engagement with substance use, videogames, excessive reliance on work, or irritability instead of ruminating worry, which can lead to anxiety in men being under-diagnosed (Azzam et al., 2022; Psouni & Eichbichler, 2020). Traditional masculinity norms of stoicism, self-reliance, and avoiding emotional expression continue to contribute to men masking their experiences of depression and anxiety and making it difficult for them to seek and receive the support that they need. In a systematic review of new dads’ experiences of support in the perinatal period, Venning et al. (2021) found that most dads felt excluded and belittled by healthcare professionals and experienced stigma around seeking mental health support. Acknowledging the difficulties of fatherhood and admitting the need for help was felt as socially and culturally unacceptable for fathers. To manage the stresses of being a new dad, fathers reported that they attempted to cope on their own by staying active, getting out of the house, isolating, talking to their babies, or using drugs and alcohol more often. Baldwin et al., (2019) and Ghaleiha et al. (2022) also found that the first-time fathers they interviewed SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 19 tended to try to cope alone, not wanting to burden their partners with their stresses and not feeling comfortable to share deeply with colleagues or friends. All these authors conclude that more father-focused interventions are needed to help more dads get the support that they need in the way that they want it (e.g. online for flexible support, support groups for tailored support, more father-inclusive healthcare support). Although developing more effective external supports and actively normalizing fatherhood struggles will undoubtedly help fathers feel more equipped, which will contribute to their child’s development, there is also a need to better understand the ways that fathers are already coping. Most of these fathers that do not get the external support that they need still improve in their parenting confidence and find ways to get through the difficulty (Baldwin et al., 2019; Venning et al., 2021). There is a lack of research that explores the constructive internal measures that fathers take to move through the stresses of having a new baby. Stress and Coping Lazarus and Folkman’s (1987) transactional theory of stress and coping depicts stress as a complex bidirectional transaction between the individual and the environment whereby individuals are always appraising whether stimuli are threatening, challenging, or harmful in their environment and evaluating if they have the personal resources to meet the demands of those stressors (Biggs et al., 2017). When stressors infringe, the resulting distress engages coping strategies to manage emotions or change the stressor. Coping involves purposeful actions and exists in at least two categories: problem-focused or emotion-focused coping. Problem-focused coping often involves brainstorming solutions, learning new skills and acting on the environment or oneself to change the situation and emotion-focused coping SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 20 aims to change the way in which one attends to the stressor or change the “relational meaning of what is happening, which mitigates the stress even though the actual conditions of the relationship have not changed” (Lazarus, 1993, p. 238). Emotion-focused coping is often more effective when people feel they do not have much control over a situation. Traditional examples of emotion-focused coping would be giving others a generous interpretation of their hurtful words or making excuses for one’s hurtful behaviour to avoid the resulting difficult emotion. However, more recently, other researchers have demonstrated that emotion approaching strategies that involve identifying, understanding, and expressing emotions can be adaptive in managing stress and regulating emotion (Biggs et al., 2017; Linehan, 1993; Stanton et al., 1994). The theory was revised to include meaning-focused coping to make sense of experiences where individuals are faced with chronic, uncontrollable, and typically progressively worsening situations that they cannot problem solve through or emotionally regulate (Folkman, 2008; Lu et al., 2025; Park & Folkman, 1997). When problem-focused or emotion-focused coping failed to bring resolution, meaning-focused coping could be triggered to generate positive emotions and restore coping capacity (Folkman, 2008). In meaning-focused coping, people turn to their values, beliefs, and long-term goals as a guide for reshaping priorities, reframing ordinary events in meaningful ways, and reminding themselves of the growth that can accompany stressful times (Biggs et al., 2017; Folkman, 2008; Folkman & Moskowitz, 2007). Meaning-focused coping is most typically emotionfocused but can also be problem-focused (Biggs et al., 2017). SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 21 As the chronic stresses in the first year of having a new baby are mostly unchangeable, it follows that new parents would benefit from internal emotion-focused coping strategies and, at times, utilize meaning-focused coping to reorient priorities and make meaning from their suffering. One such emotion-focused and potentially meaningfocused strategy would be mindful self-compassion (Neff, 2003a). Self-compassion trains individuals to approach their own distressing emotion. It provides a way to change how the distress is tended to, changing the relational meaning of that stress through acknowledging the common humanity of suffering, thus regulating emotion and facilitating feelings of connection and equanimity (Neff, 2023). Self-compassion can also facilitate meaningfocused coping as compassion is itself an orienting value for many globally and inherent in supporting one’s own needs is connecting to one’s own core values (McGehee, et al., 2017). Mindful Self-Compassion To understand how self-compassion can be used as an emotion-focused and/or meaning-focused coping strategy, it is helpful to first understand what is involved in the concept of compassion itself (Neff, 2003a). Goetz et al (2010, p. 352) describes compassion as “the feeling that arises when witnessing another’s suffering and that motivates a subsequent desire to help.” To feel compassion, one must be sensitive to the suffering of another and be present with it, instead of avoiding or dismissing it. Compassion also involves a form of extending good will or care towards the other—not judging them for their failure or circumstance but accepting them as a fellow human being who also suffers (Gilbert, 2009; Neff, 2023). Drawing from Buddhist teachings, Neff (2003a) operationalized mindful self- SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 22 compassion for the purpose of being able to study it in Western psychology and posits that self-compassion is offering all the above aspects of compassion towards oneself: [Self-compassion] involves being touched by and open to one’s own suffering, not avoiding or disconnecting from it, generating the desire to alleviate one’s suffering and to heal oneself with kindness. Self-compassion also involves offering nonjudgmental understanding to one’s pain, inadequacies and failures, so that one’s experience is seen as part of the larger human experience. (p. 87) Neff (2003b) developed the self-compassion scale to measure overall self-compassion on a bipolar continuum from uncompassionate self-responding to compassionate selfresponding in moments of suffering, measured on three domains: (a) how people respond to suffering emotionally (e.g. self-kindness vs. self-judgement), (b) how people understand their difficulty cognitively (common humanity vs. isolation), and (c) how people give attention to their pain (mindfulness vs. overidentification; Neff, 2023). These three components of mindful self-compassion are further discussed below. Self-Kindness vs. Self-Judgement Most people would offer kindness to those close to them when they are having a hard time, whether in the form of warmth and understanding or a physical gesture like a hug or supportive touch (Neff, 2003a; Neff, 2023). Most people, however, also tend to respond to themselves more harshly and judgementally when life does not go as planned. With selfcompassion, the invitation is to acknowledge shortcomings and offer yourself the same level of understanding that you would a friend or a child. The warmth and acceptance felt by being SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 23 less hard on yourself can help calm the mind, validate your experience, and soothe distressing emotion (Neff, 2003a, 2023). Common Humanity vs. Isolation As it is with compassion for others, having compassion towards ourselves is about an interconnectedness of humanity—a togetherness rather than an otherness (Neff, 2003a; Neff, 2023; Strauss et al., 2016). Compassion, after all, comes from the Latin “compati” which means “to suffer together with” (Oxford English Dictionary, 2023). When we make mistakes or bad things happen to us, it is so easy to feel like we are the only ones this is happening to and that no one else could possibly struggle like we do. This irrational isolating of experience often leaves us feeling defective or abnormal and thus disconnected and alone. The aloneness is what makes suffering most unbearable. If we can realize instead that imperfection and struggles are part of the human experience and that others feel the same way, we can feel less alone and more connected to those around us, even amidst our suffering. Importantly, the common humanity component is what makes self-compassion different than self-pity. With self-pity, the one suffering is viewed as inferior, but with self-compassion, they are equal (Neff, 2003a, 2023). Mindfulness vs. Overidentification Before we can respond to our own pain, we need to see and acknowledge the pain as it is (Neff, 2003a). This is where mindfulness is key in practicing self-compassion. Mindfulness is being aware of the present moment without judgment (Neff, 2023; KabatZinn, 2015). This practice helps us acknowledge our pain without avoiding it or exaggerating it. If we resist the pain, it is so easy to be absorbed in pain, overidentifying with the negative SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 24 thoughts and feelings that we experience instead of being able to keep thoughts as thoughts and feelings as feelings. For example, when we overidentify with thoughts, making a mistake becomes “I am a mistake” and forgetting to take the garbage out becomes “I cannot do anything right” (Neff, 2023; Neff & Germer, 2018). If we can see our pain as it is, we can more effectively respond from a wise place of centredness and compassion. Benefits of Self-Compassion Since Neff’s (2003a) initial conceptualization 20 years ago, research on selfcompassion using Neff’s construct and scale (2003b) has grown significantly due to its accessibility and the widely demonstrated benefits for varying suffering populations in clinical, community, and clinical health populations (Ferrari, et al., 2019; Finlay-Jones, 2023; Neff, 2023). Self-compassion has been robustly linked to psychological well-being, as supported by cross-sectional and longitudinal experimental studies (Moreira, 2023; Neff, 2023; Zessin et al., 2015). Numerous meta-analyses have also indicated the negative relationship between self-compassion and mental health symptomology such as depression, anxiety, stress, and suicidal ideation, with moderate to large effect sizes (Ferrari et al., 2019; Hughes et al., 2021; MacBeth & Gumley, 2012; Marsh et al., 2018; Suh & Jeong, 2021; Neff, 2023). This correlation also stands longitudinally after 6 months (Stutts et al., 2018) and 5 years (Lee et al., 2021). The link with well-being and healthy functioning is not only significant for clinical populations, but also for those facing difficult life events such as infertility (Galhardo et al., 2013; Cunha et al., 2016), divorce (Sbarra et al., 2012), chronic pain (Wren et al., 2012), and diabetes (Ferrari et al., 2017). It follows that these benefits from increased self-compassion could also be found for fathers navigating the perinatal period. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 25 Self-Compassion and Parenting In describing her own experience of practicing self-compassion, Neff (2011) provides examples of how being compassionate towards herself helped her to manage her own emotions while responding to her child’s distress. By caring for herself in this way, she was better able to be sensitive to her son’s needs, and she noticed that her own practice influenced her son’s ability to be self-compassionate in the future. This anecdotal experience has been supported in studies that demonstrate that higher levels of self-compassion in parents have significant and negative correlations with parenting stress, negative emotional symptoms in parents such as depression and anxiety, child behaviour problems, authoritarian and passive parenting styles, and parental criticism towards their children (Beer et al., 2013; Ferrari et al., 2019; Gouveia et al., 2016; Jefferson et al., 2020; Moreira, 2023; Moreira et al., 2015; Mancini et al., 2023; Psychogiou et al., 2016). There is much research that demonstrates significant positive associations between self-compassion and parental well-being, parental self-efficacy (i.e. how parents perceive their ability to meet parenting demands), and relationship satisfaction and closeness between parents (Huynh et al., 2021; Liao et al., 2021; Mancini et al., 2023; Moreira, 2023). These benefits of self-compassion also hold true for parents who are in specific stressful contexts, such as parenting children with mental health problems (Shenaar-Golin et al., 2021), children with autism (Neff & Faso, 2015), children with intellectual disabilities (Robinson et al., 2017) and children with other special needs (Bazzano et al., 2013; Benn et al., 2012; Brown, 2019). Jefferson et al.’s (2020) recent quantitative meta-analysis on parenting selfcompassion reviewed 13 studies from 2003 to 2019 from various populations across clinical SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 26 and community samples: mothers in the perinatal period, parents with a history of depression, parents with children on the autistic spectrum, and mothers who were also healthcare workers. Their analysis indicated that self-compassion-based parenting interventions (e.g. Mindful Self Compassion program or Compassion Focused Therapy) significantly increased self-compassion in parents from pre- to post-intervention and that these effects were maintained upon follow up and even continued to increase over time. Selfcompassion interventions also improved depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms, stress symptoms and mindfulness scores in parents. The ability for parents to be self-compassionate can also impact their parent-child attachment (Lathren et al., 2020; Moreira, 2023). Several studies show that self-compassion is positively correlated with secure attachment and negatively associated with various insecure attachment styles (Beduna & Perrone-McGovern, 2019; Lathren et al., 2021; Neff & McGehee, 2010; Wei et al., 2011). This includes several studies with women in the perinatal period and their attachment to their unborn baby during pregnancy (Mohamadirizi & Kordi, 2016) and new baby after birth (Kordi & Mohamadirizi, 2018). Parents who are more compassionate towards themselves when they make mistakes tend to also be more accessible, responsive, and engaged with their children when their children are distressed, facilitating development of secure attachment. A child with secure attachment with their caregiver can more effectively regulate difficult emotions on their own in the future and become more selfcompassionate themselves (Psychogiou et al., 2016). Further, parents who have secure attachment with their own caregivers tend to have higher self-compassionate scores and then model that to their own children (Lathren et al., 2020). SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 27 Although there is growing quantitative literature on the use of self-compassion for parents, it is surprising to notice how frequently the term “parents” is used, as many studies that report participants as parents rarely include fathers (Cabrera et al., 2018). For example, in Jefferson et al.’s (2020) systematic review and meta-analysis on parenting selfcompassion, of the 13 studies included, eight included female participants only and five were about parents generally, but with up to 95% being female. In Lathren et al.’s (2021) quantitative scoping literature review on self-compassion and interpersonal relationships, they included 11 studies on parent self-compassion, parent-child relationship, and parenting behaviours, but only four studies included fathers. One of these had 26.1% fathers (Gouveia et al., 2016), another 21.5% fathers (Neff & Faso, 2015), another 44% fathers (Psychogiou et al., 2016), and in the fourth only 0.05% were fathers (Psychogiou et al., 2016). Further, none of the studies in the review looked at the relationship between self-compassion and paternal attachment. This demonstrates a gap in the self-compassion research of understanding how fathers experience and practice self-compassion and the impact this has on their children. There are only two studies on paternal attachment and self-compassion. Mancini et al. (2023) revealed that self-compassion, negative emotional symptoms, parenting stress, and parent self-efficacy accounted for 46.8% of the paternal attachment variance. They posit that selfcompassion has a meaningful role in father-child relationships through how it decreases depressive and anxiety symptoms and stress, which increases one’s belief that they can handle the current demands of parenting, which then facilitates stronger paternal attachment. Van Heerden et al. (2025) found that self-compassion in fathers was indirectly associated with father-child relationship quality (as measured by increased closeness and decreased SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 28 conflict), through the sequential variables of emotion regulation difficulties, loneliness, and psychological distress. As in, increasing a father’s ability to be compassionate towards himself increases their ability to regulate their emotions, which reduces loneliness and psychological distress, which in turn facilitates greater closeness and fewer conflicts with their child. Besides these two studies, there are no other quantitative or qualitative studies that address the father’s experience of self-compassion, or the experience of new fathers more specifically. Qualitative research lends itself well to this gap as it would allow for richer descriptions of the internal processes of new dads and more effectively understand each dad in their specific socio-cultural context. The Present Study The transition to fatherhood is a vulnerable time for men (Molloy et al., 2022). Many fathers go into this transition with plans of being a more involved dad than they grew up with but are faced with unexpected tensions of negotiating work demands and their desire to be home with their partners and babies, feeling useless and insignificant, relationship deterioration with their partner, and a sense of disconnection with their baby (Baldwin et al., 2018). Further, fathers often feel isolated from social support—they do not want to put extra burden on their partner with their own feelings, but they also do not have the close emotional relationships with other peer-fathers either (Genesoni & Tallendini, 2009). About 10% of fathers experience peripartum depression and up to 24% of fathers experience peripartum anxiety, with these numbers increasing if their child’s mother is also struggling with her mental health (Cameron et al., 2016; Leach et al., 2016). Most of the research on the perinatal period is focused on the deficits of fathers, or how fathers’ involvement supports SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 29 mothers and children’s development, however there is a lack of research that seeks to understand what fathers are doing right in this period and how they effectively cope with the natural stressors of becoming a father for the first time (Molloy et al., 2022). The benefits of practicing self-compassion in decreasing depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and stress and increasing psychological well-being in parents are widely established, however there has been no research to better understand what the experience of self-compassion is like for new fathers and how they might use it to cope (Moreira, 2023). The research questions I hope to answer are: 1) How do first-time fathers cope with the challenges faced in the first year of their child’s life? and 2) How do first-time fathers experience self-compassion in the first year of their child’s life? SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 30 CHAPTER 3: METHODS The purpose of this study was to hear the voices of new dads who have grown in their ability to be compassionate towards themselves in the first year of their child’s life. With the intention to understand participants’ subjective lived experiences, qualitative research was chosen as an appropriate method of study (Gergen, 2010; Morrow, 2005). Qualitative research allowed for diverse experiences of fathering to be explored, honouring the intersectional and culturally contextualized nature of gender and being a parent (Cochran, 2010; Gergen, 2010). Further, because the emotional and relational aspects of fathering have been largely overlooked in the literature and self-compassion is often viewed as counter to dominant masculine ideology, I determined that a qualitative method was necessary to capture the lost or silenced voices within the participant’s individual experience. The listening guide did this specifically, while also highlighting how these voices related to broader dominant cultural patterns (Gilligan, et al., 2003). This chapter outlines the research paradigm underlying the present qualitative study, my own implicated experience as the researcher, and the details of the research design, including the method, participants selected, data collection, data analysis, and methodological rigour. Research Paradigm When conducting qualitative research, it was important to situate the research within a specific paradigm to enhance its trustworthiness and appropriately frame results (Morrow, 2005; Ponterotto, 2005). Filstead (1979) defines a paradigm as a “set of interrelated assumptions about the social world which provides a philosophical and conceptual framework for the organized study of that world” (p. 34). The research paradigm affected all SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 31 parts of the research study, including the research questions asked, methods chosen, data collection, data analysis and subsequent implications (Morrow, 2005; Ponterotto, 2005). As a researcher, I positioned myself within the constructivist paradigm with a feminist lens. The feminist lens was intended to fine-tune aspects of constructivism. As there are various positions and viewpoints amongst constructivist and feminist writers (Burr, 2024; Mertens, 2023), I specifically aligned myself with the social constructionist writings of Kenneth Gergen (1985, 1998, 2001; Gergen & Gergen, 1991) and the feminist writings of Carol Gilligan (1977, 1982; Brown & Gilligan, 1993). The remainder of this section outlines the combination of these two perspectives and how they influence the present study. Social Constructionism Gergen’s (1973) paper, “Social Psychology as History,” is viewed as initiating social constructionism in the field of psychology (Burr, 2024). Gergen’s work emerged in the context of postmodernism and served as a push-back against the dominant positivist orientation in psychology. Postmodernism rejects the positivist assumptions that there is objectively knowable truth and that the world, as seen by humans, constitutes a single true reality (Burr, 2024; Ponterotto, 2005). Epistemologically, Gergen’s (1985, 1998, 2001) social constructionism posits that knowledge is co-constructed and sustained through social processes. Ways of understanding the world come through interaction with other people—both past and present—and are only mediated by the lens of shared language (Burr, 2024; Gergen, 1985; Willig, 2012; Young & Collin, 2004). Language is “not viewed as the external expression of the speaker’s internal processes (such as cognition, intention), but as an expression of relationships among persons” SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 32 (Gergen & Gergen, 1991, p. 78). This emphasis on meanings generated by social processes is one of the core tenets that distinguishes social constructionism from constructivism (Chiari & Nuzzo, 1996; Burr, 2024). Given the social action of language, knowledge is thus historically and culturally specific. Gergen’s (1985, 1998, 2001) relativist epistemology leads to the ontological notion that internalized historically and culturally bound social discourse constructs one’s reality, ensuing that multiple socially constructed versions of reality exist, each with equal validity and fluid in nature (Burr, 2024; Morrow, 2007; Shotter, 2014). Slife (2004) calls this relational ontology, where “things are not first self-contained entities and then interactive. Each thing, including each person, is first and always a nexus of relations…all things are ontologically related to their context and can qualitatively change as their contexts change” (p. 159). From a social constructionist perspective, the researcher has equal status with participants (Burr, 2024; Gergen 1998, 2001). The axiological understanding is that the researcher’s values are considered inseparable from the knowledge and reality co-constructed between researcher and participant (Morrow, 2007). As a co-constructor of meaning, the researcher’s self becomes integral to all parts of the research process, including formulation, data collection, analysis, and interpretation. This requires the researcher to embrace their own subjectivity and make their implicit political and personal values and assumptions explicit— to themselves and others—prior to conducting research and fluidly throughout the process (Morrow, 2007). SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 33 In the present study, the above paradigmatic assumptions played out in how the content that is created through the interview process is viewed. Each participant’s response was understood as a unique co-construction that took place because of the specific participant talking with the specific researcher within their specific context. Their words did not directly represent some objective truth of their internal experience, but rather one version of their experience that was embedded in culture and the specific social dynamics of the interview. For example, in my study, I asked questions in semi-structured interviews, however, within this paradigm, it was expected that each interview would be different, honouring the unique combination of the researcher and the specific participant. I attuned to the participant and our dynamic, thus adjusting questions and prompts to follow the participant’s discourse and embrace my own contribution to the created content. Embracing subjectivity required the researcher to provide rich descriptions of their interview experiences and of themselves, both as a researcher and as a person. Who the researcher is and how they engaged with the participant directly influenced any knowledge being created. In this study, I explicitly discussed my role as the researcher (see page 33), and I took consistent notes throughout the process regarding my rapport with each participant and my impressions of the interview dynamics. The socially constructed views of knowledge and reality also had implications for the transferability of this study. Within this paradigm, results were not intended to be generalized to all first-time fathers, or even all first-time fathers with shared demographic information (Morrow, 2005). The results of this study only aim to provide this researcher’s interpretation of the discussed experience of each specific participant. The judgement of transferability SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 34 rests with the reader, who determines how the present research does or does not relate to other people (Morrow, 2005). Further, the axiological assumption of equality between researcher and participant allowed the researcher to disclose some of their experience to the participants for the sake of rapport building (Yost & Chmielewski, 2012). I utilized this technique in a general and brief way by outlining to the participants at the beginning of the interview that I am interested in this research because of my own personal experiences of struggling as a new dad in the postpartum period. As this study aimed to understand silenced voices in fathers, particularly those that were self-compassionate, there was an assumption that someone or something was the silencer, and someone was the silenced. The silencer’s perspective has thus been reframed considering the silenced experience. This goes against traditional social constructionism because the research did not value each socially constructed reality as equal, but rather, it placed greater truth on the subjective reality of the silenced voice, and it assumed that an outside force did exist. Below I explain my use of a feminist lens to make sense of this moderate relativism and to highlight the important shared paradigmatic assumptions with social constructionism. Feminist Lens Gilligan’s (1977, 1982) work is critical of traditional psychological inquiry and, more specifically, of classic theories of personality, motivation, and morality, which were developed by men using only male subjects. The point of this critique is not about the biological sex of those involved; rather, Gilligan critiques the dominant cultural and patriarchal value system of separateness, rational action, and control, which was taken as SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 35 truth and aligns with the values of hegemonic masculinity (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005; Gilligan, 1977, 1982). This hegemonic perspective diminishes values traditionally viewed as feminine, such as connectedness, emotionality, and vulnerability, regardless of biological sex (Beyer, 2016; Shames-Dawson et al., 2025). As discussed in the preceding literature review, patriarchy and traditional masculinity ideology elevate some men over others and all men over women, silencing aspects of lived experience across genders and contributing to harmful effects on psychological well-being (Brooks & Elder, 2016; Levant & Richmond, 2016; Pleck, 1995; Shames-Dawson et al., 2025). This feminist lens adjusted the relativist dial of social constructionism away from radical relativism and towards a more moderate ontological relativism, as outlined by Willig (2012). This moderate relativism emphasizes the historically and culturally contextual notions of social constructionism, giving space to a reality that pre-exists and that affects how people construct meaning (Burr, 2024; Gergen, 1985; Willig, 2012). This allowed the research to connect the specific localized discourses studied to the wider sociocultural patriarchal Western context. Compared to radical relativist social constructionism, Willig (2012) explains that moderate relativist social constructionist research is “more concerned with the ways in which available discourses can constrain and limit what can be said or done within particular contexts” (p. 16). This was important for my study because although there have been general shifts in how fatherhood is understood and enacted, the sociopolitical context in which fathers find themselves in is in a Western culture that has idealized fathers for generations that are aligned with traditional masculinity ideology (Molloy et al., 2022; Diniz, 2023). This has SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 36 outcasted experiences of compassion, relational interdependence, and emotional vulnerability, as examples, from fatherhood identity (Lewington et al., 2021; Thompson & Bennett, 2015). A feminist lens allows the reality of this pressure to exist and does not ignore the decades of history that both adaptively and maladaptively esteemed traditional Western masculinity ideology (see Kimmel, 2006 for a review; Levant & Richmond, 2016), silencing, in often brutal ways, the voices of women, but also the experiences of men and fathers that did not fit the hegemonic standard. Integrating a feminist lens also stressed the relational nature of the research (Gilligan, 1977, 1982). Akin to social constructionism’s axiological assumptions (Burr, 2024; Gergen 1998, 2001; Morrow, 2007), feminist scholarship suggests that the researcher’s social, political, cultural, and intellectual assumptions and values become a part of the coconstruction of research (Gilligan, 1982; Mertens, 2023; Yost & Chmielewski, 2012). In this sense, the relationship between researcher and participant is integral to the research process. This involves the feminist researcher embracing their own subjectivity and using it as a tool within the research (McHugh, 2020). It also encouraged the researcher to engage with consistent practices of reflexivity to deconstruct their own experience and perception while not inadvertently transgressing the very hierarchy that they are attempting to expose. In-line with this view, I disclosed how my personal experience connects to the research topic and outlined other details about myself, as the principal researcher, that will inevitably influence the knowledge and reality that is co-created in the research process. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 37 The Implicated Researcher In the introduction to this project, I discussed some of my experiences as a new dad who struggled in the postpartum period of my first child and yet I also experienced selfcompassion as a helpful tool to move through the challenges. I was surprised by how little education there was to help expectant and new fathers prepare and how little other new dads would acknowledge the difficulty. I wanted to find a way to hear how other new dads effectively coped through this period and thus the idea for this study was birthed. My experience as a new dad directly impacted the initiation and research design of this study. As a nurturing, relationally oriented boy growing up, I often felt my experiences did not fit in with what I was supposed to be as a boy amongst my male peers. Like many other boys (see Chu & Gilligan, 2014 regarding a study on boys’ development and socialization in kindergarten and first grade), the expressive and compassionate parts of me have felt silenced throughout my life amidst a patriarchal culture that prioritizes self-reliance, toughness, and stoicism. Although I had grown in my self-confidence in the way that I am as a man and I have settled into my own egalitarian values regarding gender roles, I felt this pressure to never show weakness and never need help as a new father. I found it difficult to be vulnerable with other dads about how I was doing and feeling and there was this expectation from others for me to be a rock for my partner and baby, without acknowledging the difficult emotions I was feeling. Further, as I began to discuss self-compassion with other new dads, I experienced push-back and invalidation. There seemed to be a shared myth that the way you get through as a new dad is by toughing it out, weathering the storm, so to speak, with brute strength. I shared this experience to demonstrate how my personal experiences have led me SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 38 towards a feminist, relational methodology that considers the socio-cultural context that fathers find themselves in. It was also important to be aware of my own privilege and power position within this study. I am a straight, cisgender, non-disabled, second-generation Chilean settler with mixed Hungarian and British ancestry who is 32 years old. My mother was born in Viña del Mar, Chile and fled to Canada as a child with her family after the Chilean coup in 1973. My father was born in Vancouver, Canada and his father fled to Canada from Hungary after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, and my father’s mother immigrated to Canada from England on her own for non-political reasons around the same time. My close ancestors’ experiences of oppression have impacted my upbringing and yet have also protected me from oppression myself. I shared this personal background to situate myself as a multiracial, yet Whitepassing, man and father. I have also completed a Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology degree, and I currently work part-time for a local health authority while also running my own small private practice as a Registered Clinical Counsellor. My wife and I have two biological daughters, a three-year-old and a one-year-old. We have not experienced significant health complications in pregnancies, births, or early childhood development thus far. We owned our home, and we had the privilege of being able to afford for both of us to work less than fulltime, as we constantly negotiate our own work and home roles in a way that fits our shared values. This was all important to be aware of as I interviewed fathers of diverse backgrounds and intersectional identities with more and less privilege than myself. The dialogue that was created in our interviews was a result of the specific dynamic between them and me. Although the aim was to minimize social power and honour participants as the experts of SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 39 their own experience, I acknowledged my power as a White-passing, educated researcher who got to decide who I interviewed, what questions I asked and what direction I took the interview. Research Method Rationale for Using a Narrative Interview As people, and fathers specifically, tend to talk about their lives in the form of stories, I chose to conduct semi-structured interviews with a narrative framework (Fraser, 2004). Asking participants about their experiences in a narrative format supported them to communicate in a casual, conversational, and contextualized way, while also valuing what was not spoken. The interview was guided by a set of research questions that invited participants to take the lead in telling their story while paying attention to the who, what, when, where, and why of their experience. This style welcomed the circular or overlapping style of conversation that is natural for participants, understanding that the process is valuable. As Fraser (2004) articulates, a narrative method fits the constructivist and feminist paradigms well, as it considers the socio-political-historical contexts of participants’ lives, values reflexivity, aims to democratize the specific relationship between researcher and participant, and honours the participants as the experts of their own experience. Rationale for Using the Listening Guide The listening guide is a voice-centred, relational, feminist, qualitative analysis method developed by Gilligan and colleagues (Brown & Gilligan, 1991, 1993, Gilligan et al, 2003; Gilligan, 2015) in the wake of Gilligan’s work on morality development and identity (Gilligan, 1982). Although originally developed for use with women (Gilligan, 1977, 1982), SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 40 Gilligan et al. (2003) posit that “because every person has a voice or a way of speaking or communicating that renders the silent and invisible inner world audible or visible to another, the method is universal in application” (p. 157). The theory of voice is central to the method; instead of coding content themes, the listening guide supports the researcher to pay attention to the “collectivity of different voices that compose the [speaking] voice of any given person” (Gilligan et al., 2003). Different voices within a participant’s story can be identified by attuning to the intonation, cadences, rhythms, silences, emotion, and relationship that is embodied in what is being spoken (Shames-Dawson et al., 2025). Each structured step is called a “listening” instead of a reading to highlight how the researcher plays an active role in hearing and interpreting what is said, noting their resonances with the narrative along the way (Gilligan et al., 2003). The listening guide is a method that brings forward marginalized voices, honours the participant as the expert of their experience, and leads the researcher to embrace their subjectivity regarding the co-constructed, inherently relational process of qualitative research. By specifically attuning to the polyphonic voices represented in the participants’ narratives, and the voices’ relationship with context and with each other, the listening guide captured the intense relationality apparent in the participants’ construction of their experience (Brown & Gilligan, 1993; Gilligan et al., 2003). This relationality is core to both social constructionist and feminist research. Further, this inherent relational aspect of human experience has been largely overlooked and marginalized in research with men and fathers, as the relational view has been traditionally viewed as feminine (Adamsons et al., 2022; Chu & Gilligan, 2014). As Sorsoli and Tolman (2008) observe, the listening guide requires the SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 41 researcher to “listen under parts of a narrative with an ear to how marginalized and oppressed people negotiate their lives on the flip-sides of power…. [the listening guide] is often [used] in regard to experiences that are the most complicated, taboo, or awkward to share with others” (p. 498). As discussed in the literature review, fathers’ experiences that are counter to traditional masculinity ideology gender norms and which are more in-line with Pleck’s (1981) understanding of involved fatherhood (e.g. emotional vulnerability, compassion for self and others, de-prioritizing work) are still underrepresented in the research, systemically unsupported in the workplace, and they often create gender role strain in many fathers’ lives (Adamsons et al., 2022; Honikman & Singley, 2020). Although the experience of felt inadequacy and general difficulty in the postpartum period is a part of every father’s experience in some way, it seems that a cultural taboo exists to not discuss it with other men (Migliaccio, 2009; Smith et al., 2019). Acknowledging the need to seek help or discuss emotional and relational ways of coping remains a socially unacceptable topic to discuss amongst fathers as vulnerability may be felt as weakness, and weakness is considered a failure in the lives of many men (Baldwin et al, 2019; Molloy et al., 2022). In this regard, the listening guide is a fitting method to investigate the marginalized, counter-cultural emotional experiences of male participants. As culture and socialized gender expectations also tend to limit the use of language in attuning to and describing emotions, the listening guide’s ability to pay attention to the intonation, cadences, rhythms, and silences of voice will help to more robustly interpret participants’ narratives and appreciate the polyphonic voice’s relationship SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 42 with the broader patriarchal culture (Affleck et al., 2012; Gilligan, 2015; Gilligan et al., 2003; Ohlmann et al., 2016). Steps of the Listening Guide As Gilligan (Gilligan et al., 2003; Gilligan, 2015) emphasizes that the listening guide is meant to be a guide and not an instruction manual, her and her colleagues provide four steps to follow, with the details of steps three and four giving more freedom for researchers (Brown & Gilligan, 1993; Doucet & Mauthner, 2008; Ohlmann, Kwee, & Lees, 2016). Multiple listenings of the transcribed interview are at the core of the method, focusing on different aspects each time. Gilligan suggests no fewer than four listenings per interview data set. Data analysis using the listening guide is also intended to be done in relationship, having at least one co-researcher to unpack and dialogue various realities of resonances, dissonances, and interpretations of the data. The first step is listening for the plot. Here, researchers are attuned to what story the participant is telling, paying special attention to questions like who, when, where, why, and with whom the narrative is about. Researchers are to note if there are any repeating words, metaphors, gaps or edits in the story, changes in the point of view from which the story is told, etc. Also, researchers reflect on what larger contexts might impact what is being said, what are the details of the specific researcher-participant context in which the narrative is being shared? Once these details are noted, each member of the research team listening is to write approximately a paragraph to record their impression of what was happening in the plot. These would be compared with other members’ summaries. Lastly, each co-researcher needs to reflect on what parts they experienced emotional resonance with and what parts they SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 43 felt disconnected from, along with reflections of why this may be and how the researchers’ subjective responses might influence their understanding of the participant’s narrative. These should be talked through amongst the research team and individually written down for future reference. The second step is about constructing I poems. As the research team goes through a second listening of the data, they listen for how the speaker speaks and thinks about themselves. This is operationalized by (a) underlining every “I” word in the data set, along with the accompanying verb and any other especially important adjacent words and (b) placing each short phrase on a separate line, like a poem, maintaining the chronological order of appearance. These poems will begin to form natural stanzas where the topic or meaning shift in speech. Gilligan and her colleagues (Gilligan, et al., 2003) specify that it is crucial to pay attention to the participant’s own voice, in its cadences and rhythms, and how they understand themselves on their own terms before analyzing the various voices within; This brings the researchers into direct embodied relationship with each participant, eschewing traditional research methods. Listening for contrapuntal voices is the third step of the listening guide. Contrapuntal comes from the musical term ‘counterpoint,’ where there are at least two different melodic lines happening at the same time. In this third and fourth listening, researchers begin to identify various voices that they have heard throughout the listenings. These voices relate specifically to the original research question. It is also important to pay attention to how these voices interweave amongst each other. Are they complementary or discordant? Does one silence the other? As the researchers engaged with the transcripts, they highlighted words and SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 44 phrases with a distinct colour per voice and recorded their interpretations of these phrases. This left a clear trail of evidence of how voices emerged in the data. Also in this step, researchers paid attention to the “ways in which institutionalized restraints and cultural norms and values…become moral voices that silence voices, constrain the expression of feelings and thoughts and consequently narrow relationships” (Brown & Gilligan, 1993, p. 16). In the fourth step, I composed an analysis. Again, this step is only done after at least four listenings of the data set, documenting colour-coded underlining, memos, and summaries for each listening. The researchers compiled all their work from steps one through three to represent the participant’s experience in an overarching narrative. Participants Participant Demographics The focus of this study is on Canadian fathers who have at least one child who is at least one year old. This study was open to all kinds of fathers including stepfathers and adoptive fathers, but only biological fathers expressed interest and participated. Selfidentified demographics of participants are presented in Table 1 below. Table 1 Self-Identified Participant Demographics Participant Chosen Number pseudonym Age Gender Sexual orientation Ethnic identity Relationship Children status (ages) White/ 1 John 36 Male Straight European Married Canadian 2 Kabir 35 Male Straight 3 James 34 Male Straight 4 Ryan 53 Male Straight South Asian Canadian East Asian Canadian White/ European Canadian Married Married Single, divorced White/ 5 Fox 35 Male Straight European Canadian 6 Paris 37 Male Straight Southeast Asian Canadian White/ 7 Peter 31 Male Straight European Married Canadian White/ 8 Mark 35 Male Straight European Canadian Married Population education centre Natural Areas Boy (3 Supervisor months) full-time Girl (3) Actuarial Manager Undergraduate Girl (1) full-time degree Youth Pastor Undergraduate full-time degree Girl (2) Girl (4) Boy (3 months) Married Highest level of Boy (3) Boy (2) Married Employment On Persons with Disability Undergraduate diploma Grade 10 Engineer Undergraduate full-time degree Boy (4) Fire Protection Boy (2) Technician Girl (unborn) full-time Boy (1) Communications Girl (4 & Media months) full-time Boy (6) Counsellor Graduate Boy (2) full-time degree Trades Apprenticeship Undergraduate degree Urban Urban Urban Urban Rural Urban Rural Urban Household income Between $100,000 & $200,000 Between $100,000 & $200,000 Between $100,000 & $200,000 Less than $30,000 Between $100,000 & $200,000 Between $100,000 & $200,000 Between $30,000 & $50,000 Between $100,000 & $200,000 SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 46 Sampling and Recruitment Recruitment for this research project was advertised through purposive sampling and snowball sampling (Mertens, 2023; Morrow, 2005). I distributed the Research Ethics Board approved poster (see Appendix E for a draft) to colleagues and friends in the community, asking them to pass on the information to individuals they think would fit the criteria and might be interested in participating. I also circulated a poster on my personal social media platforms. It was my intention to recruit for as much diversity as possible, in ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and marital status. To do this I engaged in specific recruitment strategies (Deneault et al., 2025) including using posters that demonstrated the involved fatherhood of a Black man (Appendix E) and I specifically mentioned the invitation of Black, Indigenous, Multiracial, and other People of Colour to participate. I also reached out to several dad support groups at local non-profit organizations that specifically support low-income dads as well as parent and baby community groups (e.g. Baby Time and Story Time at local public libraries). For some, I presented my research in-person to their groups, and for others, they put up a physical poster for me. The posters indicated the criteria that participants must meet, thus making it criterion-based purposeful sampling (Morrow, 2005). All marketing directed potential participants to complete a Survey Monkey screening questionnaire (Appendix B) online or contact the principal researcher, myself, via email, after which I sent them the screening questionnaire to assess if they were a good fit for the study. If they were a good fit for the study, I emailed them to schedule a virtual interview and I emailed links for them to complete an informed consent form and a demographic form online prior to the interview. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 47 There is no consensus for how many participants are needed to objectively deem qualitative research as valuable and Gilligan does not specify a desired number for her listening guide method (Morrow, 2005; Thorne, 2016). Despite this observation, the present study interviewed eight participants, as is typical of qualitative studies (Mertens, 2023). This is consistent with other studies utilizing the same method in the same length of time (Chan, 2017; Brown, 2019; Ohlmann, Kwee, & Lees, 2016). As outlined by Patton (1990), “validity, meaningfulness, and insights generated from qualitative inquiry have more to do with the information-richness of the cases selected and the observational/analytical capabilities of the researcher than with sample size.” The richness of fewer interviews will increase the study’s rigour as further explained below (Morrow, 2005). Further rationale for the number of participants came from Malterud et al.’s (2021) discussion on information power. They suggest that sample size is determined based on how five categories impact a study’s information power: narrowness of study aim, sample specificity, use of established theory, quality of research-participant dialogue, and sample variation. The present study has a broader aim of understanding new fathers’ experiences of self-compassion, rather than a specific demographic of new fathers, which contribute to the need for a larger sample size. There was also recruitment strategies in place to enlist a more diverse sample which would also indicate a larger sample size. The remaining categories lean towards a smaller sample size. There is high specificity with interviewing new fathers who identify as having grown in their experience of self-compassion and the study has an established theoretical background, particularly involving self-compassion. Regarding quality of research-participant dialogue, the research design provides opportunity for SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 48 relationships to form and trust to be built with the participants which would likely contribute to richer narratives, and the interview guide will support a more focused dialogue. With each of these components in mind, this research design has a mid to high information power. The mid-range of six to 10 participants was chosen to lean towards a smaller number but offer the opportunity to increase sample size depending on the actual quality of interview data and the diversity that emerges through purposive and snowball sampling. As Malterud et al. (2021) suggest, it is important not to pre-determine a specific number of participants for qualitative research, but rather, be able to adjust the total number based on the study’s information power as it develops. During the process of recruitment, I capped the participants at eight due to the quality of interviews I was getting. Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria Participants were selected from those who contacted the principal researcher with interest and passed the screening questionnaire. Inclusion criteria for selection include: (a) 19 years of age or older; (b) self-identifies as a father (c) has at least one child who is at least one year old (d) identifies with having improved in their ability to be compassionate towards themselves, and (e) willing and able to share about their journey as a dad throughout their first child’s first year of life. The intention was to screen out candidates who (a) did not speak English fluently or (b) had experienced self-harm or suicidal thoughts or behaviours in the last month or c) had current impairing psychotic symptoms, but all those that reached out to participate denied these three criteria. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 49 Informed Consent and Confidentiality Prior to participating in the study, all participants read and digitally signed the informed consent form through Survey Monkey (see Appendix I). In addition to this signing, the informed consent contents were reiterated at the start of the interview and participants were reminded that they have the freedom to leave the interview any point as “informed consent [is] an ongoing, mutually negotiated process rather than…a single event” (Haverkamp, 2005, p. 154). All written data was kept in a locked filing cabinet either at Trinity Western University or in my home, or the files were on my person during transport to a secure location. All audio and video files were electronic and stored on an encrypted location in the cloud (e.g., Trinity Western University’s OneDrive). All data will be destroyed (electronic files will be permanently deleted and paper files will be shredded) upon completion of this study. As the principal researcher, I am responsible for data monitoring, analysis, and disposal. My supervisor and myself are the only individuals with access to documentation linking the participant’s legal names with their data. To uphold anonymity but maintain their humanity, participants provided a pseudonym of their choosing to act as their identifying name on all data analysis documents. Data Collection Interviews Online interviews took place over Zoom video or in-person in Langley, British Columbia and lasted between 45 and 75 minutes. Participants completed a demographics form (see Appendix C) beforehand to better contextualize their responses. I used a semistructured interview format, allowing me to use a set list of questions as a guide (see SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 50 Appendix D) while still following the lead of the participant (Gilligan, 1982; Gilligan et al., 2003). I used prompts and clarifying questions to ensure richness of the interview content. After the initial virtual interview was completed, participants were verbally debriefed and provided a written handout that included reduced-cost counselling and support resources in the community (see Appendix H and J). At the end of the interview I thanked participants for their time and reminded them that I would contact them in the future to set up the final 30 minute member check over the phone to go over the results of the study and get any feedback regarding the results and their experience in the study (Yost & Chmielewski, 2012; See Appendix G for follow-up interview guide). I also arranged giving them a $25 gift card to anywhere of their choice as an honorarium for their time. The initial interview’s transcript was used as data for analysis. Reflexive Journals As indicated in the listening guide steps, the research team documented their thoughts, resonances, and impressions throughout the analysis process. I journalled about my subjective experience just prior to each interview as well as my impression of the participant and their responses post-interview. All my notes are referenced as data and were used to help with data analysis. Data Analysis Research Team Approach The listening guide necessitates that data analysis is completed collaboratively amongst a team of researchers (Gilligan et al., 2003). I had a team of five research assistants completing the analysis with me. All these assistants were counselling psychology or SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 51 marriage and family therapy students or recent graduates of these programs. For each participant’s four steps of the listening guide, I worked with one other research assistant on the listenings together. We completed the first three steps individually and then came together to compare, contrast, and synthesize. The specific group of two remained the same throughout the duration of the analysis for a single participant’s interview. In this duo, each co-researcher brought their own resonances and interpretations to the data analysis process, enriching it and creating a deeper overall representation of the participant’s narrative. To ensure that each co-researcher was aligned on how to operationally carry out the listening guide method, I introduced the listening guide to each research assistant individually beforehand. All members of the research team signed a confidentiality agreement form (see Appendix A). Transcription All interviews were digitally transcribed by Temi.com and then audited by myself, the principal researcher, for accuracy. This was to increase my own immersion in the data. The act of transcription is an act of interpretation, as the transcriber needs to discern what pieces of sound to include or not include in the document. Further, as the auditor, hearing the interviews back for the first time moved me in a unique way which then influenced subsequent data analysis. Thus, it was necessary that I, the principal researcher, conduct the auditing of transcriptions to ensure that accurate data was then transferred to the rest of the research process. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 52 Coding The transcripts were analyzed and coded by the research team, following the specific steps of the listening guide (Gilligan, et al., 2003). Each metaphorical voice within the participant’s telling of their story was coded with a different colour on the digital transcript, allowing the researchers to track the movements of each voice and its relationship with other voices. The names of each voice were discussed and agreed upon collaboratively. Research assistants were asked to document their own resonances and dissonances with the participant’s narrative and differences amongst the research team in interpretation and coding were dialogued until consensus was reached. Member Checks After the coding of a transcript was complete, I wrote up a summary of the voices that emerged and scheduled a 30-minute member check interview with the participants either over Microsoft Teams video or over the phone. We discussed the written findings, I invited them to give feedback on how well it represented their story, and we debriefed their experience of the interview process. Participants were given an opportunity to consent to having a copy of the entire thesis document emailed to them once it was finalized. Of the eight participants, seven responded to the follow-up request and completed a member check interview; the remaining participant initially agreed to coordinate follow-up but was subsequently lost to contact. He was sent an email with preliminary findings and was invited to email back if he had any questions or feedback. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 53 Methodological Rigour To assess for methodological rigour, I chose to use Morrow’s (2005) general criteria for trustworthiness for constructionist, qualitative research, which have mostly been borrowed from Guba and Lincoln (1989, 1994). These are fairness, ontological authenticity, educative authenticity, catalytic authenticity, and verstehen. Fairness is the idea that different constructions should be inquired of and that they should be fairly and validly represented. Within the methodology of this study, each participant’s response was treated as equal to the others, with the same procedures outlined for all. Conducting member checks with the participants regarding the summary of their data increased rigour in this way as it deepened the assurance that the participants’ voices were represented fairly, and that the researcher’s voice did not take over representation. Ontological authenticity requires that participants’ understandings of their own constructions be improved. This took place in the interview itself, where participants coconstructed knowledge with the researcher. Having the researcher, a live person, engage with them allowed the participants’ understandings to be moved and enhanced by the sharing of that space. In the member check interview, participants confirmed that they gained an increased understanding of themselves and their story by participating in the study. Educative authenticity posits that participants’ appreciation for others’ constructions be improved. This happened when the results were shared with the participants, and they were able to see how their contribution related to the other constructions. Naturally there were connections and resonances between the accounts, providing participants with a greater appreciation for the constructions of other participants. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 54 Catalytic authenticity refers to the degree that action is triggered from the research process itself. Through the listening guide method, each member of the research team aimed to allow themselves to be impacted by the participant’s narratives. The research team documented these impressions and interpretations through memos and summaries, providing the reader with a detailed audit trail of what action came of the study. Further, debriefing with the participants in the member check interviews provided clues to what meaningful action took place because of this research study. Morrow (2005) specifically highlighted the importance of the degree to which participant constructions are deeply understood. She posited that this depth of meaning is dependent on context, culture, and rapport. As a counselling psychology student, I brought greater rapport-building skills than other researchers as that skill set is a natural result of my training. The rapport that is built from the first telephone or electronic mail connection with a participant played a pivotal role to the participant feeling safe enough to trust the researcher to be open and vulnerable in the interview. To increase this rapport, I briefly and generally disclosed how I, as the researcher, connect to the project (Yost & Chmielewski, 2012). The listening guide is an effective method to use when wanting to understand human experience grounded in their specific culture, as the listenings are meant to be done with an ear to how culture might be influencing what is being said (Gilligan et al., 2003). Another step that helps rigour in this area is the fact that I, the principal researcher, audited the data myself; I immersed myself in the data and then also engaged in at least four listenings. The demographic questionnaire and other details of the participant’s specific context also contribute to the depth that participants’ narratives were understood. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 55 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS This chapter presents the findings from eight narrative interviews with first-time fathers. The results are organized first as individual participant narratives, followed by an integrative thematic summary that draws out common patterns of voice across fathers. Through semi-structured interviews, eight participants were invited to share their story of becoming a father from the point of learning their partner was pregnant to their child’s first birthday. Participants were prompted to share about the challenges they faced and how they coped with them. Participants were also asked to reflect on how they understood selfcompassion, how their ability to offer compassion to themselves had grown, and how being more self-compassionate had helped them cope. The results of the listening guide analysis highlighted several voices within each participant’s narrative, presented in Table 2 below. This chapter begins by introducing each father and describing the voices that are specific to each participant. Each participant’s analysis includes elements from all four steps of the listening guide, and the voices are organized into four groupings: (a) voices of vulnerability, (b) voices of protection, (c) voices of self-compassion, and (d) voices of fathering. Note that voices of protection only emerged for half of the participants. This chapter concludes with an integrative summary of how these four groups of voices interact with each other within and across participants. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 56 Table 2 Voice Groups Voices of Voices of Voices of Voices of vulnerability protection self-compassion fathering Yearning 1, 5, 6, 7, 8 Rationality 2, 5, 7, 8 Togetherness 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 Bonding 1, 2, 3, 8 Depression 1, 3, 4, 7 Not Remembering 7, 8 Gratitude 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8 Responsibility 1, 3, 4, 7 Aloneness 1, 2, 4, 6 Containment 2 Self-Validation 1, 5, 6, 8 Persevering 2, 4, 5, 8 Self-Doubt 1, 2, 3 Positive Thinking 2 Mattering 2, 6, 7, 8 Striving 6, 7 Resentment 1, 3, 4 Acceptance 1, 3, 6 Exhaustion 4, 5, 8 Forgiveness 3, 4, 7 Powerlessness 1, 8 Perfectionism 1 Note. (1) John (2) Kabir (3) James (4) Ryan (5) Fox (6) Paris (7) Peter (8) Mark Participant Narratives (1) John John is a 36-year-old white Canadian who has an undergraduate diploma and currently works full-time as a natural areas supervisor. He lives with his wife and two sons, ages three and three months old at the time of the interview. John’s story of transitioning to fatherhood begins with stress and overwhelm as he and his wife had been trying to get pregnant for a long time and experienced two miscarriages before having their son. Their son ultimately needed an emergency cesarean section (commonly referred to as a c-section), had difficulty breathing upon birth, and spent time in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) until he recovered. Once home, their son was colicky for months. John shared the difficulty of feeling powerless to stop his child from crying. He shared how low he felt in the first few SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 57 months postpartum and, at times, how he felt resentful towards the baby that they had wanted for so long. He struggled with taking his baby’s crying and distress personally—often feeling like a failure—which sometimes spiralled into anger and resentment. John shared feeling heightened and on edge all the time, like he was constantly in fight or flight mode. The immediate love and connection that he had seen with other parents, or in the media, seemed to be absent. When John’s child grew a bit older and he started to see his son’s personality emerge, things started to improve. John speaks to how being able to see his child as a human with his own wants and needs helped him feel more grounded and not as consumed by overwhelming thoughts and feelings of regret. He shared about how reaching out to some brief counselling support helped him to get some emotions out, and how learning to have grace for himself helped him feel more in control. He shared that realizing that other families had their struggles too, even if they did not share them, also helped him to be less hard on himself. He shared that he is now better at noticing his reactions, acknowledging his feelings, understanding their origins, and giving himself permission to move on. In reflecting back, John talked about wanting to give himself more credit for the hard and overwhelming days, and how he feels gratitude toward his son for helping him grow as a person and as a better man, husband, and father. Voices of Vulnerability. John’s interview begins with a predominant voice of powerlessness. This sense of powerlessness is recognized by tones of fear combined with stuck-ness. It is a vulnerable voice for John that comes up throughout his transition to fatherhood—from his wife’s complicated pregnancy when he did not know what to do, to his SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 58 son’s initial breathing difficulties and admission to the NICU, to the challenge of trying to cope with incessant colicky crying in the first few months postpartum. John felt powerless to help his son while also feeling terrified of what could happen. And in those first few months, he shared that “it’s not necessarily the crying, but [his] inability to stop [the crying] that was really hard for [him] to deal with and [was] really stressful”. He shared that when nothing he was trying would work to calm his baby down, the powerlessness would trigger him into a fight or flight mode and ultimately “collapse inward” and shut down. The voice of powerlessness is soon joined by the voice of yearning. John yearns for the past to be different as he grieves the loss of his old life, feeling like his new baby “destroyed the life that [he] knew.” The voice of yearning is also recognized by John’s regret as he recalls feeling so low and overwhelmed when first home with their baby: “What have we done? Like, almost like this was a huge mistake. Like we’ve just, yeah. It, it wasn’t like the, the feelings of like, you know, you see on TV or the movies, or anything like that.” and “there was times where like, I...hated my life. Yeah. And it's like, if I could put you back in there, I would and just go back to how things were.” John’s regret shows up in the vulnerable thoughts that he had about regretting having a child, and it also shows up in response to remembering his own thoughts and behaviour from that time. He repeatedly shared how bad he felt that he did so poorly postpartum and acted in the way that he did, yearning to be able to “go back and do things differently”. The voice of yearning was interwoven with the voice of resentment, as if they fuelled each other. The voice of resentment was characterized by angry and bitter tones, often connected to a sense of injustice while blaming the birth of John’s son for his own pain, SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 59 disappointment, and overwhelm. John himself used the word resentment to describe how he felt towards his son in those early months, and yet also recognizes that “it’s not fair to [his son]” and feeling awful that he could even think that way (regret and yearning for things to be different): “I like resented where I was at. And like, it's, again, it's not fair to him, but like, in those really, really dark times or dark days or tough nights, like just resented him even being there and like, wrecking the life that I had...looking back now, I just feel awful about it.” John resented his son at times, but this voice also shows up with resentment towards other parents. Again, John starts with a voice of yearning when talking about how he “didn’t know who [he] was as a person anymore…[and his] life was taken away from [him],” followed by a voice of resentment towards others: “This wasn't what I expected. Everyone that I see is, you know, all happy and loving, and I like hated it.” This resentment comes in strong when John recalls his experience while him and his wife are grieving their miscarriages: I remember being like very resentful towards other people who had young kids or babies. And like, you know, seeing people on social media, posting their like little babies or just like, driving down the street and seeing someone walking with their kid. Like...I'd be like, I hate you. Like, you have what I want. And like, it's a terrible thing to think like...but that's where it always went. It's like, I hate you. I hate that you have [what I want]. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 60 He also shares about the resentment that he had towards other friends of his who had a baby around the same time but they seemed to be coping well and their baby had no complications: So like, their kid, they could put him down and he slept the whole night and he cried. Like they could count on one hand how many times he cried. And, uh, again, I was like, I don't even wanna like hang out with these people because like everything they say is like, pissing me off. It's complete opposite of my experience. And like, I just wanna shut them out of my life because I can't handle all their positive experiences. The voice of depression was also woven throughout John’s telling of his first year as a father. This voice is not about diagnosed major depressive disorder, but rather a felt sense of lowness, pessimism, hopelessness, and at times an irritability. This voice is strongest when John is describing the worst moments of that first year: There were definitely days or times where like I thought, God, it would be so much easier if I wasn't here…It was just like, kind of fleeting thoughts that would come and go in my head as I'm sitting there at like 3:00 AM and he is screaming his head off. Like, if I wasn't here, we wouldn't be having these problems. John shared how he was “kind of miserable and tough to be around” especially in those first three months of having his son at home. He shared he felt “so disconnected from his previous life” and often wondered, in hopelessness, “How are we ever going to get out of this?” When talking about the resentment that he felt towards other parents who seemed to be suffering less, he shared that he tends to get consumed by his negative thoughts and discount the positive. He shared that even when things would get a little better from time to time, SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 61 throughout that first year he could so easily switch back to feeling easily upset and negative, where he felt all he could do to cope is to shut down. John’s depressed feelings and irritability are part of what characterized his struggle postpartum and ultimately led him to feel isolated and alone, where he felt he could not tell anyone that he hated his life. There is also a less prominent voice of perfectionism in John’s telling of his story. Although he did not spend much time talking in this voice, this perfectionism seems to be a long-standing part of what has driven him in life and what counters any self-compassionate part. John shares how he “holds [himself] to a really high standard…expects a lot from [himself], almost too much,” and has a “need to be perfect all the time”. He shares that he tends to hyperfocus on his mistakes and beat himself up over them. He feels like “it's hard for [him] to be like compassionate to [himself] because [he] holds [himself] to like, almost like an unachievable standard.” This gives context for understanding the vulnerability and significance of John’s voices of powerlessness, yearning, resentment, and depression. If he has an expectation that he will do fathering perfectly, and even a belief that it’s worth aiming for, then the fall from perfection to isolated, painful struggle is so far. It makes sense, then, that the powerlessness is terrifying, the yearning for things to be different is so desperate, the resentment is so harsh, and the depression feels insurmountable. Voices of Self-Compassion. John shared that when his son was about a year old and he could start to see his son’s own personality shine through, “it started to get a lot easier… the times of just like negativity and totally spiraling and shutting down, like those seemed to, it would still happen every now and then, but it didn't seem like a constant everyday thing.” It’s here that the first and most prominent self-compassionate voice emerges, the voice of SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 62 acceptance. John grew to have acceptance for the difficult moments where he could more effectively differentiate his son’s suffering from his own. The emotions did not change, but his acceptance for those emotions increased. He spoke in this voice of acceptance when sharing how he realized that maybe the issue was with himself and his lack of tools for regulating his own emotion, instead of the problem being with his child for being sensitive or his suffering being indicative of some wrongdoing and injustice. He says: “Recognizing through it all like, hey, maybe my emotional intelligence wasn't where it should be for a, you know, 36-year-old adult and that's something that I need to work on.” He shared how having more acceptance for his own emotions and his own suffering “helped [him] to be a little bit more lenient on [himself] or self-compassionate or recognize like, this is not how this situation should be handled.” The following is an excerpt from John’s I-Poem that demonstrates how this voice of acceptance tempers his yearning for things to have been different: I did things differently I was able I guess I feel I, I can’t change the past I can’t feel sorry for myself I just have to be a better dad today I really try to tell myself SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 63 I know I can do it (All) I wanna be is like a great dad Connected to the voice of acceptance is John’s voice of self-validation. While talking about how his need for perfection has changed since that first year of being a father, John says: “Having a son and now having two sons and realizing like, there's things that are just like completely out of your control and it's not worth the time and effort to get so worked up about it and, like, I am human and this is really hard.” Acknowledging his own humanity means acknowledging that mistakes are a part of life and not worthy of such harsh judgment. Validating that being a dad is hard makes a little more room for exhaustion and even irritability to exist, without the added resentment that it shouldn’t be so hard. John talks about how he is able to let things slide off his back more effectively by first acknowledging that he’s going through a tough time or acknowledging his tiredness or stress, and then purposefully packaging it away to help him move on with his day. Towards the end of the interview, John validates the work that he has done to be a better dad and be more present for his wife and sons, as demonstrated in the following I-Poem excerpt: I’m, I’m pretty hard on myself I expect a lot I feel like I should be giving myself a little bit more credit I’m definitely not perfect SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 64 I have my warts I gotta deal I’m still like working through to this day Throughout John’s first year of being a father and throughout John’s experience of growing in self-compassion, he speaks of the value of support he has received from his wife as well as from others. He speaks with a voice of togetherness, appreciating feeling connected to someone who is not judgemental of him. This connection was especially strong during their pregnancy, where they were able to be the strong one for each other, taking turn supporting each other. And although John shared about how he and his wife felt disconnected and alone during those first few months postpartum, he later recalls: [My wife] has obviously been a, a huge support to me as well and has really...you know, she would like anything I needed to do to help me get through a situation, if I needed to go for a walk, if I needed to just leave a situation, whatever, like she would let me do it. So...I feel like I owe her like an apology and, and some thanks for like, I know I wasn't always the best husband or father, but, um...yeah, it was just, it was really tough. It was really tough times. The compassion and support that John received from his wife helped him to access some compassion for himself. Her non-judgment gave him permission to do what he needed to do to cope. John also shared how he eventually found connection in realizing that other parents also struggle and many are in worse situations; this helped him access some understanding and gratitude for his own experience. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 65 The voice of gratitude is strong as John reflects on how much he has changed since those first few months. Instead of resenting his son and his experience, he has become grateful for his son and his struggle as it helped him learn that he can regulate his own emotion. The gratitude-frame helps him have compassion on his younger self, giving himself credit for how he has changed and seeing the value of the struggle instead of judging the struggle. The voice of gratitude is best depicted in the following quote: I'm just super grateful and thankful for the life that I do have. And, if I could go back and do things differently, like I absolutely would. But I've also learned so much through these three years that, um, in a way it's almost like...you know, I needed to go through that to learn more about like, myself and what I need to change as a, as a human being in general and how I treat other people or how I come across or how I deal with my own situations. Um, Uh, being a dad has really like forced me to do that. And so I'm super thankful for all that. Voices of Fathering. Beyond John’s vulnerability and experiences of selfcompassion, there are two distinct voices that he uses to talk about the goodness of being a father: the voice of bonding and the voice of responsibility. The voice of bonding is characterized by relief and peace in John’s speaking voice when he talks about being a father and loving his son. This voice emerges in John’s story after the three-month mark, once John and his wife changed to a hypoallergenic formula that began to reduce his son’s colic crying. This voice of bonding often interrupts the voices of depression and yearning to remind John of the closeness he has with his son amidst the struggle and loss. He says, SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 66 And there [were] times where he was happy and, you know, he was awake, but he wasn't crying and could engage a little bit more. And it's like, there is a human being in you. It's not like the, the devil sent to test me, like, there is a human in there and this is what we were hoping for. Um, so that, that definitely...alleviated some of [the aggravation and despair]. This voice of bonding grew louder and more confident as chronological time went on, specifically after about a year with his son. John reflects that, Once [my son] started like...I don't know, communicating or responding more as like a human being and not just as like, something that I need to feed or burp or change, like a robot almost. Like, once I started to be able to see like, okay, this is the little boy, this is our son. Like, relate it more to like human emotions than just like something that's there to like attack me, um, then for me, it started to get a lot easier. It's this connection with his son that finally matches John’s expectations of being a father and drives John to make changes; seeing his son as a human being helps him access compassion and understanding for his son. The voice of responsibility also arrives as John reflects on how he has improved as a father. This voice is characterized by a sense of duty to learn to regulate his emotion for the sake of being a good role model to his two sons. To John this is an integral part of being the kind of father he wants to be, and it comes with a responsibility to continue to work on being better every day. This voice is best captured in the following quote: I really try to like lead from example, being a dad and showing like your son, this is how you respond in situations. Like, I need to, I need to show him so he can grow up, SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 67 you know, youth into a teenager, into an adult and realize like, this is how you deal with stress and situations that you don't like or that are hard and not like yelling or freaking out or stomping around. Um, so maybe just like recognizing like, I gotta, I gotta be a better example for my, for my kids… I just have to be a better dad today and tomorrow and every other day. Connecting to the Research Question. We can learn so much about the research question from John’s narrative of the hardship he experienced and how he coped. Essentially, in his first year of being a dad, John did not cope well. Loss, regret, and resentment shrouded his experience leaving him feeling disconnected, angry, and hopeless. His coping with the difficulty typically looked like either escalating in anger or shutting down in shame. It wasn’t until his emotions got the best of him at his workplace that he reached out for some professional support in the form of email correspondence counselling which taught him some emotion regulation strategies. The key element that helped his situation not decline further in that postpartum period was the support and compassion that he received from his wife, which ultimately supported offering himself kindness or compassion in those early months. Regarding his experience of being self-compassionate, it was so challenging for him to access compassion for himself or for others in that first year. His sense of perfectionism, harsh self-criticism, and subsequent anger and shame got in the way of seeing his, or his child’s, humanity. Once his son could respond more to John as his own person, something shifted in John, and he was able to access a greater acceptance for his emotional experience and even offer himself some validation for what he was surviving. For John, growing in self- SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 68 compassion helped him come to a place of gratitude and peace with his own experience, propelling him to be a more grounded father to his now toddler and new second son. (2) Kabir Kabir is a 36-year-old South Asian Canadian who has an undergraduate degree and currently works full-time as an actuarial manager. He lives with his wife and two daughters, aged three and one at the time of the interview. Kabir became a first-time father after immigrating to Canada from India with his wife during the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. They were surprised by their pregnancy after just moving to Canada but were determined to make the most of it. Despite having no supports in this new country, Kabir and his wife really leaned on their 12-year-relationship and supported each other through the challenges of labour complications, lacking the outside support that they thought they would have, their daughter’s eating and sleeping challenges, and their daughter often getting sick. Throughout his story, Kabir talked about being a very rational person and how this helped him get through the difficulty, whether it was being patient and having grace with his wife or navigating work and home life. Kabir describes self-compassion in a more practical sense of taking care of himself physically and mentally. After about six or seven months, he and his wife’s mothers were able to come from India to offer more support and Kabir then had a chance to better support himself by engaging in sport and outside connections. Voices of Vulnerability. Kabir’s interview begins with a predominant vulnerable voice of aloneness. As Kabir recalls his experience of a surprise pregnancy directly after moving countries, he shares how he and his wife felt alone throughout the process. They had SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 69 to learn a new medical system without support, for example, with a different process for prenatal care than they expected and they also had to move to a new bigger home all on their own, with no local friends to help them. Kabir and his wife both expected their mothers to come from India to help before their baby was born, but their mothers’ visas did not come through until about seven months after their baby was born. Kabir says, Well, honestly, I don't, I don't think that we could have been in a worse situation, to be very honest, where we don't have anyone to kind of show us, show us how to take care of an infant. Like, like we were thinking, okay, our parents will be there. We've always banked upon that, but one month, like, like three weeks closer to the birth, we know that, okay, that's not going to happen. The next prominent voice in Kabir’s story is the voice of self-doubt. This voice is characterized by a helplessness and an urgency to be shown how to take care of his newborn daughter. This voice was especially strong when Kabir talked about that first day in the hospital with his daughter, worried that he was not holding her properly, learning to change a newborn’s diaper, and worried about if she’s feeding enough: [My baby was] so tiny. So tiny. And like, I was, I was afraid to, like, if I'm holding her properly, and then even changing the diaper, I'm like, I, she showed me like two or three times how to change the diaper---the nurse, um, then is she eating properly? Like, and, and we stayed an extra night in the hospital where like, we are not going on the first night. Like, we will stay. I don't care…you can't just trust a human, like the newborn to us. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 70 This feeling of self-doubt and worry continued as Kabir shared about the stress of driving their crying newborn home from the hospital and then once home, worrying about if she’s sleeping enough and eating enough. Kabir shared that he and his wife unnecessarily took their daughter to the Emergency Department a couple times during her first year, because they were not sure if her health was concerning or not. Voices of Protection. Three different voices of protection emerged in Kabir’s story: rationality, containment, and positive thinking. These voices are important parts to how Kabir coped through the challenges and seemed to protect him from some of the pain of that first year. These voices would often interrupt Kabir’s voices of vulnerability; Kabir describes himself as a “very rational kind of a person” where “things don’t affect [him] that much.” This is clear as he tells the story of his daughter’s birth and gives matter-of-fact logical details but has difficulty connecting to any stressful emotion. Regarding how he has coped with challenges, he says, “I think it's just like, I try, try not to overthink things. And that's what [my wife] also calls me. Like she says my EQ emotional quotient is zero.” Keeping a steady demeanor and thinking through things logically is an important strategy that Kabir feels is part of who he is. Connected to this rationality, is a voice of containment. Kabir directly talks about the importance of “maintaining his emotions” during the relational stress he experiences with his wife postpartum. He talks about getting angry but just going into a different room and suppressing it. He gives advice to other dads to “try to not get flustered…it might make you unhappy, but don’t let that unhappiness linger for a very long time. Don’t let that affect your day-to-day.” Kabir intentionally contains his emotion and reactions for the sake of harmony SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 71 in relationship and because he says he doesn’t see the point in getting worked up about things you cannot control. We hear this in the following I-Poem excerpt: I’m, that’s me as a person I get irritated I don’t express I, like I’ll do it like one out of 10 times I might show it once I can’t keep fighting all the time Positive thinking is another protective voice that ripples throughout the interview. It most often comes up after the voice of aloneness speaks, almost as a voice determined to find a silver-lining. This voice protects Kabir from the aloneness getting too loud or intense and seemingly brings Kabir back to feeling more like himself. For example, after talking about the aloneness of navigating a new medical system without support, he says, I think we got like a sufficient help. Everything was good. Like once we were in that system, um, even the delivery, everything went fine. Like in terms of how, again, COVID being there helped us quite, I think in one way, because you get private rooms, uh. Because they don't wanna mix patients. So, so that was nice, I think. So the entire process went pretty well. Or after talking about how alone he and his wife felt raising their newborn daughter, he says, “So, so it was good, like in terms of, yeah. It, it, it, I feel like in terms of it made us more independent and kind of, okay...if things go worse, we know that we can manage.” And after SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 72 talking about the initial few-month period of sleepless nights with no outside support, he talks about being thankful that at least he lost six kilograms of weight during this time. Kabir’s positive thinking helped him re-frame the challenges that he faced, motivating him to push on. Voices of Self-Compassion. Occasionally the voice of positive thinking shifts into a different voice of true gratitude. This voice is strongest when talking about the great care that he and his wife received from the nurses and doctors at the hospital: Kudos to the nurse over there. Like, uh, yeah, at [the local hospital], the nurse was so good. Uh, she, she was talking through, she was playing music for [my wife] and stuff, so, it wasn't quite like, I feel like it, the process was quite good. Kabir also expresses distinct gratitude to his employer at the time for allowing him to work from home and offering a low-pressure work-life in that first year of having his daughter and to his mother and his wife’s mother for giving invaluable support once their visas came through about seven months into their daughter’s life. The gratitude that Kabir connects with validates that what he was going through was hard, ultimately helping him access some compassion for himself and his situation. Throughout Kabir’s interview, he speaks with a voice of togetherness when referencing his wife. This voice is recognized by continuously using the pronoun “we” when talking about challenges and getting through those challenges. Kabir shares that since he and his wife have known each other for over 18 years, they know each other so well and they have a strong relationship to lean on in tough times. He shared how he feels like him and his wife communicated well together and managed all the stresses that came their way during the SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 73 perinatal period. Countering the aloneness, he talks of “being just the two of us” with his wife and supporting each other and having understanding for each other. This voice is captured in the following quote: “So talking to her is, the best thing about, that's the best thing about her being there is, and, and her knowing me so well is like, basically okay, we, you know, that there's this person to talk to.” And in summary of his experience he shares “I think it was okay, it was as best as we could have done, honestly. Like given the circumstances, I think it was the best we could have done.” Kabir’s connection with his wife and the support that he got from her helped him to have compassion for himself in how they coped with it all. Kabir’s direct understanding of what having compassion for himself means focused on keeping up with his own physical and mental health. He shared how initially he neglected to take care of his own needs such as physical exercise and eating well, but then at about seven months in when his mother and mother-in-law arrived to help, he was able to get back to some regular physical activity which helped him significantly. And even when his mother and mother-in-law went back to India when their daughter was around one year old, Kabir and his wife were able to find a daycare for her which made a bit of space to continue having a bit of time for themselves. As he shared all this, the voice of mattering was strong. This voice is characterised by a confidence that his own needs and preferences matter amidst a postpartum year where his baby’s needs and his wife’s needs took priority. Kabir spoke of how he was able to find people to play squash with regularly and that this connection with others and exertion helped him feel physically better but also mentally refreshed and more like himself. This voice is best captured in the following quote: SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 74 [Playing squash] just mentally—I'm refreshed to be very honest. So physically I might be tired after playing, but mentally I'm like super refreshed. It just makes me happier, I feel. You can say whatever is hormones that get released when I'm playing. It just makes me a happier person. That I'm able to do that for myself and that. Yeah. And that's, that's, that's something which I honestly look forward to. Um, so, so that's, that's the only way I think that's how I might be able to define self-compassion. Is doing stuff for yourself, uh, so that you are a good person. Voices of Fathering. Throughout the interview, there are two distinct voices that connect to what it means to Kabir to be a father: the voice of persevering and the voice of bonding. The voice of persevering is characterized by matter-of-fact tones about Kabir’s responsibility to push through as a dad, just “doing whatever needs to be done”. This voice shows up when talking about his daughter sleeping on top of him all night for the first week of her life, and him getting very little sleep himself because of it. It also shows up when Kabir talks about the importance of persevering through the irritability, stress, sadness, and overwhelm and realizing in retrospect that he can manage whatever comes their way: “But you know, that one year of...no, the first six months of that raising a kid has kind of taught me that you will be able to manage. You'll get through. For whatever happens, you'll get through.” We hear this voice in the following I-Poem excerpt: I think you can handle I think keep increasing I like I’m over stressed SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 75 I tell [my wife] I just keep doing I think I think I understand The voice of bonding is strongest when Kabir talks of his experiences with his daughter that first day in the hospital. This voice is characterized by a brightness and peace in his voice where it seems all stresses fade away and all he can think about is his wonderful child. This is captured in the following quote: I was excited, uh, when [my oldest daughter] came out, like, I was super happy. Like, I think...I think it was one of the only times I cried, honestly, uh, just...having [my oldest daughter] out there...and, and we had decided on the name much earlier. I think literally, I think in the first trimester, we knew what we were naming---going to name her. Yeah. It was, yeah, it was a, it was a beautiful thing to see. Despite the stresses of a surprise pregnancy and labour complications, Kabir is overwhelmed with love and joy being with his daughter. He also speaks of the beauty of being with his daughter while she is awake in the middle of the night looking around while his wife is sleeping. This voice of bonding also shows up again later in the interview when, despite the lack of outside support, Kabir is grateful that his daughter is so attached to him and his wife now because it has just been the three of them so close with little influence from others. These voices of fathering for Kabir are not vulnerable, protective, or particularly self- SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 76 compassionate, but rather they come up when Kabir speaks with confidence and peace about what he loves about being a dad and how worth it all the suffering has been. Connecting to the Research Question. By listening to the various voices in Kabir’s story, we can learn how Kabir coped through perinatal challenges and how his experience of self-compassion shaped his wellness. Kabir seemed to cope with the aloneness, self-doubt, and helplessness by working to stay rational in his thinking and contained in his emotions. These aspects seemed to be already a part of who Kabir feels he has always been and yet going through the experience of having a newborn led him to lean into these areas even further. This tough-it-out, push-through mentality combined with a fierce commitment to thinking positively despite the hardship, helped Kabir persevere through the tough times by just continuing to move forward and the doing the best he can. Regarding self-compassion, like most of the new dads I spoke with, Kabir felt he did not have the ability to be compassionate to himself in those first few months, due to sheer lack of time and energy. It was a sense of team-ness and support with his wife that helped him access any sense of understanding for himself and their difficult situation. Having to band together more than ever for the sake of surviving facilitated Kabir to validate his own experience, acknowledging that it was difficult and yet believing that they could manage together. It seemed that gratitude also played an indirect role in Kabir being able to maintain a realistic perspective on his experience and not get too stuck in the helplessness and aloneness. It was not until about seven or eight months in that Kabir felt he could be more directly compassionate to himself in the form of taking time for himself to care for his own needs. Although relatively simple and practical, carving out time in his week to play squash SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 77 with friends helped Kabir to feel refreshed, more like himself, and gave him more capacity to care for his daughter and wife in the way that he could be proud of. (3) James James is a 34-year-old Korean Canadian who has an undergraduate degree and currently works full-time as a youth Pastor. He lives with his wife and daughter who was two at the time of the interview. James’ transition to fatherhood begins with a challenging pregnancy due to both he and his wife struggling with perinatal depression and him often feeling like a failure. Their mental health struggles really impacted the connection in their relationship and James ended up dropping out of his master’s degree during the pregnancy because of it. He shared that the first week of taking care of his newborn felt like the worst week of his life, partly from navigating tricky dynamics with his mother and his mother-inlaw, partly because of lack of sleep and increased irritability, and partly because he and his wife were already both struggling with depression. Although he had a hard time, his experience as a new dad helped him have more understanding for his own dad’s sacrifices and helped him more easily have compassion for the youth that he works with. James experienced self-compassion in the form of growing in acceptance for his own limited capacity as a new parent and learning to offer himself more grace. Despite the challenges that he went through, James’ heartfelt love for and connection with his daughter are evident throughout his story, motivating him to continue to grow to be the kind of father, husband, and son that he wants to be. Voices of Vulnerability. Given that James shared that he had been diagnosed with mild major depressive disorder, it is not surprising that the most prominent voice of SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 78 vulnerability for James is a voice of depression. As I have delineated earlier, noticing this voice in participants’ experience is not indicative of diagnosis, but rather the voice highlights tones of hopelessness and a felt sense of failure. The following I-Poem excerpt shows the lowness and discouragement: I don’t know I was also very struggling emotionally I got to know I was struggling I was diagnosed I didn’t have the capacity I, I was also in need need of help I feel like I think even I don’t know if I, was I coped well I think it just just went by I think it really went by I, I dropped the school SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 79 I just just couldn’t do it I just couldn’t I, I tried This voice of depression shrouds James’ telling of their experience of their pregnancy as James describes how low he felt. He shares that his wife was struggling emotionally at that time, but he was also depressed and anxious and had such low capacity to effectively support her; He shared that both of their depression was at its worst just before the birth of their daughter. He started to slowly feel better after the first week of being home, but his wife’s low mood continued postpartum. This voice of depression is best captured in the following quote: There was constant sense of failure for me. Because I feel like I'm not even doing well either at, at school, at work, and even at home. So, I think even with that, my emotional mental health uh, wasn't getting, um, it was getting worse. And it, from there, I'm sure that my wife was also got worse because we were just kind of bouncing back each other. The negative side to one another. Another prominent vulnerable voice is that of resentment. The vulnerability is clear when James shares that he has not told anyone else about this experience of unresolved bitterness. James’ parents live in Korea, and his in-laws live locally. James’ mother flew in for the birth and for a few weeks after, but his mother-in-law came in to be the first to see the baby and lived with James and his wife for the first few weeks while his own mother stayed at a rental property. James shared about the resentment that grew towards his in-laws for how SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 80 they were more forceful in spending time with his daughter and yet complained more about how they should see his daughter more often, meanwhile his mom only visits for three weeks of the year and is often pushed aside. James says that he “lost a lot of respect towards them through this kind of experience,” but feels like there’s nowhere to talk about it. A smaller vulnerable voice of self-doubt is present while James shares about first finding out that their unborn baby was a girl. He shares how he only has a brother and only males in his family and so when he found out their baby was a girl it was surprising and unfamiliar, a “what do I do now?” moment. He says, For me it was like, 'cause I grew up in like a, just, uh, with brother, and it was so, so that moment was like, kind of first kinda feel a sense of feeling that I'm heading into the, like a new, new place I haven't been before. Voices of Self-Compassion. The most prominent self-compassion voice in James’ story is that of forgiveness. This voice of forgiveness is characterized by a gentleness and understanding for those who have hurt him, and it also distinctly extends towards himself in the areas that he feels he has fallen short. Despite the resentment that still comes up towards his in-laws, the resentment is interrupted with speaking graciously about them, believing that they did not hurt him intentionally. He adds, “I think I, I just see it as everyone was at the kind of extreme situation. Um, so... I try to look at it a bit more... more grace towards everyone, including myself.” He further describes self-compassion as “being able to say it's okay to oneself and being able to give that extra room or understanding to oneself. Yeah, that's how I kind of see it as a self-compassion…[being] very gracious to myself” He also SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 81 shares how through having a daughter, he has an easier time having compassion on the students that he works with as a youth pastor and empathizing with their parents. Connected to the voice of forgiveness is a voice of acceptance. This voice is recognized by a contentment and lack of judgment in James’ voice. James shared how dropping out of his master’s degree was part of having an acceptance for his shrinking capacity. He shares how over the first year he went through a process of accepting that due to the work and energy needed from him at home, he “could not output as much” in his personal life. He says, I guess being able to accept the changes, uh, more smoothly and just, uh, and being able to accept it, uh, as, um...not as me, uh.... not achieving or achieving less… I think self-compassion helped me to just accept the situation as just as it, as it is, and, um, be able to kind of protect myself from this, uh, self-blaming too. The voice of togetherness was strongest when James was sharing about his experience of finding out his unborn baby was a girl. This voice is recognized by a sense of being strengthened by feeling connected with others. In that moment of learning of his daughter’s sex, he talks of instantly thinking about how he could relate so much more to a friend of his who has daughters and he could also relate more to his father-in-law, as the dad of his wife. This felt connection and relatability helped to calm the voice of self-doubt and buffered the resentment that he felt for his father-in-law. Throughout the first year with his daughter, James also shares that he grew in understanding for his own father and the sacrifices that his father made for him growing up. He shared that having a child helped strengthen the relationship that he had with his dad. Lastly, this voice of togetherness came SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 82 forward when James talked of his faith in God and how feeling a sense of protection from God during the birthing process gave him peace. A voice of gratitude also speaks up throughout James’ telling of his narrative. This voice is earnest and is also recognized by relief in James’ speaking voice. Amidst his stressful experience of the birthing process, he expresses gratitude for the nursing staff that supported him and his wife through it. He also expresses gratitude for God who he felt protected them through the process. This voice of gratitude was especially strong when James talked about his appreciation for his own dad: I think really [my sense of responsibility] comes from, um, my dad, a lot. Um, or maybe it's just our, that's the, the image that I guess my dad portray, uh, to us a lot 'cause, um, my, my parents, uh, when we immigrated to Canada originally, they came together, but my dad actually, uh, couldn't find a job here. So he stayed in Korea and they, he, he just visit, uh, during summer. Yeah. And yeah, he, he was kind of explaining, uh, as a sense of sacrifice, um, which I appreciate. I said, I appreciate back then, but I didn't need, uh, realize the depths. But the more and more, and especially since I became a dad, I understand more what kind of sense of sacrifice, uh, that was. Um, and be able to appreciate more. This sense of thankfulness for the supportive relationships in his life seemed to ground him amidst the stress and unknown. The gratitude that he felt for others indicated a validation of his own difficulty throughout his perinatal experience. Voices of Fathering. There are two voices that emerge that connect more distinctly to what it means to James to be a father: the voice of responsibility and the voice of bonding. In SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 83 James’ words, his sense of responsibility and self-sacrifice can sometimes feel counter to him being able to be compassionate towards himself, or rather, being responsible supersedes being self-compassionate, if necessary. “Being a dad means now you have another soul to take care of. Uh, so, I feel, I feel I have to push more, push farther,” James says. This importance of feeling responsible to protect his daughter and sacrifice for his daughter motivates him to be the best dad he can be and honours the sacrifice of his own father: That's the image that, um, I guess my dad kind of showed me, 'cause being a dad means really, uh, you, you can, you need to sacrifice to protect. Uh, so I think when the self-compassion or, or, uh, responsibility kind of mixed together, I think it's always the responsibility that kind of wins over the self-compassion. It appears James has been brought up to prioritize this sense of responsibility as a dad and yet he is also currently in the process of assimilating being compassionate to himself as a secondary important aspect of fathering. Throughout the pregnancy and the first year postpartum, James shares a special connection with his daughter. This came through in a voice of bonding. This voice begins when James talks about the first ultrasound appointment for his daughter where he wears a full suit because he felt it was his first time seeing his daughter and he wanted to be proper. The I-Poem excerpt from this portion of the interview highlights how cherishes this experience in his memory: I remember the day I remember I intentionally wore a suit SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 84 I wanted to be I know it’s kind of silly I wanted to be I remember I remember I remember I remember the moment This voice continues when he recalls that when the pink ink popped at his daughter’s gender reveal party, he instantly imagined himself at his daughter’s wedding. He describes his daughter’s birth as “an amazing experience” and “very special,” feeling like he has had a special connection with her since birth. James shares that his ability to be self-compassionate grew as he could interact more with his daughter and build connection with her. Her love for him helped him feel deserving of care and compassion. This voice of bonding is best captured in the following quote: As my daughter also is, is kind of expressing, um, yeah more and just so her love towards me. And sometimes I think like I, I, I felt I saw, I just, I didn't do really anything to her, but she just really loves me for just being a dad. And that really helps to, how, help me to have self, yeah, self-compassion because like, I don't need to do something to be loved or to be accepted. Connecting to the Research Question. By paying attention to the movement of voices in James’ telling of his story, we can learn how he made it through his first year postpartum. Initially, James had a hard time, describing his depression and identifying that SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 85 first week as the worst week of his life. He admits, “I don’t know if I, I coped well, I think it just, just went by.” By hearing the different voices, though, connection played a significant role in James making it to the other side. His connection with other dads, including his own and his wife’s, seemed to be motivating to keep going, as well as his strong connection with his daughter. Growing in closeness with his daughter combined with a sense of fatherly responsibility kept him going when everything felt hopeless. Regarding James’ experience of being compassionate towards himself, the voice of Forgiveness stands out. His ability to have an understanding perspective for those who hurt him, and ultimately for himself in his own reactions, helped to reduce his growing resentment. James was able to come to a place of acceptance for his own limited capacity postpartum which helped bring down the self-blame and his sense of failure. So, although his experience of being compassionate to himself were not so intentional, the self-compassionate voices are clear as he recalls his experience in retrospect. (4) Ryan Ryan is a 53-year-old white Canadian who is unemployed and is on Persons with Disabilities. He is a single dad who lives with his daughter who was four years old at the time of the interview. His transition to fatherhood begins with being excited to have his first child in his forties with a woman he was in love with, but his partner had psychotic symptoms at the end of her pregnancy and became a missing person just before their daughter’s birth. She was found high on crystal meth and was taken immediately to the hospital to give birth. Ryan shared that he wasn’t even aware the birth had taken place until three days later. Ryan shared about a challenging battle afterward to regain custody of his SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 86 daughter from the Ministry of Child and Family Development (MCFD). He shared about how he could only see his daughter a few short allowable visits per week at specified times and how this schedule led him to quit his job for him to be able to show up consistently. He shared that what helped him cope through this time was crying a lot, getting support from his mom and dad, and connecting with a local support group for dads. He shared how grateful he was that he made the sacrifices he did to get custody of his daughter and is now living with his daughter full-time, as his daughter’s mother has since died from an overdose. Ryan is a vocal advocate for men to express emotion, and he shared his yearning for there to be more mental health and parenting groups for men in the community. He shared that it was his own vulnerability that allowed him to seek help and to learn to be both a better mother and father to his daughter. Voices of Vulnerability. The initial voice of vulnerability that shows up in Ryan’s transcript is the voice of aloneness. The aloneness is clear when Ryan learns three days after the fact that his daughter was born and that she was in the custody of MCFD. He realized that he would have to fight the ministry alone, and that, ultimately, he would have to raise his daughter alone. The aloneness comes back in when he talks about deciding to move away from his friends and community for the sake of a more stable life for his daughter. He says, “that was a big one too, because now I've lost all of, everybody that were friends and stuff. My whole, my whole social group had gone. So that was a big one too. Like, it's feeling completely, completely alone.” Another prominent vulnerable voice is that of exhaustion. Ryan talks in an exhausted voice when sharing about his three-and-a-half-year journey of getting custody of his daughter SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 87 from MCFD. Not only did he have to make many sacrifices to accommodate the ministry and all the limitations that were on him seeing his daughter, but he also shared that his daughter’s mother reported many lies about him that he had to navigate through to prove himself. The exhaustion came in again when he was sharing what it was like to be a single dad. He shared that he thought he was prepared, but he had no idea how much work it would be. The voice of exhaustion is best captured in the following quote: I felt like I'm in a corner and I have to, you know, fight for everything. It's, it's tiring. You know, I mean, it's just, it's draining every day, it's just been, you, you wake up tired and you go to bed exhausted. It's, it's no way to live. None at all. So it's, I, I don't know. Resentment also crept into Ryan’s experience. The voice of resentment is recognized at times by an overt sense of anger and other times by a more subtle bitterness or annoyance. This came up when he shared about his experience of not being able to visit his daughter in the hospital upon her birth and not being told any information about her health. This voice also came back when he shared about visiting his daughter in that first year, where MCFD staff were hovering over him, evaluating and criticizing everything he did, and forcing him to keep his mask on for the entire visit; he felt he could not bond in the same way he would have with his infant daughter. This voice is demonstrated in the following quote: You know, somebody sitting there with a notepad, saying, don't, don't mind me. I'm not even here. Oh, yeah, you are! You're sitting two feet away from me watching me! I remember one, one particular time I tried to tickle her, and I got reprimanded so badly for that. Like, why can't I tickle my daughter? Well, your daughter can't talk. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 88 She can't say no. If she doesn't like it, she can't tell you to stop. I'm like, show me a kid that doesn't like to be tickled, you know? Yeah. I've never met one. And lastly, there was a voice of resentment when he shared about frustrating masculine norms that limited dads from sharing emotionally with each other. Ryan felt freedom and connection through local dad support groups, but when he recommended this type of resource to other new dads in his life, they would deny the need and not be willing to reach out for support and share their experiences with others, even though they were struggling. Ryan also had a voice of depression while sharing about his struggles. This voice was one of hopelessness, wanting to give up, self-criticism, and self-doubt. There was a point in his story of thinking to give his daughter up for adoption instead of continuing to fight for custody. He shares, “I tell you, I, I had never cried so much in my life. Like, I cried almost on a daily basis, or just, I was just broken. Completely broken.” Ryan also shared that throughout his first year of being a dad, he was so hard on himself, constantly ruminating on all that he had done wrong and beating himself up for it. This was especially true while going through the supervised visits but then also once he had custody, continuing to doubt his abilities and feeling chronically overwhelmed. The following I-Poem excerpt highlights some of his internal thoughts surrounding those supervised visits: Am I doing something wrong? I don’t do I was just on edge constantly I’m being judged SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 89 I would leave the visits I would leave I would just I, I would get into my head and get depressed How did I screw that up? What if I’m gonna look... I’m not even here Voices of Self-Compassion. In Ryan’s telling of his story, there are two voices that emerge that are connected to his ability to be compassionate towards himself: the voice of togetherness and the voice of forgiveness. While most other participants’ experience of connection and sense of team-ness has come from their partners, Ryan’s has primarily come from the relationships that he has built in local father support groups and parenting classes. We see this sense of feeling-not-alone in the following quote: But there's a fathers’ group and they're helpful. They are, they're, uh, they let you know, you're not alone. You go---, the things that you're going through, every other guy's going through the same thing. Maybe not to the degree or maybe more, more so than you are, type thing…there's people that you can talk to that are not sympathetic, but they know what you're saying. They're, they're going through the same thing, which makes a big difference. Through Ryan’s postpartum struggle, he also found support through his mom and dad, but renewed connection with his dad especially. Ryan’s dad had fought for custody of SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 90 Ryan’s brothers when he was little, but not for Ryan. This was of course hurtful to Ryan, but in Ryan’s own battle for custody of his daughter, Ryan’s dad had opened up to Ryan about his own regrets of leaving Ryan, how he sees Ryan potentially making some similar mistakes, and encouraged Ryan to keep going, to keep fighting. Ryan speaks with a voice of togetherness when sharing this story, clearly finding motivation from the vulnerable connection he felt from his dad, like he had people in his corner, rooting for him to succeed. Feeling supported and connected helped Ryan to validate his own experience and helped him access compassion for himself. Regarding the voice of forgiveness, Ryan talks with gentleness and acceptance as he shares about the importance of “being able to be okay with being wrong”. Ryan talks of knowing that he has made mistakes but that he has learned to accept these mistakes and learn from them instead of dwelling on them. He says, “nobody's perfect. I, I know I make mistakes every single day, you know? As long as I'm learning and catching myself at that, not beating on myself for it, you know, then I can keep moving forward.” Forgiving himself brought peace into his life as a parent. This voice of forgiveness comes up again when he talks of his dad’s mistakes. He speaks with a gentleness and understanding, having compassion on his dad’s past situation, forgiving how Ryan himself was treated. Having grace for his own mistakes was a key component to Ryan accessing self-compassion. Voices of Fathering. There are two voices of fathering that seem to anchor Ryan as he tells his story. A voice of persevering weaves through the voices of aloneness, depression, and exhaustion. He talks about how he “just made it through” the hard parts and how he had to “tread water in the moment he was at” each day to keep fighting. He had a resolve to just SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 91 “do what [he] had to do”. And in his own coping, he shared that he “played a lot of music, wrote a lot of songs, recorded a lot of songs and music…went to the gym constantly and just, anything [he] could do to get [his] mind off of what was going on.” There was a perseverance even in his grasping for tools to help him get through. It is a voice of fathering because it seemed important for him to persevere for the sake of being a present father in his daughter’s life. After feeling like he was fighting so many battles, with MCFD, with his ex-partner, with himself, growing in compassion for himself helped him to focus that fight on being a good father. He says, It was just, I had one fight and that was it. And I concentrated on it. And it wasn't a fight anymore either. It was, I had, I had, I had a goal, I had a mission, I had something to do. It, it wasn't, I had, I had to go fight every day. It, it wasn't like that anymore. This voice of persevering for the sake of being a good father is connected to the voice of responsibility. Ryan’s sense of responsibility as a dad involves self-sacrifice. This voice was strong as Ryan talked about all that he sacrificed to get custody of his daughter, including his job, his friendships, and his lifestyle. He shares that “a hundred percent, the reward [of living with his daughter] was well worth the sacrifice”. He also talked about his desire to learn from his dad’s experiences with a sense of responsibility, like it was his duty as a dad to learn from his own dad’s mistakes. He also used this voice of responsibility when he shared about his focused mission of staying true to himself and advocating for his relationship with his daughter. He says, SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 92 It really was like, it was, it, it didn't really matter what the ministry had to say anymore. It didn't really matter what her mother had to say, or mother's family, or it didn't matter 'cause I, I was doing this for me and for my daughter and nobody else. And they could say or do what they wanted. It wasn't going to change the way that I was acting, the way that my trajectory was set. In his pursuit to be an engaged father, he also felt it was his responsibility to learn as much as he could about parenting and being a dad, especially since he felt like he was underprepared to be a single dad. He was eager and centred as he shared about all that he learned in these groups and classes: I just, anything that, anything I could do that I thought would give me an, not an edge, but give me more tools in my toolbox for what was, what I was going to need, what was gonna come. Like, I just, I couldn't learn enough…Every single class you can think of that's offered on parenting, I've taken, I've taken some more than once 'cause they're so deep. The following I-Poem excerpt shows an example of where Ryan’s voice of aloneness is buffered with the fathering voice of responsibility: I, I, I changed my entire I associated with I got rid of every phone number Of everybody I knew I moved cities I moved SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD I didn’t know anybody I just I had to do I’ve lost all of... everybody I said I did I took some counselling I just Anything I could do I thought would give me I was going to need I just I couldn’t learn enough I couldn’t make it I’ve taken I’ve taken some more than once I’ve taken that one three times I get something else out of it Connecting to the Research Question. Ryan is a fighter. Regarding how he coped through the first year of being a new dad, despite the tragic challenges that he faced, he demonstrated great resolve and perseverance. Something that stands out is his need to find 93 SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 94 spaces where he can freely experience his emotions, whether that’s crying on his own or connecting to a support group that made space for all that he was feeling. He coped mainly by means of leaning into social support, using meaningful distraction strategies that he already knew, such as throwing himself into writing music, and also learning as much as he could about the facts of the transition he was in and shifting his priorities in life based on what he was learning. Regarding self-compassion more specifically, like many other participants, Ryan did not use self-compassion initially in his postpartum life. He shared how critical he was on himself at the beginning of his parenting journey and how vulnerable he was in his suffering. Forgiveness for himself and for others seemed to be the main means of how he utilized selfcompassion. For Ryan, it was important for him to be able to acknowledge his own mistakes, accept them, and offer himself grace for them, ultimately forgiving himself along the way and thus having more energy to put into loving his daughter and being there for her. And again, it was this togetherness with others that showed him that he was even worthy of compassion and understanding in the first place. The support and nonjudgment he received from others gave him the strength he needed to offer himself compassion. (5) Fox Fox is a 35-year-old white Canadian who has an undergraduate degree and works full-time as an engineer. He lives with his wife and two boys, ages three years old and three months old at the time of the interview. Fox shared his story of having their first son in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fox and his wife were hoping for a smooth homebirth, and instead they had to have a cesarian section 10 days early because their son was breach, SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 95 while also having just recovered themselves from having COVID-19. They were back at the hospital numerous times in the first six weeks for complications his wife had after the Csection and for complications with his son’s health. He shared how he and his wife were concerned about how his son wasn’t eating properly, but were dismissed, and then it turned out that his son had an internal cleft palate that was causing the trouble. Fox shared about the teamwork that he felt between him and his wife to support their child with health complications and support each other through a very hard time. His wife advocated for their child in the health system a lot and Fox shared how grateful he was for this. He shared about his mother-in-law and father-in-law being significant supports. Fox shared how, as someone suspected to be on the autism spectrum, he has always struggled with compassion, however the area of parenting is the one area where he has not struggled to be compassionate to himself. He shared that it is the first experience he has had that does not feel tainted by his past trauma with his parents. He shared that self-compassion has been accessible to him in parenting because it’s easy to see that his child and his child’s difficulties are not like anyone else’s child. Voices of Vulnerability. The first vulnerable voice for Fox is that of exhaustion. This voice is strongest when Fox shares about the complications that occurred just before pregnancy, like him and his wife both getting COVID-19, and then in those first six weeks, he shared that he and his family were at the hospital every third to fifth day to address various complications with his wife’s recovery or his son’s health. This voice of exhaustion came through again while sharing about the discovery of his son’s internal cleft palate at about six weeks. The sense of thing after thing, an almost Sisyphean cycle of crisis and SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 96 adaptation, returned when Fox recounted discovering his son’s internal cleft palate at six weeks. He explained that after another hospital stay, doctors identified a hidden cleft in the soft palate caused by the baby’s positioning in utero, which prevented proper development at the back of the mouth. Another vulnerable voice for Fox was that of yearning. This voice of yearning is recognized by sadness and loss, yearning for things to have been different. This shows up when talking about how his son’s condition impacted the rest of his development. He says, “He, uh, so he missed, he never babbled once until he was like over a year old. He never screamed as a baby. Uh, very little wake time, just because he was exhausted for those first two months. So we, uh, we're on the back foot for a lot of stuff. He missed a lot of milestones.” Despite Fox’s positive attitude that will be evident in his voices of self-compassion, there is also a sense of loss and grief for all that his son had to go through and all that he and his partner had to overcome. Fox says, “I get a little choked up thinking about it. It's not, like, I'm not overly emotional about it. It's more just remembering the amount of grief we went through.” Voices of Protection. In Fox’s transcript, there seems to be just one voice of protection: the voice of rationality. As Fox shares about all that was unexpected and difficult about his experience postpartum, the voices of exhaustion and yearning get interrupted by a rational statement, such as “You can't really complain. You're not the one going through all the difficulties, and it's easy to put in perspective when you see the difficulties of actual active roles in birth and all that stuff,” or “So you don't have time to dwell or spiral on being SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 97 a bad parent when you're just being a parent. There's no, there's no room for that.” In other places, this voice of rationality becomes prominent in the way of Fox listing facts about the situation instead of sharing more about how he feels. This voice seems to help Fox cope with all that has been difficult, almost as though this is where he is most comfortable and therefore most grounded. Voices of Self-Compassion. The most prominent voice of self-compassion in Fox’s telling of his story is the voice of self-validation. This voice is recognized by a confidence in acknowledging the challenges that he went through and feeling proud of how he handled those challenges. Fox does not minimize or deny how hard it was to manoeuvre through being a new parent to a child with serious health complications, instead he draws on his suffering to validate what he has been through and make sense of his experience: I'm dealing with an incredibly difficult development of a child. He was behind in everything, missed medical diagnosis, a laundry list of doctors and specialists on his team, realizing that parenting him doesn't look like parenting everybody else. That, that was baked into the first six weeks of our experience as parents, my wife and I. So that felt alone, like it was making space for us to realize that what others are presenting as parents, we don't have to live up to, we're a different kid. Uh, significantly different. He also feels confident about how he was leaning into being an involved dad especially through all the frequent hospital visits. He says, “So I got really good at, uh, setting the bassinet up in the back of our SUV and keeping him down and then bringing him in [to the hospital] for feedings and bringing him back out.” Validating his own suffering and SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 98 acknowledging his own efforts seemed to help to keep him grounded through the overwhelm, building his confidence as a dad, instead of tearing himself down. We can also see his selfvalidation in the following excerpt of his I-Poem: If I do say so myself I’ve got all this trauma I was able to handle I feel very strongly I’ve been parenting I’ve had compassion for myself I can draw I’ve done I experienced with them I think that’s just part of the human condition I wonder if I’m doing things right I’ve never once doubted how we’re doing it Fox is also connected to a sense of gratitude throughout the transcript. This voice of gratitude is recognized by a sense of relief, easily giving credit to others in his life for how they have helped him get through the first year postpartum, and easily appreciating the positives in his life despite the challenges. This comes through in him finding details that he is grateful for throughout their difficult hospital experience, such as the timing of them recovering from COVID-19 so that pandemic protocols didn’t have to be followed, and grateful that he could take the time off work to help support while his wife recovered from SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 99 her C-section. The voice of gratitude is strongest when talking about his wife and how prepared she was pre-birth and how fiercely she advocated for their son in the healthcare system. He says, “I'm so impressed with my wife and how she championed both her and [my first son] non-stop and didn't let the doctors just say, you're a new parent, you're overreacting. She kept pushing for it.” The voice of gratitude also comes in strong when he talks about his in-laws and how they supported him and his wife in this time. Connected to the voice of gratitude is the voice of togetherness. Fox felt a sense of team-ness with his wife throughout his experience during pregnancy and postpartum. This voice is evidenced in the following quote: I feel like my wife and I really cohesively came together throughout. I mean, we're always a big partnership, we're each other's biggest fan for sure, and all that. But, uh, just every choice, it didn't seem like we were negotiating…it just, it seems like every decision that we've made has just clicked, not required those negotiations that I saw my friends having, or family having, and I'm very, very proud of how we've done being parents. It was feeling connected and supported by his wife that minimized him feeling alone in the overwhelm and helped him to access self-validation and ultimately, self-compassion. Voices of Fathering. There was one voice of fathering that stood out in Fox’s story: the voice of persevering. It is clear from the previously discussed voices that Fox had to overcome a lot. He had a sense of duty to persevere through the hardship. He shared how he is proud of the way that he can shoulder burdens when things get tough and how he did not SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 100 have time to worry about whether he was being a bad parent or not because he was just doing whatever he had to do. He says, I mean, there was no time to second guess or get down on myself for how I was parenting. I was solo parenting more than, I'd say probably 90% of dads do in the first six weeks, that's for sure. And, uh you don't really have time to second guess when your wife's upstairs on bedrest from complications and your son is needing a bottle. This perseverance was an anchor-point for Fox. There was no question for him whether to move forward, he just did. To be a father, meant to keep going, to keep serving, to keep caring for his family. Connecting to the Research Question. How did Fox cope in this first year of being a father? Fox was his own best friend. His strong voice of self-validation and encouragement seemed to be a significant part of what got him through. He stood by his own side, in touch with how stressful his experience was, but actively validating his own efforts and believing in his own ability to do what was required of him to care for his newborn. Fox also worked as a team with his wife. He was quick to acknowledge all that she had done while also appreciating how they worked together to care for their son and support each other through the twists and turns of health complications. Fox persevered through the first year of parenting, drawing motivation from his partner and his son. This self-validation was a key component to how he coped in general, but it was also pivotal to his experience of being compassionate to himself. Unlike many other participants, Fox shared that he did not struggle to be self-compassionate towards himself as a parent, he says because it felt like the first time in his life that his experience did not depend on past SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 101 trauma; he was forging a new path for himself as a parent and this helped him offer compassion to himself with greater ease. Exercising gratitude and leaning on his partner were also key strategies that Fox used to access compassion for himself. To be grateful for support is to validate that one needed or benefited from the support. To acknowledge one’s own needs and receive care is in-and-of-itself self-compassionate. (6) Paris Paris is a 37-year-old Filipino Canadian who has completed a trades apprenticeship and currently works full-time as a fire protection technician. He lives with his wife and two sons, at the time of the interview his sons were aged four and two, with a daughter due about seven months after. Paris tells a story of trying so hard at every step and encountering both disappointment and meaning. He and his partner tried for years to have a baby and couldn’t. They tried many different alternative strategies and were met with unsuccess until finally they got pregnant. Paris tried so hard to make connections with other dads, hoping to buffer the isolation, but other dads just did not reciprocate and were difficult to connect with. Then Paris and his partner had to abandon their set birth plan of minimal medication to have an emergency C-section due to the umbilical cord being wrapped around their baby’s neck. They had to figure out life with a newborn in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic where they were limited in the contact they could have, further isolating them. He shared about challenges in negotiating care for their children, feeling like he was trying his best and yet constantly feeling like it was not good enough. He also shared about the lack of family support they had, his own struggles with depression and attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and the exhaustion of his own work in the first year. He shared how SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 102 shifting his self-talk and giving himself a bit of grace gave some space to adjust and cope. He shared how it was helpful to remember that he is more than his parenting struggles—he is a funny guy, with friends, and strengths; a whole person, aside from being a dad. Voices of Vulnerability. The most prominent vulnerable voice and the voice that we encounter first in Paris’ interview is the voice of yearning. This voice is characterized by disappointment, grief, and longing for things to have been different. Paris first speaks in this voice when reflecting on their complicated process of trying to get pregnant, with option after option not working for them. There was grief in having to give up on their hope to conceive naturally and disappointment after disappointment with fertility treatments. The voice comes back in when sharing how he worked hard during his wife’s pregnancy to reach out to other new dads to build community, but this vulnerability was not reciprocated. There was disappointment having to have an emergency C-section instead of their intended birth plan and then longing and loss again when the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions left them even more isolated in the first few months postpartum. He says, There's just like a, a, not an unexpected, like a, a hope, like, as you've seen with, with people who've had newborns before. Like, they, people like lots, at least from what my, in my community, people would come and see the newborn and, you know, like you'd kind of be a proud dad and like, show 'em off and like, um, shared it through greater community. So yeah. I didn't really have that. Even after the restrictions were lifted, Paris yearned for their support to look different. He grieved the loss of not having more available parents to help or close people in their lives that they could depend on, as would be typical in Filipino culture, “to have a lot of second or third SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 103 parents”. It was also hard not to compare to other parents in their life who had their own parents actively involved: Back to compare to despair, it's like when, you know all your friends are like, oh yeah, like my, my mom just came for the afternoon for like, oh, stayed overnight and I just slept through and this and that. You’re like, ‘oh, cool. I'm happy for you, [laughs] great.’ Like, not, you know, just a little bit of, uh, wishing I had that, but, but that, that's not our circumstance. It was tough to feel so alone throughout their perinatal experience. The voice of aloneness is naturally connected to the voice of yearning, often weaving together as Paris shares about the above losses. Having their son right around when COVID19 restrictions came into effect amplified the loneliness: “It was isolating to the next level”. All of Paris’ and his wife’s parents worked full-time and so were not that available in this postpartum period: The help we can get from them? It's like, um, not, not that much. Not, not that we were not grateful, but I think it's, uh, I think it's also, yeah, just there, the, the compare and despair trap where in our wider circles, like we have some friends who have parents are retired. And they are like very like, uh, enthusiastic and like helping or come in, bring new meal, things like that. And it felt like for us, it was definitely, um, harder. Paris also shared how he did not have any father role models in his life that had been as involved as he was desperately trying to be, no gauge to know what to expect from himself. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 104 So, amidst natural tensions around roles and expectations between him and his wife, he felt alone in navigating how to do engaged co-parenting well. Voices of Self-Compassion. The most prominent self-compassionate voice for Paris is that of self-validation. This voice starts out as soft and occasional but builds throughout the interview. As Paris shared about his experience through pregnancy and postpartum, his narrative is sprinkled with validation such as “I think, I think that was hard,” “it was tricky,” and “we were just doing our best,” gently acknowledging the suffering and complexity along the way. The voice came up strong when Paris was talking about what self-compassion practice looks like for him. He says, Even when I'm hard, hard on myself or I'm resentful towards myself or to my, my wife, I'm trying to just like, uh, take a step back. Just see like, okay, you're not like a failure of a father or you are like, like yes. Like I am trying my best. Um, but, you know, it's not perfect, but that I am trying to put a good effort on it. Paris goes on to share that self-compassion is about catching his negative self-talk and balancing the things he feels like a failure at with grounded positives that he is good at. At times when he would feel defensive about not doing enough or doing things right, he would offer himself some reassurance to help cope, as heard in the below I-Poem excerpt: [Paris is] not just a parent I’m just stru— I’m struggling I’m not like I’m still like a good friend SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 105 I’m still like a good worker I’m still like a funny guy I am I like about myself I’m still doing I’m struggling I feel like I, I feel like I’ve grown I think I just feel like I guess I think I, I think I’ve just grown Paris’ gentle but consistent commitment to seeing his own hard work and genuine effort pull him out of spiraling. Time and again this self-validation comes at the end of a paragraph that focuses on aloneness or loss and steadies the waters with acknowledging that it makes sense that it was a lot. This voice grounds him in truth about his experience, tempering the overwhelm and irritability with understanding and encouragement. Connected to this voice of self-validation is a voice of acceptance. Part of coping for Paris meant accepting the things he couldn’t change and embracing the things he could. In this voice of acceptance, he shares about having a realization a few months into postpartum SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 106 that he was struggling with feeling low and overwhelmed, acknowledging that he has a history of seasonal affective disorder and intentionally reconnecting with ways of coping that have been effective for him in the past. The same acceptance comes through when he talks about his ADHD diagnosis and how it was important to utilize medication and psychotherapy to navigate this part of his life. He says, Actually, like just being honest with myself, like helped me, like, pursue counselling or pursue like finding like ADHD meds or like pursue those, those things….It took like a low point for me to be like, okay, I'm always overwhelmed. I'm always overwhelmed. Like, why am I like, oh, okay, I'm diagnosed ADHD yeah. Yeah. Just like looking at oneself, but and then, and then looking for help. The acceptance was also important to navigating disagreements with his wife. He shared about accepting that he and his wife have different personalities and backgrounds and therefore a different hierarchy of priorities; being okay with disagreements was important for having understanding for each other. This acceptance for the differences between him and his wife flows into the voice of togetherness. This voice is sure and casual, talking about the team-ness he experiences with his wife as if everyone has it. Through the pregnancy complications, changes to the birth plan, and those first few months at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, Paris uses a lot of “we” language, depicting joint decision-making and a sense of supporting one another. This voice is best captured in the following quote: And even like, like, it wasn't always like, like my wife and I, we had a sense of like, we were, we were a team. So, I think when, when it's like we're not, we're both like SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 107 not in a good space or we're not like, uh, in the middle, obviously in the middle of like, uh, some tension or an argument. Like, I would like share to her like, ‘oh, I'm just feeling like this and that, and feeling like I'm really trying my best.’ At times diverging from the voice of togetherness is the voice of mattering. This voice is active and concise. Paris identifies that he needed to do things for himself to help him cope with the challenges of postpartum; he needed to value his own needs amidst the needs of others around him. At times, this looked like getting outside more, “not feeling guilty for…getting a coffee, or like a treat, with [his] baby,” or intentionally using skills he had learned in therapy like deep breathing or checking his thoughts, to stay grounded. Sometimes, he said, he needed to “just veg out,” but sharing that it took work to find ways to make this happen in busy postpartum life. If the voice of self-validation settled him, the voice of mattering gets him going. It offers a different way to get unstuck from the aloneness and the yearning rumination, or in the case of the following quote, the voice of mattering keeps him from falling into feeling like he’s not enough or he can never get it right: Like, even, even like when like there's a perception of like, like I could have like done like a, like a hustle task. Oh, but then I chose to go see a friend. Like, I obviously made the choice, to go see a friend and do the hustle task later. But like, I think there's for some compassion and part of me that's like, um, not, I, like, it's like that, not entitlement, but like, hey, like maybe like it would like meet some of my other needs that haven't been met or needing some, like, care to meet a friend. And then, because there's always going to be something to do. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD Voices of Fathering. The predominant fathering voice for Paris is the voice of striving. This voice is driven and patient. Throughout Paris’ telling of his story, he cares about being an involved father and works hard to try his best. During pregnancy, he was actively involved in a midwifery group, trying to build community support amongst other new dads. We can hear the meaningful striving in the following I-Poem excerpt: I guess I had I wanted to build a community I knew it was gonna be long I found I found I was quite involved I tried to connect I tried to initiate I definitely had to I think I was just I was there I was like I guess I think I was just 108 SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 109 I can support I can I can do I felt like I tried I felt like trying my best During postpartum he felt proud that he was more involved than his own dad, and when he discovered ways that he could improve or change to better serve his family, he did so. Although Paris experienced disappointments, arguments, and setbacks, this voice of striving stayed present, driving him to keep trying, to keep adjusting, to keep moving forward. This voice is best captured in the following quote: I think just a parenting experience is like in, in some ways, like how, um, marriage is like a mirror to yourself. Like parenting is like another one. You're like, oh, shit, like there's lots of things there that I'm doing wrong or want to be better. Why? And then you knock on some, knock on as many doors as you can until you figure out, oh, okay. Maybe. Connected to the Research Question. By listening to the voices within Paris’ telling of his story, we can learn how he coped through the challenges that he faced postpartum. Paris seemed to cope with the yearning and aloneness especially by leaning on his wife as a teammate. Feeling in the hardship together with his wife helped him stay grounded. Paris also realized that he needed to actively support himself in this period, by getting outside, doing things he loved, and giving himself permission to reward himself along the way. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 110 Thirdly, Paris was able to acknowledge the difficulty he was going through, accept what he could and couldn’t control about his situation, and play an active role in getting support for himself. Regarding Paris’ experience of growing in being more compassionate to himself, the voice of Self-Validation stands out. Paris found ways to stand with himself when he felt overwhelmed and inadequate. He had the skills to validate how hard his experience was and offer himself reassurance of who he is and what he is capable of, within parenting and outside of parenting. The following quote captures this: I feel like, uh, parenting can be so consuming that everything is attached to that. Like my identity is so attached to that. But, uh, but if I can detach myself enough to be like, oh, like [Paris is] not just a parent. He's like, you know, he's a guy that does other things, who likes other things. Like, um, then it allows me to see myself as, um, yeah. Like not a failure. Even if I'm struggling with a portion of my life, like parenting portion, I'm not like, oh, I'm still like a good friend. I'm still like a good worker. I'm still like a funny guy. At the end of the interview, Paris shares that he is grateful for his experience of parenting because it has increased his “capacity and resilience” to care for himself, his wife, and his children. (7) Peter Peter is a 31-year-old white Canadian expatriate who has an undergraduate degree and works full-time in communications and media in the non-profit sector. He lives with his wife and two children, a son aged two at the time of the interview and a four-month-old SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 111 daughter. He shared his story of having his son after pregnancy complications. Peter shared how it is hard to remember much from his first year of fatherhood as it all felt like a blur. He shared that towards the end of his son’s first year he realized that he was not happy and that he was not taking care of himself well. He described having less patience, being more emotionally reactive, and having a shorter fuse. Learning Peter had high blood pressure was a turning point for him as he realized he needed to start prioritizing his health so he could be a good dad for as long as possible. He shared that what helped him cope was getting creative in how to make space to work out, connect with God, and get good sleep. Peter shared about an epiphany-like experience he had when his son was just over a year-and-a-half, and his second child was already born, where he came across a reel on social media that made him think about himself as a little boy and encouraged him to “do it for him”. This moved him to be compassionate towards himself now as a dad and be less hard on himself. He reflected that watching the reel helped him soften his inner critic; by extending compassion toward himself, he noticed a marked improvement in his emotional experience and overall sense of coping. Voices of Vulnerability. The most prominent voice of vulnerability in Peter’s telling of his story is the voice of depression. This voice is recognized by a pessimistic tone that is, at times, self-critical, and other times, irritable and impatient. Peter recognized a time postpartum where he had “an emotional deficit” and was “burned out emotionally.” He described a hard time that was a “combination of sleep deprivation, lack of good food, lack of good exercise, lack of sex, [and] lack of, spiritual life, like prayer.” As a dad and husband, he had deprioritized his needs for the sake of his child and family for most of the first year, SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 112 however, this led to him being more on edge and feeling low. Close to the end of the first year, he realized that he was not doing well and that his irritability contributed to a downward spiral with his partner and internally within himself. He says, “There can be like a sense of self pressure where you're definitely like self-critical of yourself. If you're not, you feel like you aren't measuring up.” He shared that he would go over disappointments from his life in this time, ruminating on his past and feeling stuck, knowing that he was not happy in his life situation. He shared how heavy and burdensome the pressures of fatherhood and marriage were on top of trying to take care of himself. We can hear this voice of depression in the following I-Poem excerpt: I was being like I was going over like disappointments I was kind of ruminating I think I asked myself Am I happy? I said I knew I wasn’t happy I think disappointment I felt I love I sat with my anger SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 113 I think I was feeling I think I was feeling disappointed I was just sucking on this bitter pill of disappointment I was poisoning my soul and my heart The second voice of Peter’s vulnerability is the voice of yearning. This voice is recognized by sadness, loss, and longing. As Peter reflects on his experience, he shares of the losses from his pre-children life such as having the time to engage in his spiritual life with more freedom. He says, “when you become a father, you lose so much independence, you lose so much of your perceived freedom to do what you want when you want.” He feels that as a father he must “accept the reduction of [his] personhood.” Although much of this can be seen as important self-sacrifice (see voice of responsibility later), there is also grief in Peter’s voice, yearning for things to be different while also accepting his reality. He says, You're gonna be a different person. And so you need to accept that. And you're not, and you can't, like, it's okay to grieve that, but don't let that grief become disappointment, which turns to bitterness, which turns to anger, which turns to, you know, not being in an emotionally healthy place. Voices of Protection. There are two voices of protection that seem to weave in and out with the voices of vulnerability: the voice of not remembering and the voice of SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 114 rationality. The voice of not remembering is recognized by literally reporting that he cannot remember, but also a tone of uncertainty and self-doubt. This voice arises most often when Peter is first answering a question about this that I have asked. He tells me that “it’s all a blur” and that he cannot remember details about his emotional experience surrounding the birth and his time postpartum. Of course, he then shares specific elements that he does remember. I believe that he genuinely does not remember and yet this voice also seems to act to moderate what he shares next. He shared that the difficulty remembering could also be do with him already having a second child now and how having a second child feels so much harder in comparison to his first. The not remembering might also be functioning to protect him from painful emotional memories and create some distance between his experience now and then. We can hear the voice of not remembering in the following I-Poem excerpt: I mean I don’t know I think I don’t know I think I don’t really remember I think I mean I don’t know if I coped at all That I can remember Maybe I did SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 115 Maybe I didn’t Maybe I did it well Maybe I didn’t do it well If I did or didn’t The voice of rationality is marked by a matter-of-fact tone that strives to interpret emotional experiences through logic and analysis. This voice often interrupts Peter’s more vulnerable or self-compassionate reflections, prompting him to step back and make sense of his feelings intellectually. For instance, after describing a deeply moving experience of compassion, he paused to question why it affected him so profoundly, wondering if its power came from connecting to an innocent, wonder-filled part of himself. This rational voice reveals Peter’s effort to translate emotion into understanding—a way of regaining balance and control in moments of deep feeling. Voices of Self-Compassion. The strongest self-compassion voice for Peter was the voice of mattering. This voice is confident and asserts that his own physical and emotional needs matter. When Peter sought a vasectomy procedure after their second child, he could not have the procedure when he wanted to because he had high blood pressure. This was a wakeup call for Peter that he had been self-sacrificing and not taking care of himself during postpartum to the point of compromising his own health. It was the impetus he needed to begin to prioritize his physical needs such as sleep, eating, and exercise routines. He says, “I guess I gotta take my own health seriously…mental and physical and spiritual because I wanna be there for my kid. Like, your heart only has so many beats in your life, and you gotta make 'em count.” This voice of Mattering was also strong when Peter was sharing SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 116 about a turning point for him in learning to be more compassionate to himself. He shared how he came across a reel on social media one night that just made him cry: The reel was just this picture of a, of a boy in, uh, like a meadow, like in this flower meadow. And, uh, the caption was uh...it was, um...sorry [choking up]. Yeah. The caption said, ‘this person is still inside you, do it for him.’ Another prominent voice was a voice of forgiveness for himself. This voice is sure and matter of fact. Peter talks about forgiving himself for his own mistakes. It is important to Peter to acknowledge that there are mistakes that have been made, wrongs that need forgiveness and mercy, rather than vague grace or gentleness. He says, “It's where you, you forgive without, without calling a wrong to account. It's where you, where you give the person space, it's where you give them the mercy and the forgiveness.” The third voice of self-compassion is the voice of gratitude. This voice is recognized by an explicit thankfulness and a sense of relief and openness. Peter shared how grateful he is to have had the two previously mentioned pivotal experiences postpartum: being alerted to his physical health and coming across that reel that “flipped a switch in [him]” to have more capacity and feel freer. He says, And now I feel like I am meeting those, those external pressures in a much healthier way. Where it's like, I'm physically healthier, I'm way more emotionally resilient. I'm like, uh, spiritually, like doing a lot better. I'm like, I'm a better husband to my wife. He also shared how learning to be thankful for the little daily things has made a significant difference in his life. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 117 Voices of Fathering. Throughout Peter’s story there was a strong voice of responsibility that was recognized by an insistence on self-sacrifice and an ownership to take responsibility for his own behaviour. This came through when first talking about the initial months postpartum where he felt it was important to put his own needs last. He shared that it would be “neglecting fatherly duties” if he prioritized himself in this period. He shared an example of not taking a nap unless his wife and his baby had both already napped. This sense of responsibility also came up when talking about coping through the difficulties. He says, “Whatever, you gotta push through, embrace the suck. That was my motto. You just gotta embrace the suck.” He shared about a sexual desire discrepancy in his marriage postpartum that he noticed led him to be more irritable, but this voice of responsibility came in to take it upon himself to manage his own emotions instead of burdening his wife. He says, Like, you can't be, you can't be like, obviously it'd be great to have sex with your wife, but there's going to be times when you cannot have that. And you need to be in a space where that doesn't bother you...But I mean, just like in a healthy sex life, there's going to be times where you can't have that. You can't have sex. So, you gotta figure out a way to be the man that your wife deserves, even if you can't be intimate. After his experience with realizing he needs to take care of his own needs in some way, this voice of responsibility came back in the form of feeling it was now his fatherly duty to be creative in finding time for exercise, good sleep, and spiritual disciplines. Peter’s second voice of fathering was the voice of striving. Although appearing less often than the voice of responsibility, it was clear that Peter was just trying so hard throughout his experience postpartum to be the best dad he could be. He was always trying to SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 118 be involved, always trying to be better. The voice of striving was driven, it was pursuing something of worth. This voice is best captured in the following quote: Like, whatever you were trying to do. Like you're trying to be a better dad, trying to be a better person, and trying to be there for your kids, for your wife. You're trying to, you know, be a, a financial provider. You're trying to be physically healthy, you're trying to, you know, have a good sex life. You're trying to, you know, be an emotionally healthy father for your children. The voice of striving was also present while at the end of the interview; Peter shared a list of all the different strategies, mantras, and reminders he had made for himself to continue to push through, carve space for himself while also being there for his wife, and ultimately trying to be the best dad and husband he can be. Connecting to the Research Question. It was surprising to hear that Peter could not remember much about his first year as a father or how he got through. He just survived it somehow, he pushed through without totally knowing how he did it. It was not until over a year and a half into being a new dad, while his second child was a newborn, that Peter had profound shifts in how he intentionally coped with the hardship. At this point he worked hard to instill practical daily rhythms of physical health, spiritual health, and emotional health for himself which helped him have more capacity to face the same challenges. Regarding self-compassion specifically, Peter was very critical of himself in that first year and would often get stuck in depressive rumination. For Peter, his self-compassion had a strong practical component, advocating to himself that his own needs matter and intentionally putting routines in place to help take care of his biological needs. It also SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 119 involved learning to extend the forgiveness that he might extend to others in his life, to himself. Being more self-compassionate also facilitated gratitude in Peter’s life, where he could more easily appreciate and validate all that he has been through, the support that he got along the way, and the dad and husband he has become through the process. (8) Mark Mark is a 35-year-old white Canadian who has a graduate degree and currently works full-time as a Registered Clinical Counsellor. He lives with his wife and two sons, aged six and two at the time of the interview. He shared about his experience of being a dad for the first time through his son having medical problems at birth, his wife struggling with breastfeeding, his son having intense purple crying stages, moving homes a few times, sleep for everyone being difficult for a long time, and navigating the COVID-19 pandemic. He shared that leaning on in-laws’ and friends’ support made a big difference as well as finding ways to have more sleep and create more routine in his life. Mark and his wife worked collaboratively through potential moments of strain and anguish, with Mark expressing that through it all he did not struggle with being self-compassionate, it was just a part of his thinking patterns already. Voices of Vulnerability. The most prominent vulnerable voice for Mark is the voice of powerlessness. This voice is recognized by a helplessness in realizing that there was not a lot Mark could do to fix the situation or make things better. It is a subtle voice, in that Mark does not explicitly talk about it, but instead talks about being stressed and frustrated in the process. It comes up strongest when Mark talks about learning about his son’s intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) and the consequences of that on him and his wife. He shared that SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 120 his wife had trouble with having enough breastmilk and combined with IUGR, they had a stressful time coping. He says, But I remember [bottle feeding] being hard too because like he would like, I don't know, he had some kind of acid reflux so like you feed them with a bottle, but you had to be at a specific angle and then like he would like often stop in the middle of feeding. This voice of powerlessness also came up when sharing about his son’s purple crying and his difficulties with sleep. Mark and his wife had recently moved from living with their parents to living with their friends and Mark shared how challenging it was to hear his son crying so much while also knowing that it was affecting other people in the night. He says, I think like just like when you're bouncing them and like not able to settle him and, yeah, just nothing that you do works like it's just so frustrating and then you feel bad for them, but also for yourself because you want to go back to bed. Mark and his wife ended up hiring a sleep consultant to help with their son’s sleep because it became so unmanageable and “you know you just don't really know you know what's right or how to go forward.” He reports the process of sleep training to also be very stressful, but it did help them find resolution with his son’s sleep in the end. His voice of powerlessness wove in and out of other postpartum experiences, but these were the few where it was strongest. Mark’s second voice of vulnerability is that of exhaustion. This is an important voice to understand for Mark because sleep and having good sleep is very important to him and his experience of self-compassion (see voices of Self-Compassion below). This voice of SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 121 exhaustion is recognized by a heaviness and monotony in tone. Mark describes elements of exhaustion in those first few months piling up—like stress, lack of sleep, crying, arguing, with it all feeling like an exhausting burden to hold. In this exhausted voice, he shares about him and his wife being “at [their] wit’s end” with their son’s crying and poor sleep, desperate for something to change. The only conflict with his wife that he shared about was regarding their shared duties in the night, their sleep, and both being exhausted. Mark remembers only getting five hours of sleep and being awake with his son in the early hours of the morning with no energy to play or be present with his son. He says, “So having a baby and like putting that tiredness upon my already not good sleep was really hard. Just like, cause when I'm tired, I'm just not as mentally available for my wife or my kid or for anyone.” The last vulnerable voice was that of yearning. This voice is recognized by a sadness and disappointment as Mark reflects on his first-year postpartum yearning for some things to have been different. This voice comes in much less frequently than the other vulnerable voices, but it does come up when Mark is sharing about how it was not the ideal time to be pregnant as he was still in school, despite purposefully trying to conceive. It comes up in talking about how the COVID-19 pandemic altered their experiences in the hospital, not having friends or family with them, having to move in with his wife’s parents because they could no longer afford their apartment, and feeling bad in retrospect about putting their son through the sleep training that they did. Voices of Protection. The main voice of protection in Mark’s telling of his story is the voice of rationality. This voice is all about facts about a situation keeping the emotional elements minimal. For example, this voice interrupts a voice of gratitude about learning prior SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 122 to the birth that their son had IUGR, shifting instead to a logical discussion of the medical options and birth process. Similarly, when recalling the helplessness of not being able to soothe his baby, Mark diverts into factual recollections about his own sleep patterns and work schedule, meticulously calculating what time he went to bed and how long his commute took. This tendency to default to factual recall highlights how Mark’s rationality functions protectively, helping him maintain control when emotional experiences feel overwhelming. Although infrequent and for not very long, there is also a voice of not remembering that is scattered throughout the transcript. This voice is in and amongst the voice of rationality example above. This voice is recognized by a surprising unsurety in recalling memories, compared to the rest of the transcript. It shows up with more occurrences of “yeah” and “um” and sometimes Mark explicitly says that he “can’t remember”. This could simply be because he is remembering from six years prior, a longer period than any other participant, and it could also be a part of him that protects him from the some of the painful memory. Each of these protective voices seem to interrupt other voices, both vulnerable voices and self-compassionate voices, as Mark recalls his experience postpartum. Voices of Self-Compassion. The strongest self-compassionate voice for Mark was that of gratitude. This voice was consistent throughout each portion of the transcript, weaving through every part of the story. This voice is recognized by brief asides about meaningful positives amidst hardship. The voice is calm, thoughtful and hopeful. Although Mark was still in school when their son was born, he was grateful that the timing worked out around his winter break so he could take time at home to be with his son and support his wife. Amidst IUGR and breastfeeding stresses, Mark was grateful for the donor milk supply from the local SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 123 milk bank. Throughout sharing about sleep challenges, Mark was grateful for routines that he and his wife created as a team and the sleep consultant support. And although there was a time where Mark and his wife had to live with his wife’s parents for financial reasons, Mark shared how grateful he was for his wife to have their support while he was busy with school and for his son to grow up so close with his grandparents. This voice of gratitude is exampled in how Mark talks as he reflects on the experience of the interview as a whole: Its been cool to think about with [my oldest son], like what we did and how–It's been cool to think about just like how I've evolved as a parent and as a dad. How–yeah how much I've learned about myself, about parenting, about life. Because, yeah, when I think about like that time five, like, I guess [my oldest son is] six in a bit, so like it would have been like six years ago now. It honestly seems like a lifetime ago. Like, I cannot imagine life without my kids [laughs]. The voice of self-validation is the next strongest self-compassionate voice. Mark has a confidence about how he has handled the hardships postpartum, and this comes through in this voice specifically. This grounded and understanding voice gives evidence to Mark’s statement that he didn’t struggle with being too self-critical during his experience. Marks says a few times in the transcript, “I was doing my best and I was helping out,” and validates that parenting is hard and that it’s valuable to be patient and kind to yourself, “cutting yourself some slack, like letting yourself to be human…There's nothing wrong with you, right? You’re just kind of trying to cope with life just like everybody else.” He shared that this kind of validation and understanding for himself helped him to not take things as SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 124 personally and be less angry with his child. This is exampled in the following I-Poem excerpt: I think I get frustrated I shouldn’t I shouldn’t I should I should I’m a human I’ve never parented I’ve never had I’ve never done that before Throughout Mark’s telling of his story, he has a grounded confidence in what he needs or needed at the time. He speaks with a voice of mattering, believing that his needs matter and are worth making space for. Mark especially values his sleep. He shared how any conflict he and his wife had surrounding sleep and nighttime routines with their baby, both needing sleep to function in their day. He shared how eventually he made lifestyle changes to just go to bed earlier so that he could get the sleep that he needed and be involved in caring for his son. This voice of mattering is best captured in the following quote: I think, yeah, like eventually I just started going to bed earlier and like because I was like, yeah, I can't…I can't parent him when I'm like so tired, right? So I think, I think in that moment, self-compassion was being like yeah, like I can't do everything right? SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 125 Like I need, I need sleep and I need to prioritize sleep, and, and that's good for me, it's good for my son because then I have energy and I'm awake and can be with him. This assertion that his physical needs matter is also apparent in the following I-Poem excerpt: I do need sleep I need sleep too I can’t I’m like I know I actually have to work I can’t sleep in I think I remember I was like very like resistant I was I don’t get a good sleep I can’t really function I just I really don’t like I’m working I don’t think I ever felt guilty I felt SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 126 I guess I felt entitled to that sleep Mark also has a voice of togetherness in his story where it’s clear that he worked as a team with his wife in moving through the first year postpartum. This sense of team-ness and supporting each other is evident as he talks about sharing nighttime feeds in those first few months and also how much he tried to help and be part of things when he came home from work. He says, “I was just trying to do everything that I could do to help lighten the load. Right? And help the baby.” Voices of Fathering. For Mark, there were two main voices of fathering: the voice of bonding and the voice of persevering. As with the other participants, these voices were anchors for Mark, voices that wove in and out of the other voices, providing a sense of grounding. Mark worked hard to build a special bond with his son. This voice of bonding is light and contented. Mark shared how he ended up appreciating having his son while in school because he got to spend so much more time with him between classes. Amidst the purple crying stage, Mark shared how, positive things from that time too was like learning different things to like kind of calm [his son] down. I think there was like certain things I would do like swinging him like you know intensely or like doing certain things. Finding ways that I could help calm him down in different ways was like a positive connecting way, I just like feeling like…It feels good. I just felt like I had a special connection with him in a different way. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 127 The voice of persevering is a voice that is tired but pushes on, finding a way through, either by problem solving, trial and error, or by sheer tolerance. Mark shared how it was stressful and worrisome to have his son sleep in the same bed as him, but he found ways to make it work. He shared how tricky it was to bottle feed his son due to his IUGR, but he got used to it and got good at using different strategies to make it work. It was important to Mark to stay committed to working things out, to get through the challenges with his wife, his baby, varied social support, and with the challenges that came with school and work. Connecting to the Research Question. We can learn much from Mark about the research question. In Mark’s telling of his story, it was gratitude that played the strongest role in him coping well. Throughout the transcript, gratitude was an anchor for Mark amidst talking about all that he went through, often bringing him back to a settled peace. Gratitude seemed to help Mark stay connected to an accurate picture of his experience, not positive thinking that dismisses suffering, but being able to see meaningful good things in his life along the way. Mark was also active in being involved in the care of his son and worked hard to build a strong connection with his son. Having confidence that he did have a special bond with his son was also something that helped Mark cope through the challenges of that first year. Mark’s primary way of using self-compassion as a tool was seen in Mark’s keen ability to offer himself validation and understanding throughout his experience. He seemed to constantly make space for how hard his experience was while also seeing the hard work that he was doing. He had a knowing that he was trying his best and that that was the best he could be asking of himself. Mark also seemed to have a skill in asking for knowing what he SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 128 needed and asking for what he needed in his relationship. Of course, a dad’s physical and emotional needs are often meaningfully self-sacrificed postpartum; yet Mark was also able to find space to assert that his needs, like sleep, mattered too amidst all the needs going on with his wife and his baby. Mark demonstrated self-compassion in this way: knowing what he needed and working to give himself what he needed. Integrative Summary Having explored each father’s story in detail, I now turn to a synthesis of how voices interacted across the eight narratives. As seen in the individual descriptions, the voices that emerged have been organized into four groups (a) voices of vulnerability (b) voices of protection (c) voices of self-compassion and (d) voices of fathering. The meaning of these narratives comes from how the voices interact with one another. The movement between the voices is, at times, overlapping and harmonious and other times independent or dissonant. The voices are inherently connected to one another, never functioning in isolation. This is true for the unique stories of each father in the study as well as for how the groups as a whole function across the eight participants. The relationships between the voice groups are represented in Figure 1 below. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 129 Figure 1 Self-Compassion as a Bridge Between Vulnerability and Fathering Vulnerability Self-Compassion Fathering Protection Traditional Masculinity Norms Note. Protection shapes the movement from vulnerability to self-compassion; Participants sometimes went back and forth between self-compassion and vulnerability; self-compassion and fathering mutually reinforce one another. The Interplay of Vulnerability and Protection Each participant encountered suffering in their perinatal experience. For some, they were sharing how they really felt about their experience for the first time. This came through in the voices of vulnerability. Every participant struggled in some way. The voice of yearning was the most common amongst the participants (five of eight). John and Peter’s yearning, for example, focused on the loss of their previous lives. Peter says it well, SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 130 When you lose something, when you grieve, like when you lose something, you grieve. And that grief eventually manifests itself as like disappointment and then anger. And when you become a father, you lose so much independence, you lose so much of your perceived freedom to do what you want when you want. And if you don't recognize it, that can become grief over a disappointment from that loss. And I think that's what I was feeling. I think I was feeling disappointed. Fox, Mark, and Paris’s yearning focused on difficulties with their pregnancies and unexpected birthing and health complications. Many of them had regret for how they acted or for decisions they made along the way. There was a yearning for things to be different than they were and a sense of loss for what could have been. The voice of depression was also prominent (four of eight). Especially in the early months of postpartum, participants experienced a hopelessness and pessimism. They described a negative lens through which they saw their circumstance and could not see a way out. This numb, irritable state was shaped by early-months deprivation—sleep loss, disrupted routines, and reduced connection. A quote from James highlights this voice: Since we came home and that first week I consider as my worst week in my life, not necessarily 'cause everything was just so challenging. It was just, it's a lot. Really. A lot went on. Um, but then mostly it was probably 'cause we couldn't sleep. And John says, “I didn't think I was gonna survive. Not, not literally like I was gonna, harm myself. But I was like, how the hell am I gonna, do this? Like, this is like the hardest thing ever.” SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 131 For some participants, the vulnerability was explicit, through open emotional sharing, and for others the vulnerability was occasionally pulled back by voices of protection (Kabir, Fox, Peter, Mark), such as rationality, not remembering, containment, and positive thinking. Initially it seemed that these voices got in the way of vulnerable sharing, as defences to be broken down. But as I spent more time with the participants’ stories through their interviews, it became clearer that these voices also played a critical role in helping them cope with their suffering. For example, as Kabir shared about the isolation and lack of support that he and his wife felt during the birth of their daughter, he made sure to include that there were benefits to giving birth during the COVID-19 pandemic (positive thinking). Or after talking about his sleepless nights, he almost interrupts himself to share how he was glad that he was able to lose weight because of the sleeplessness and poor routine. Continuing from the I-Poem used in Peter’s story above, the below excerpt demonstrates a pivot from affect to appraisal (“I was feeling” to “I think”), illustrating how rational protection tempered distress without erasing it. I sat with my anger I think I was feeling I think I was feeling disappointed I was just sucking on this bitter pill of disappointment I was poisoning my soul SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 132 and my heart I’m like So what do I do? I think I think I remember I said I think that’s a key I don’t know I definitely think These interruptions of rational coping buffered the vulnerable voices of aloneness or depression, making them more tolerable. The voices of protection also redirected the voices of self-compassion. For some, these self-compassionate voices were spoken with ease and confidence, and for others it was as if participants felt they were barely allowed to talk like this. For example, after speaking with a voice of mattering about how he wants to take better care of himself physically, Peter jumps into sharing about the logical facts about his family’s medical history to justify his behaviour (voice of rationality). Or after sharing about the team-ness and connection he felt with his wife during the process, Kabir switches gears to talk about his need to suppress reactions he has in his relationship and restrict his emotions (voice of containment). The voices of protection interjecting here show that the self-compassionate voices are also vulnerable; Being a separate grouping does not make them easy to voice. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 133 Self-Compassion as a Bridge Across the interviews, participants shared that they were not particularly selfcompassionate for most of the first year of postpartum. Both chronologically in their stories and literally in their interviews, participants did not start speaking in self-compassionate ways, but rather they spoke with voices of self-compassion once they moved through vulnerability. John shared about the powerlessness that he felt in those first few months postpartum that triggered him to have big emotional reactions or to shut down. Over time, acknowledging this helped him not to take things as personally and to access acceptance for the difficult emotions he felt and acceptance for what he could and could not change. This helped him to be more lenient on himself. In turn, having acceptance for his feelings propelled him into a stronger fathering voice of responsibility. He says, “that’s just something that I have to work on day in and day out. But I can, now like recognize that those are the things that I, I need to work with.” Acknowledging his powerlessness and struggle moved him to accept what he needed to work on, which then moved into having a sense of it being his responsibility as a dad to work on it. We also see a shift from yearning and depression to self-validation. Fox begins by sharing about his exhaustion in adjusting to the needs of his new son with health complications and shares about the losses he feels from his son missing developmental milestones. As he takes stock of all that he has been through, he responds with validation for himself, grounding himself in the work that he has done which then bolsters a sense of perseverance. The fathering voice of persevering reflects the awareness of the struggle. The SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 134 more Fox builds confidence with his perseverance, the more he can access self-compassion such as self-validation and gratitude. And again, we see this in James’s telling of his story. He shares about a hopelessness and self-criticism in his voice of depression, and it is through feeling and talking about his vulnerability that he can move to a voice of forgiveness, not just factually telling of how he forgave himself, but shifting into that voice in the interview itself. Connecting with forgiveness for himself and for those he resented moved him to a more present place where he could take in the love from his child. Once he could feel the special relationship with his daughter, his acceptance, forgiveness, and gratitude grew. For James (and John, Kabir, and Mark), accessing self-compassion even a little bit bolstered his experience of bonding with his child, and feeling connected with his child in turn fuelled greater self-compassion. John, James, and Paris also shared how despite growing in being self-compassionate, they found themselves falling back into vulnerable spirals, such as depression, exhaustion, or resentment throughout their experience. Every time they would fall back, however, they shared that it would not be as consuming, and they could find self-compassionate practice again. This falling back is represented by the dotted-lined arrow in Figure 1. By the end of the interview, they shared that they were grateful for the resilience that they built to not get so caught up in the overwhelming feelings. It was striking that all but one participant had a strong voice of togetherness and all but two had a voice of gratitude. This sense of team-ness, whether from a partner, parents, or other dads and, subsequent explicit gratitude for this support, was critical for tempering voices of aloneness, depression, and yearning. At times the togetherness was interwoven in SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 135 the voices of vulnerability from the beginning (like for Fox, Paris, Mark, and Kabir) tethering participants along the way, and other times the togetherness was formed by way of suffering, making it through, and looking back and realizing how the people close to them were really there for them (like for John, James, and Ryan). Across participants, the togetherness was tied closely with a sense of gratitude. Participants were not directly asked about what they were grateful for, but all of them spoke of gratitude naturally in their interview. Even the two participants who did not have a formal voice of gratitude (Ryan and Paris) both took time to be thankful for the good in their journeys, especially the people who helped them to feel less alone, from nursing staff to partners, from parents to their own children. The strong voices across participants of togetherness and gratitude are especially powerful when considering the patriarchal context in which these fathers are negotiating their experiences. Negotiation Between Vulnerability and Traditional Masculinity Fathers’ narratives and the relationships between the voices are inseparable from a broader gendered context shaped by traditional masculinity socialization. The participants’ experiences of being self-compassionate were not straight-forward, but rather, they seemed to be constantly negotiating and renegotiating conflicting messages about what being a good man and father meant. We see this directly in how James talks about trying to be selfcompassionate: I guess that's the image that, um, I guess my dad kind of showed me, 'cause being a dad means really, uh, you, you can, you need to sacrifice to protect. Uh, so I think when the self-compassion or, or, uh, responsibility kind of mixed together, I think it's always the responsibility that kind of wins over the self-compassion. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 136 His voice of responsibility was at times in tension with his voices of self-compassion, trying to understand what would be best for himself and his family. This example reflects the same tensions found in John, Ryan, and Peter’s stories as well between self-sacrifice and various forms of self-kindness (e.g. self-validation, mattering, forgiveness). This societal sense of self-sacrifice as an essential aspect of being a dad has noble and meaningful functions and yet it can also come at a cost. We can see this interplayed again in Peter’s story, where he prioritizes self-sacrifice during the beginning of postpartum as felt appropriate and necessary to him, but at the eventual cost of his own physical and emotional health. Being denied a surgery because of his physical health was a wake-up call to renegotiate what it means to self-sacrifice in a way that honours his family’s needs as well as his own. By engaging in these renegotiations regarding self-sacrifice and self-kindness, participants are actively redefining their sense of fatherhood, moving away from a sacrifice-at-all-costs mentality to valuing sustainable responsibility and relational presence. The context of traditional masculinity norms is depicted in Figure 1 as a dotted perimeter, at the end of this chapter, to signal a permeable, non-deterministic context that participants moved in and out of. The gendered societal expectation on fathers is perhaps most obvious through the voices of protection, where fathers go back and forth from vulnerable expressions of suffering or daring forms of being self-compassionate to emotional containment, rationality, and positive thinking (and denying vulnerability). These voices of protection directly map onto traditional masculinity norms of stoicism, emotional restriction, toughness, and avoidance of femininity—or those aspects traditionally associated with femininity such as emotional vulnerability, asking for help, etc. (David & Brannon, 1976; Levant & Pollack, SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 137 1995; Levant et al., 2020). Ryan calls this dynamic out directly when he shares more context for why connecting vulnerably with other dads in a father support group was so meaningful for him, although counter to what he was brought up to believe: Guys in general are not supposed to, I don't think they're supposed to feel or feel that hurt. They're, you know, in society we're supposed to, you know, guys don't cry, guys, you know, the, the rock or the cornerstone stuff…And it's just the mentality that society, men has, our society has on men. It's like, we're not supposed to share our feelings or, or be vulnerable or anything like that. And it's stupid. Which I think is really stupid because it's just, uh, I don't even know how to say it. It was also clear that these fathers are actively trying to be engaged fathers, but that this is a new venture for themselves. As with James’s quote above about the tensions between his experience as a new dad and what his own dad taught him about what it means to be a father, other participants talked about a gendered generational disconnect between them and their own fathers. This historical context contributed to their sense of aloneness, depression, resentment, powerlessness, and self-doubt. Fathers described wanting to be an equal parent, but feeling lost in knowing where to step in. Many felt that they could not go to their dads for advice because their dads had never done what they were trying to do. Paris explains this generational divide when he shares about feeling like he is never doing enough, while also feeling like he is trying his best: There's more ways to step up. But I didn't know, like, I had no, like, metric or gauge of what's like a co-parenting involved father really looked like…And also like, say like the grandfathers, like you know the generational difference. Like, they don't SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 138 know how to like, do anything like, besides like, throw money at it or like, provide food. These fathers are in a liminal position, knowing that past examples of fathering have felt insufficient but without clear models to follow. They are forging a new path of fatherhood, one where they must actively deconstruct culturally reinforced scripts about what it means to be a father while also building tolerance for not getting it right all the time, as they do something new. Self-compassion challenged but also expanded what it meant to them to be responsible fathers—fathers who persevere through hardship for the sake of their family, who keep striving to do their best, and yet also fathers who can acknowledge their own capacity and find creative ways to take care of themselves amidst the overwhelm. Selfcompassion did not weaken their fathering voices; it reframed them in more generative ways. In Figure 1 below, an illustration of this process attempts to capture the patterns that emerged. This study set out to explore how new fathers experienced self-compassion during the early stages of fatherhood. The interplay of voices across participants revealed that selfcompassion was not simply a trait that existed or not, but rather a relational and developmental process. Participants did not begin their parenting journey with selfcompassion, but it was shaped over time. Self-compassion grew as fathers practiced tolerating difficulty, reflected on their experience, and reworked cultural scripts. These new dads who felt they coped well through their transition also suffered tremendously. The exhaustion, grief, and isolation were felt acutely in their life much before they had capacity to be remotely self-compassionate. As they were able to acknowledge their vulnerability with SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 139 themselves and with others, small forms of self-compassion grew. For some, subconscious protective strategies influenced the relationship between vulnerability and self-compassion, sometimes buffering, sometimes constraining. Nevertheless, all participants got better at accepting their own difficulty, mentally standing with themselves amidst the suffering, and advocating for the expression of their own needs. They opened-up to non-judgmental social support, helping them to feel less alone, and they gained awareness of gratitude along the way. The voices of self-compassion helped participants feel more grounded so that they could lean into the most meaningful experiences of fathering. The voices of fathering were bolstered and re-oriented towards sustainable responsibility, perseverance, striving, and ultimately more connection with their children. The increased sense of meaningful fathering would then fuel back to the voices of selfcompassion, growing their sense of mattering, building their own evidence for selfvalidation, and making their connections with the people closest to them even stronger. All this is accomplished within the context of traditional masculinity socialization, whereby these fathers are constantly torn between different parts of themselves, renegotiating inherited scripts with their lived experience at every step. The experience of fatherhood itself changed how participants related to their suffering; It softened harsh voices and reinforced more compassionate ways of being with self and others. These findings suggest that fathering can be a generative site for renegotiating masculinity and cultivating self-compassion, laying the groundwork for broader implications in practice and research which will be taken up further in the discussion chapter. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 140 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION The present study’s aim was to understand new fathers’ narratives of self-compassion within the first year of their first child. The research questions were (1) How do first-time fathers cope with the challenges faced in the first year of their child’s life? and (2) How do first-time fathers experience self-compassion in the first year of their child’s life? Utilizing the listening guide methodology, findings revealed distinct, yet shared, voices across the participants that both align and expand conceptualizations of self-compassion. The following chapter discusses connections to the literature, additions to the literature, and implications for the field of counselling psychology. This chapter concludes by outlining limitations of this study and recommendations for future research. Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping Problem-Focused Coping Following Lazarus and Folkman’s (1987) influential transactional theory of stress and coping, some fathers used problem-focused strategies to cope during the first year postpartum. Problem-focused coping is about taking direct steps to change or address the source of the stress (Biggs et al., 2017). For example, this could involve gathering information, learning skills, improving time management, or accessing resources and instrumental support (Carver et al., 1989). These coping strategies were most often talked about in the voices of vulnerability, self-compassion, and fathering. In this study, Fox and Paris described attending prenatal/midwifery classes, as well as support groups, during the pregnancy to help prepare for parenthood. Fox also shared that they compared notes on parenting research articles before the baby’s arrival. Ryan shared SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 141 how he focused his energy into learning all that he could about being a dad and parenting. He shared that he enrolled in as many parenting classes and father support groups as he could, reporting that he learned invaluable information about attachment and emotions that transformed how he showed up for his daughter. Kabir, Fox, and Mark learned about and tried various sleep routine strategies to help their babies sleep through the night. John and Mark had to trial-and-error different soothing and feeding techniques to help reduce their baby’s colic in those first few months. Kabir, Fox, Peter, Paris, and Mark shared about the importance of having honest conversations with their partners about division of household tasks and building more routine into their roles to help cope with the overwhelm. All participants expressed gratitude for some sort of professional support along the way, either for their baby or for themselves. They shared about the value of midwives, nurses, and doctors during labour, delivery, and the first few weeks postpartum. They also highlighted the support of lactation and sleep consultants, along with therapists and doctors for cared for their physical and mental health. Although the quality and accessibility of support varied across participants, they all shared that they were grateful for the practical help they received from parents, family members, and friends for childcare, meals, house chores, errands, and advice. These findings mirror prior qualitative research showing that first-time fathers commonly use practical, problem-focused coping strategies and rely on their partner or professional support during the perinatal period (Baldwin et al., 2018, 2019; Ghaleiha et al., 2022; Shorey & Ang, 2019; Shorey et al., 2017; Venning et al., 2021). SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 142 Emotion-Focused Coping According to Lazarus and Folkman (1987), emotion-focused coping can be especially helpful when changing the stressor is hard to do. Fathers in this study engaged in emotionfocused coping throughout their experiences in the perinatal period, employing various strategies to attempt to regulate their emotions and change how they interpreted an event. Emotion-focused coping can be about moving through difficult emotions meaningfully or emotion avoidance strategies to cope (Neff, 2003a). These strategies were talked about in voices across all four voice groupings. In this study, James, Ryan, Paris, and Peter talked about using distraction as a strategy to get through the hard times, through media, like shows and social media, through exercise, through just getting out of the house, or through playing music and writing songs. John, James, Ryan, and Peter described a numb, shut-down state that they felt was necessary to endure to manage the painful emotions they were experiencing. This state spilled into their relationships with their partners and led to avoidance of other friends who had children but did not appear to be struggling in the same way. All participants, however, sought either a partner, parent, peer-dad, or spiritual figure to talk through their emotional experience. Some found this more valuable than others. For instance, Ryan shared how meaningful it was to be able to cry with other dads in a father support group, whereas Paris had little success in when he tried to initiate emotionally supportive connections with the dads from his midwifery group. Nonetheless, finding people to talk through their experiences with was helpful. All participants used positive reappraisal to cope. For example, Fox says “we’re like, wow, it could be way more difficult, not worse, SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 143 just way harder,” realizing that there are those out there with children that have even more debilitating health conditions which puts his own suffering into perspective. And Kabir’s positive thinking finds the silver lining amidst the darkest moments, reorienting his own stress. Lastly, John, Kabir, James, Paris, Peter, and Mark shared about using self-soothing techniques to regulate their emotion—from deep breathing, to rewarding themselves with a treat, to meditation and prayer. These emotion-focused strategies have been consistently observed across fatherhood research, reinforcing prior findings on emotional regulation and coping in the perinatal period (Baldwin et al., 2018, 2019; Ghaleiha et al., 2022; Shorey & Ang, 2019; Shorey et al., 2017; Venning et al., 2021). Meaning-Focused Coping Lazarus and Folkman’s (1987) revised theory (Folkman, 2008) demonstrates how meaning-focused coping is triggered when problem-focused and emotion-focused coping fail to bring a favorable result. Meaning-focused coping specifically brings forth positive emotions which sustains other forms of coping and restores personal resources. Common meaning-focused strategies include looking for the good amidst suffering, anchoring to reminders of how hardship can build resilience, reorienting priorities to align with personal values, and connecting with religious beliefs (Folkman, 2008; Folkman & Moskowitz, 2007; Lu et al., 2025; Platsidou & Mavridou, 2025). All participants drew upon meaning-focused coping in their perinatal experience. These coping strategies were exclusively talked about in the voices of self-compassion and fathering. Meaning-focused coping was the most surprising in this study as Neff (2003a) specifically positions self-compassion as an emotionfocused coping strategy. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 144 The meaning-focused coping in this study can be additionally understood in the context of the meaning making model (George & Park, 2016). In this model, individuals have global meaning (i.e., overarching beliefs about the world, goals in relationships and work, and a personal sense of purpose and significance) and situational meaning (i.e., cognitive appraisals of specific stressful events). When something stressful happens, individuals compare their own meaning of the situation to their broader worldview; if there is discrepancy between these two, then psychological distress ensues and meaning-focused coping is triggered. Either the meaning of the situation changes, or global beliefs adapt to accommodate new realities. The outcome is usually personal growth, enhanced personal resources and coping skills, greater appreciation for life, and better health habits (Platsidou & Mavridou, 2025). We see meaning-focused coping in how all participants in the current study shared that fathering was “well worth the sacrifice” (Ryan). They often reframed hardship like sleeplessness as being able to bond closely with their child or having to change their lifestyle as commitment to being an involved father. James and Peter directly shared how connecting their experience to their faith was meaningful and motivating, James talked about feeling the presence of God in his suffering and how growth as a father helped him care for the youth in his church more compassionately (as a youth pastor). Peter likened becoming more selfcompassionate to “waters of baptism…it’s just like, let that wash over you and be a new person,” most explicitly connecting his experience to his value of forgiveness. All participants engaged in some form of intentional value realignment, connecting the need to take care of themselves with their values of being the best dad they can be, how being SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 145 successful requires never giving up, or their unwavering commitment to their partners and children. The most explicit meaning-focused coping strategy used was benefit finding. This aligns with a study on Greek mothers of children with disabilities; it was demonstrated that those mothers with higher discrepancy between global and situational meaning used benefit finding more than those with lower discrepancy (Platsidou & Mavridou, 2025). These same higher discrepancy mothers showed higher levels of personal growth. As seen in the voice of gratitude, participants in the current study shared how thankful they were for going through the adversity that they did to become the dad that they are now. John, who perhaps identified the largest meaning discrepancy gap, says, “I owe a lot to [my son] for like, allowing me to grow in this short amount of time into someone that it feels like quite a bit different than three or four years ago.” Kabir, Paris, and Mark were also especially skilled at finding the positives amidst their suffering, noting how the hardship and growth in becoming a father has built an increase in capacity, patience, and resilience in their lives. Fathers in the study also connected major changes they had to make to legacybuilding. This is in line with the conceptual framework of generative fatherhood, discussed by Dollahite and Hawkins (1998) and based on Erikson’s (1950) stage of generativity in his theory of psychosocial development theory, whereby fathers work to meet the specific developmental needs of their children to contribute to the next generation. In generative fatherhood, the child’s main needs in infancy are security and continuity; fathers in this study adapted their behaviour to more effectively meet these needs. For example, Peter changed his physical health routines for the sake of being around for his children for as long as possible SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 146 and John worked hard to improve his ability to regulate his emotions for the sake of his children feeling safe and secure today and also hoping to set a continuous example to his two boys into their adulthood about what it should look like for man to handle the stresses in his life. And lastly, participants shared beautiful moments of appreciating the small moments throughout their perinatal experience. Kabir, James, and Mark all shared about special moments of connection alone with their children amidst sleeplessness and feeding complications. Kabir, Fox, and Paris highlighted the small but powerful moments of closeness and alignment with their partners and the small, surprising benefits of doing all this in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, finding meaning amidst global chaos. Peter emphasized this appreciation of small moments well in the following quote: The antidote to disappointment is thankfulness. Be thankful for the day. Simple things. Be thankful for being alive. Be thankful for waking up this morning and having a family, having a house, having a bed. So yeah, chronic thankfulness. That's the key. As an instrumental theory in coping research, Lazarus & Folkman’s (1987) transactional theory of stress and coping provides a helpful framework for coping skills used by new fathers (Biggs, et al., 2017). Although problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies utilized by fathers in this study echoed those found in other qualitative literature (Baldwin et al., 2018; Ghaleiha et al., 2021; Venning et al., 2021), the meaning-focused coping strategies were novel in paternal perinatal research. These strategies linked aspects of self-compassion with personal values and meaningful fathering identities, making it more SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 147 sustainable. Meaning making remains an underexplored area in paternal perinatal research. This study’s integration of coping theory with fatherhood and self-compassion offers a nuanced and holistic understanding of how fathers navigate the first year of their first child’s life. Transitioning to Fatherhood The participants’ narratives resonate with Baldwin et al.’s (2018) systematic review, which highlights that new fathers typically struggle in a variety of ways in the perinatal period. New fathers tend to have a difficult time connecting with their baby, managing competing work and home demands, and coping with the expected helplessness, exhaustion, and relational stress of postpartum life. Also akin to Baldwin et al.’s themes across qualitative research, the participants in this study found ways to work together with their partners and adapt to the challenges they faced, leading to a rewarding experience of fatherhood. Nearly all the participants shared that they did not cope well in the first few months postpartum and were very hard on themselves. This is in line with Philpott et al.’s (2017) findings that stress levels peak in the first six months postpartum and that the highest rates of paternal postpartum depression are between three and six months postpartum. Consistent with Baldwin et al. (2019), Ghaleiha et al. (2022), and Venning et al. (2019), the fathers in this study initially tried to cope alone. As per the strong voices of vulnerability that participants shared, these fathers were caught up in feeling isolated, exhausted, depressed, and filled with loss and regret. Coping at this stage was a matter of just pushing through, where fathers could not articulate any specific coping strategies they used to get through, they just knew that they did. James says, “I don’t know if I, I coped well, I think it just, just SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 148 went by.” Fathers like James, Kabir, and Peter shared how they did not want to burden their partners with their struggles as their partners were struggling themselves. Most participants also shared that, aside from sharing with me, they had not felt comfortable to share deeply about their experience with friends or family. Participants then turned cognitively inward, using rationality, emotional containment, and positive thinking to get through. Fatherhood and Masculinity Throughout their experience of becoming a father, participants seemed to both adhere to traditional masculinity norms and challenge these norms. Participants actively negotiated with themselves about what it meant to be the best dad they could be, at times they appreciated aspects that their own dads taught them, such as self-sacrifice and providing financially for their family, and other times assimilated newer ideas into their fathering roles such as being up with the baby in the middle of the night, taking time off work to contribute to household and childcare, and showing themselves compassion for their feelings of failure. This was clear in their practical choices, as above, but also in how the voices in which they spoke moved through the different voice groupings, interrupting their own vulnerable sharing with dismissive rationality or positive thinking, or moving in and out of showing themselves compassion. This active negotiation is similarly seen in other recent qualitative inquiries into the experience of first-time fatherhood. When asked to identify what it meant to be a good father, Lewington et al. (2021)’s Australian participants shared both new and traditional aspects of fatherhood (e.g. career-driven and present, strict and caring, provider and involved) and seemed to move between traditional and non-traditional fatherhood roles when describing SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 149 their own experience. In Segev’s (2025) study, Israeli first-time fathers showed a conflict between wanting to be externally seen as strong, confident, and responsible for the care of their partner and child, but internally felt helpless, stressed, and confused about the different discourses surrounding fatherhood and masculinity. Participants would often contradict themselves in their sharing about their conflicting experience between being a father and being a man, showing the difficulty of navigating the shifting models. The Cypriot participants in Christofidou and Zafeiridou’s (2025) study demonstrated affection with their children and actively took care of daily childcare routines but would turn to mothers and grandmothers for infant care. They spent significant time playing with their children, but this meaningful time was made possible because their wives took care of most of the responsibilities in the home. Even as these participants felt that they were improved versions of their own fathers in many ways and actively made choices to do things differently, they still demonstrated valuing hegemonic masculinity ideals, such as bread-winning and avoidance of certain tasks that are seen as feminine. Further, Doucet’s (2018) work with Canadian dads who share household responsibilities with their partners illustrates that fathers are not stuck in one set of masculinity norms, but rather, they move between hegemonic, complicit, subordinated, and marginalized forms of masculinity to integrate traditionally feminine aspects into their identities and roles, such as caregiving and emotional presence. The masculinity discourse in this study and those cited above can be understood in relation to hybrid masculinity, discussed by Bridges and Pascoe (2014). Hybrid masculinity refers to “the selective incorporation of elements of identity typically associated with various marginalized and subordinated masculinities and—at times—femininities into privileged SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 150 men’s gender performances and identities.” (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014, p. 246). It is often the men with the most privilege that can afford to be selective with various identities and behaviours, so hybrid masculinity gives those privileged a way to distance themselves from hegemonic masculinity. Fathers in this study are working to integrate elements that have been historically viewed as within feminine roles into their identities and roles as fathers. They are rejecting certain traditional masculinity norms (e.g. sharing vulnerably instead of being stoic, offering compassion instead of toughness, and reaching out for help instead of suffering alone), while holding onto others (e.g. deferring to the mother for pivotal childcare decisions or maintaining the importance working full-time), maintaining some privilege. Although there is debate about whether the process of detraditionalizing fatherhood (Williams, 2008) to hybrid masculinity challenges patriarchal systems of gender or simply perpetuates existing inequality systems in new ways, fathers that have been historically privileged are opening up about finding more caring, flexible, and healthy ways of being husbands and fathers (Anderson, 2009; Bridges & Pascoe, 2014; Roy & Allen, 2022). This study echoes Lewington et al. (2021), Segev (2025), and Doucet (2018) in finding that the process of becoming a father does not fit neatly in the dichotomy of traditional or involved fatherhood, but rather, negotiating masculinity norms along with cultural expectations, various identities, personalities, social support, circumstance, and privilege is a complex process that requires nuanced understanding and study (Williams, 2008; Offer & Kaplan, 2021). SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 151 Mindful Self-Compassion Since its introduction to Western psychology in 2003, Neff’s conceptualization of Mindful Self-Compassion has been widely studied and has well-established positive correlates in a variety of parenting contexts (Jefferson et al., 2020; Moreira, 2023; Neff, 2023). Mindful self-compassion is understood to involve three interrelated domains: (a) how people respond to suffering emotionally (e.g. self-kindness vs. self-judgement), (b) how people understand their difficulty cognitively (common humanity vs. isolation), and (c) how people give attention to their pain (mindfulness vs. overidentification; Neff, 2023). Below I will discuss how the experiences, and voices through with they are told in this study, map onto these domains. Self-Kindness vs. Self-Judgement As already indicated, most fathers shared how the first few months postpartum were filled with self-criticism, self-doubt, regret, and overwhelm, so much so that they often could not identify how they coped, but instead just survived. This self-judgement runs throughout the voices of vulnerability, but most notably in the voices of depression, yearning, self-doubt, and perfectionism. Ryan echoes other dads when he says, “The first year I was real hard on myself…anything that I thought that I may have done wrong or I thought that I should have done differently, I dwelt on it and I beat myself up over it for weeks on end.” And James adds, “there was constant sense of failure for me. Because I feel like I'm not even doing well either at, at school, at work, and even at home.” SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 152 Over time, fathers shifted from a posture of self-judgement to a position of selfkindness. Although fathers did not talk about being kind to themselves, per se, many of the voices of self-compassion are aligned with the self-kindness concept. This came through the strongest in the voices of self-validation, mattering, and forgiveness. Fathers started to offer themselves understanding and gentleness for all that they had been through, slowly advocating for their own needs, and extending the grace that they believe others deserved to themselves. Moving from a voice of depression to a voice of self-validation, Paris started speaking to himself in a gentler way: “Okay, you're not like a failure of a father…like I am trying my best. Um, but, you know, it's not perfect, but that I am trying to put a good effort on it.” And as Peter remembers his younger self and moves from a voice of yearning to a voice of mattering, he says, “This [4-year-old self] is still inside you. Do it for him. Like, be the person that that person would be proud of…You know, try to love that child.” The softening of their harsh critical voices promoted a sense of bonding with their child and increased togetherness with their partner or those close to them. This lines up with research that suggests that self-compassion is correlated with increased paternal bonding and relationship satisfaction (de Waal et al., 2025; Huynh et al., 2021) and that self-compassion can increase closeness between a father and their child, by way of increasing emotion regulation and decreasing distress (van Heerden, 2025). Further, self-compassion is understood to de-activate the threat system, that would be fuelling self-criticism and other self-protective vulnerability and engage the physiological soothing system that promotes emotion regulation and openness (Gilbert, 2009; Kirby & Petrocchi, 2023). SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 153 Common Humanity vs. Isolation Also strong in the voices of vulnerability, particularly through the voices of resentment, yearning, and aloneness is a sense of “why are all these bad things happening to me?” (John) and profound aloneness and disconnection. John’s comments about media portrayals of fatherhood mirror the experience of other dads feeling like their experience was uncharacteristically difficult: “It, it wasn't like the, the feelings of like, you know, you see on TV or the movies. Or anything like that.” Fathers also shared how they withdrew from father peers because it seemed like others were not suffering in the same way; they felt that sharing their vulnerable experience with other dads may bring judgement and further isolation. These dads grew in their ability to see a more accurate picture of common paternal struggle in the perinatal period, demonstrated through the voices of togetherness, selfvalidation, and gratitude. By growing in acceptance for his own struggles and finding ways to help him regulate, John shifts from the resentment and disconnection above to a voice of togetherness, emphasizing the common humanity that is grounding for him: “Other people, other families...are having troubles too…Even the people, even the friends that paint this picture that everything's so great, like they got their own challenges that they're just not necessarily sharing.” Echoing John, in a voice of self-validation Fox adds, “every kid is different and there's this space for compassion for yourself and how you're doing it and nobody's getting it right…And really at the end of the day, you just gotta do what works.” This aligns with van Heerden et al.’s (2025) study that demonstrates that selfcompassion in fathers lowers loneliness. This also aligns with Mancini et al.’s (2023) findings that self-compassion brings down depression symptoms, which brings down SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 154 parental stress, which increases parental self-efficacy. The increase in self-efficacy, the belief that one can handle the demands in front of them, is seen most clearly in the voice of selfvalidation, with participants giving themselves support and reminding themselves that they are doing a good job and can keep going. Mindfulness vs. Over-identification To respond compassionately to suffering, one must be able to acknowledge the suffering in the first place. This has been historically difficult for many men, generally, and new fathers, specifically, as they tend to cope alone, feeling like they must push past pain instead of moving through it (Fisher et al., 2021; Baldwin et al., 2019; Ghaleiha et al., 2022). When fathers cannot acknowledge their suffering mindfully, without judgement, they tend to get swept up in it, overidentifying with the painful thoughts and feelings (Azzam et al., 2022; de Waal et al., 2025). There were examples of this again, throughout the voices of vulnerability, but especially through the voices of depression, yearning, exhaustion, powerlessness, and self-doubt. After trying everything he could to settle his baby, Mark shares through a voice of powerlessness how his frustrations would overwhelm him: “I think like…when you're bouncing them and like not able to settle him, and, yeah, just nothing that you do works like it's just so frustrating and then you feel bad.” And through a voice of selfdoubt, Kabir shared how his worry and felt helplessness could spiral quickly, “We had so many panicky days, I think during the first year of her birth, okay, she's not eating, she's not doing this. Let's go to the ER.” Many fathers found their way to more awareness of their experience, being more mindful and less judgemental towards what is happening in their lives emotionally and SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 155 situationally. This is most clearly seen through the voices of self-validation and acceptance. As Mark moves from a voice of exhaustion to a voice of self-validation, he says, “When I’m self-compassionate to myself, it helps me to be more patient with him too because then I'm like okay, then I don't take it as personally, right? Like if he does something and it's like, okay, this isn't like, a statement about my parenting. This is just where he's at right now.” And James’ acceptance of him having a hard time resonates with what other fathers shared: “I needed to accept myself, with my, uh, less capacity because now there's just more, um, I mean, work and energy needed from home. So the things that I was able to do, uh, when there, in terms of work or just for personal life, capacity shrunk a lot, and just being able to accept it was…a whole process of the first year.” Movement from vulnerability to self-compassion voices underscores that self-compassion for fathers was not static but evolved over time, often in relation to their children and partners. All three aspects of mindful self-compassion can be seen in the voices of fathering. The voices of responsibility, persevering, striving, and bonding are all more balanced voices. For example, instead of an all-consuming self-sacrifice that fathers often tried to emulate at the beginning of postpartum, through being compassionate towards themselves they come to speak with a voice of responsibility which more effectively incorporates their own needs along with prioritizing their child’s. Perseverance has shifted from a numb-out-to-survive experience to a value-driven purposeful overcoming of acknowledged difficulty. Striving has shifted from desperately trying to do anything to help and be better, to a more stable commitment to trying your best with what you have. And lastly, bonding has shifted from a fragmented effortful yearning for connection and closeness to being mindfully present and at SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 156 peace with their child. The voices of fathering represent a more mindful integration of fathering and self-compassionate values. There are many ways that new fathers’ voices of vulnerability and self-compassion intersect with Neff’s (2023) mindful self-compassion framework. While self-judgement, isolation, and over-identification were heard through the voices of vulnerability, kindness, common humanity, and mindful presence were reflected throughout the voices of selfcompassion. Voices of protection sometimes supported this movement toward compassion and other times muted it, underscoring the dynamic process fathers navigate. The voices of fathering integrate aspects of mindful self-compassion, guiding fathers’ roles and identities. Fathers’ stories revealed ongoing tensions between being compassionate and being critical, between authentic connection with others and disconnection. This study has provided a nuanced relational understanding of the lived experience of new fathers cultivating selfcompassion. The voices of self-compassion and fathering highlight how self-compassion is not only intrapersonal but also relational in fatherhood. These findings point to adaptation of mindful self-compassion programs to explicitly incorporate fatherhood roles and relational challenges. Relational and Developmental Insights Self-compassion has most often been studied as an intrapersonal trait that people can have more or less of, as measured on the Self-Compassion Scale (Neff, 2003b). However, using the listening guide for analysis in this study highlighted self-compassion cultivation as developmental in process and relational in practice. Self-compassion for the participants started in small shifts and grew over time, often connecting and disconnecting from personal SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 157 values, fathering priorities, and masculinity norms in the process. Self-compassion also grew in relationship with partners, peers, children, and faith communities. For example, receiving compassion from a partner allowed fathers to soften towards themselves, as seen through the voices of togetherness and gratitude. Practicing self-compassion seemed to ground participants in their values and sense of who they are, allowing them to be more present with the aspects of fathering that meant the most to them. Meaningful fathering experiences then enhanced self-compassion. Fathers’ experiences of self-compassion evolved dynamically, grounded in relational contexts and shifting identities across the first year of parenthood. Surprisingly, there is little research that documents how Neff’s (2003a) construct of self-compassion develops over time. The literature on mindful self-compassion shows that self-compassion increases when one learns and practices specific skills and behaviours (e.g. self-compassion-oriented meditations, journalling, self-care behaviours, etc.; Germer & Neff, 2015), most often through the mindful self-compassion program (Neff & Germer, 2018). And alternatively, research on compassion-focused therapy, a psychotherapy approach by Gilbert (2009) that prioritizes increasing self-compassion over time to combat shame, is most often studied with clinical populations (Kirby & Petrocchi, 2023). There is no research to demonstrate how self-compassion develops in non-clinical populations, including fathers. The relational nature of self-compassion development in the current study is similar, though, to Lawrence and Lee’s (2014) qualitative study on seven individuals (five women and two men) who have post-traumatic stress disorder and have gone through individual or group-based compassion-focused therapy. Lawrence and Lee suggest a model of selfcompassion development that begins with heightened self-criticism and feelings of SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 158 hopelessness, similar to the voices of vulnerability in the current study, and then moves into initial fear and aversion of self-compassion, receiving compassion from others to help believe it, and finally moving to an acceptance of self-compassion that then helps to establish a more compassionate relationship with themselves and more effectively manage their selfcriticism (see Figure 2 below). Figure 2 Lawrence and Lee’s (2014) Model of Self-Compassion Development SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 159 Lawrence and Lee’s (2014) study demonstrated that being shown radical compassion by their therapist and their fellow group therapy members was pivotal in their process of adopting self-compassionate practices themselves. For these participants, self-compassion was initially a foreign concept and so feeling the impact of compassion from others helped them move from telling themselves self-compassionate phrases to feeling the compassion. Although the current study was not about psychotherapy, fathers’ ability to be compassionate to themselves was distinctly bolstered when they received compassion from their partners, children, and support group members, highlighted by the voices of togetherness and gratitude that were most prominent across participants. A further connection to Lawrence and Lee’s (2014) study is that self-compassion is viewed as managing self-criticism, instead of on opposite ends of a continuum. In Neff’s model (2023), self-kindness and self-criticism are two sides of a continuum, where inevitably the more kindness one has, the less criticism. However, in the current study, participants moved back and forth between vulnerability and self-compassion, between self-criticism and self-kindness, with these voices at times overlapping and interrupting each other. This better fits with Lawrence and Lee’s model that suggests that self-compassion and self-criticism can exist together. This is also confirmed in Falconer et al.’s (2015) study that demonstrated that self-compassion and self-criticism are related but independent constructs. When participants first learned about self-compassion in the psychoeducation portion of their therapy, Lawrence and Lee (2014) found that they had an aversion to selfcompassion, feeling like it was an alien experience that felt hopeless to bring into their experience and that they were undeserving of it. They shared about a fear of self-compassion SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 160 that they had to move through in order to accept self-compassion as beneficial. Other research confirms that those who are highly self-critical tend to have an aversion to selfcompassion, feeling threatened by it (Gilbert, 2009; Kirby & Petrocchi, 2023). Smith, Lad, and Hiskey (2019) suggest that this fear of self-compassion may be even stronger in men because of cultural scripts that deem compassion and vulnerability as feminine and weak. It is interesting then that this aversion was not discussed by the fathers in the current study. This difference could be because fathers in this study were self-selected for having awareness of their own improvement in being self-compassionate, whereas participants in Lawrence and Lee’s study were selected due to their diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder and increased self-criticism. The current study captured experiences of fathers that were in the process of developing self-compassionate practice naturally, instead of those who were exposed to it in a clinical setting. While prior research has examined aspects of coping and domains of self-compassion for a variety of demographics and contexts, there was a gap in the literature looking at selfcompassion in the lives of new fathers, particularly through their own voices and narratives. Although the benefits of self-compassion have been quantitatively established for parents in general, fathers have been markedly under-represented, making up less than 10% of the samples used in research about parents (Jefferson et al., 2020; Lathren et al., 2021; Psychogiou et al., 2016). By centering fathers’ voices, this study expanded self-compassion scholarship into a new population that has been chronically overlooked in research and in practice. Fathers’ voices reveal that self-compassion is not a static trait, but is developed over SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 161 time, in constant negotiation with traditional masculinity norms, partner relationships, and personal expectations. Diversity and Contextual Contributions Nearly every study I cited on fatherhood in this thesis has discussed a limitation of lack of diversity in their sample. Considering this, specific efforts were made to ensure that racialized fathers were invited to participate (Deneault et al., 2025). This resulted in some diversity of intersecting identities within the eight participants. Of note are Kabir, James, and Paris who are of Indian, Korean, and Filipino background, respectively, Ryan who is an older widowed single dad and receives disability income support, and Peter who is an expatriate living on lower income (see Figure 1). These participants brought distinct intersections of identity to the table, different than the typical White, married, educated, and higher income demographic combination that is chronically over-represented in fatherhood research. All participants’ stories further included a range of infertility difficulties, mental health challenges, and physical health complications. In some research based in other paradigms, this heterogeneity may be considered as outlier, but in this constructivist qualitative project, these differences strengthen the project as the voices of fathers who are often overlooked in the literature are represented and highlighted (Phoenix & Orr, 2017). Most studies on new fatherhood only examine fathers in stable relationships who have had healthy pregnancies, uncomplicated births, and minimal other challenges (Baldwin et al., 2018). In summary, this study extends existing literature by centering the typically overlooked voices of diverse new fathers, highlighting the relational dimensions of selfcompassion, and integrating meaning-focused coping strategies in the fathering context. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 162 These contributions enhance understanding of how new fathers navigate vulnerability, selfcompassion, masculinity, and fatherhood in the first year of becoming a dad. Implications for Counselling Psychology Positioned in the context of the broader literature, the results of this study have several implications for the field of counselling psychology. The following section will discuss these implications for mental health therapists. Reflexivity in Therapy Many of the fathers that I interviewed expressed that sharing with me was the first time that they had shared so honestly about what their perinatal experience was like. The places that fathers feel safe enough to open-up are few and far between. Therapists like counsellors, social workers, and psychologists who work with new fathers have a privileged and powerful position, then, to bear witness and validate this suffering. It would be important for therapists to first become familiar with what the expected range of experiences is like for new fathers as seen in this study and other qualitative research (Baldwin et al., 2018, 2019; Venning et al., 2021). Therapists would also benefit from spending time with their own reflexivity, confronting their own assumptions about fatherhood, masculinity, and caregiving; This would make more space for clients to explore their own wrestling between traditional masculinity norms and their current values, forging new paths of more flexible, relational fathering identities. In line with the strengths-based approach to this study, therapists should be attentive to what new fathers are already doing well, modeling a compassionate perspective and guiding clients towards greater self-validation. These pieces are foundational SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 163 for working with new fathers and would help therapists to de-stigmatize vulnerability for fathers and effectively normalize their struggles. Integrating Self-Compassion Findings of this study also suggest that self-compassion-oriented interventions with new fathers may be effective for reducing depressive and anxious symptoms, assuming they can be adapted to the specific experience of new fathers. This would include psychoeducation about the positive impacts of self-compassion on mental health symptoms, relationship satisfaction, and parent-child attachment (Lathren et al., Mancini et al., 2023; Moreira, 2023) and bringing in self-compassion strategies in practical, non-pathologizing ways that utilize the language that their clients already use. As with the participants in this study, none of them said the word kindness or spoke in a voice of kindness, per se, during their interview, however concepts such as self-validation, acceptance, forgiveness, and communicating needs were more accessible forms of self-kindness. Therapists also need to understand self-compassion as a developmental process whereby it begins with small shifts, develops over time, and growth happens in relationship with life experiences. Cultivating self-compassion is not linear; People move forward or regress, at times experiencing various levels of self-criticism and self-kindness at the same time. Fathers tend to negotiate and renegotiate how their experiences with self-compassion converge or diverge with social scripts that they’ve been given, their own values, personality, and priorities as a father. External Support The voice of Togetherness was the most used self-compassionate voice across the participants. Through connection with their partner, emotional support from their parents, SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 164 and/or local peer dads, participants found others with shared experiences who offered compassion to them. Experientially feeling less alone and receiving compassion from others helped participants access compassion for themselves. Therapists working with new fathers could support these fathers to attend to their partner or co-parent relationship and encourage them to lean into father friendships they may already have and engage in group support where they can dialogue with other dads and build shared community. Limitations Consistent with constructivist qualitative research, the goal is depth within interviews, not breadth. These results are not intended to be generalized to all first-time fathers, or even all first-time fathers with shared demographics as these participants. Instead, the aim is to provide rich interview content and contextual information for myself the researcher, the research process, and each specific participant (see Figure 1) and leave the judgement of transferability to the reader (Morrow 2005, 2007). The following limitations help to further contextualize how readers should interpret the findings. This study interviewed eight Canadian fathers about their experience of becoming a father for the first time, retrospectively. Having participants reflect on their experience has pros and cons. A pro is that they are removed from the emotional intensity at the time and so typically are better able to talk through their challenges without getting overwhelmed. Limitations though would be that data depends on participants’ memory, openness, and willingness to share. Some had difficulty recalling their emotional experience from, at most, six years ago. Some participants struggled to remember all that happened for them in a this typically overwhelming period of life and others showed hesitation in disclosing more SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 165 vulnerable experiences. This could be because of several biases: social desirability bias, consistency bias, and confirmation bias, to name a few. Participants may have influenced their responses to be seen as a resilient, caring father for the sake of looking good in front of the interviewer or to align with perceived external expectations of fatherhood. The further they were from the time of transition, the less reliable their recollections may be due to a tendency to remember the portions that align with how they see themselves as a father now (Leising, 2011). Although this does not render their accounts untrustworthy, as qualitative research uses different criteria for trustworthiness (Methodological Rigour section on page 52; Morrow, 2005, Noble & Smith, 2015). I also had some previous relationship with four of the eight participants. I would describe my relationship with these participants as new friends; two of them I knew casually through church and two of them I knew as playground-dad-friends where we occasionally ran into each other at the playground and our children played together; for all four participants, we did not know much about each other’s vulnerable personal lives beforehand. As rapport and relationship are pivotal for co-creating rich qualitative data (Morrow, 2005, 2007), this previous relationship is a strength in this study and yet creates limitations. Some participants were more hesitant to share about how their partners impacted them perinatally, and this could have been because of worry of how it might influence me if I saw their partners in my personal life. Knowing that I would see them again outside of the interview, may have also added a pressure or stress to the interviews, for them to feel they needed to do well or impress me somehow. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 166 I, myself, am a father who struggled emotionally postpartum and this inevitably shaped interviews and interpretation of analysis. Again, it can be a strength to thoughtfully self-disclose my experience in these interviews, which I did, for the sake of rapport building and reducing power dynamics between researcher and participant (Yost & Chmielewski, 2012), but it also creates limitations. My personal experience with the topic inevitably shaped the research design and what I chose to focus on or ask more about in the interviews. Although subjectivity is inevitable in qualitative research, it was mitigated engaging in active researcher reflexivity, conducting analysis with other research assistants to help catch other angles and blind-spots, and conducting member checks with participants, ensuring that the analysis of the telling of their story accurately reflects their lived experience. In line with constructivist research, single interviews capture information specific to the dynamic between the participant and me, in that one moment in time, within the various socio-political-historical contexts that we both bring. This is valuable because it mirrors how communication and relationship happen in regular life. A limitation though is that participants had one shot to recall all that felt important about their story. Participants were not followed over time to better understand how the development of self-compassion shifts and changes in real time. This was evident when I have member check interviews with participants. They shared how difficult it was to hear back the accurate reflections of their vulnerable hard times postpartum because it was so different than where they were at now, about three to five months after the interview. Many of the participants had infant or toddler second children at the time and shared how being in the postpartum period or toddler period SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 167 for a second time was so different for them because of how they have grown in selfcompassion and resilience. This was not captured in the interviews themselves. Further, the interviews only asked fathers about their experience from first learning that their partner was pregnant to their child’s first birthday. This is a typical time-range in perinatal research; however, it was clear that it limited fathers’ responses. Many participants had difficulty staying within the first-year time-range as they did not distinctly access selfcompassion until about six to ten months postpartum. Participants were eager to share how their experience of self-compassion developed beyond the first year but were continually brought back to specified time-range for the sake of consistency. There were further limitations in recruitment for this study. As fathers in general are notoriously challenging to recruit for research and the diversity of fathers is grossly underrepresented in the literature (Deneault et al, 2025), specific recruitment strategies were used to ensure that fathers from various backgrounds were invited to participate. This resulted in some diversity of ethnicity, SES, disability, and infant complications, but there remains a limitation of a predominantly White, educated, married, higher income group of participants. This could also be due to the self-selection of dads that can afford the time to engage in a one hour plus thirty minutes interview process and who are also aware of the concept to self-compassion and comfortable to share about their experiences. Thus brings another limitation of an overrepresentation of fathers who have naturally developed higher self-compassion. This was the point in a strengths-based positive psychology study, and yet it functions as a limitation as well, specifically excluding participants who do not have the awareness of the self-compassion they have developed. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 168 Further, this study was conducted within a specific Canadian historical-politicalsocial context. All but one father had access to Canadian healthcare and parental leave programs. All participants had their first child between 2019 and 2022, at the beginning or in the middle of the COVID-19 global pandemic. This significantly impacted their experiences with the healthcare system and accessible social support. Future Research Given the above limitations, future research would benefit from specifically looking at more diversity of fatherhood voices across ethnicity, income, and type of father (e.g. adoptive, step, adolescent, fathers who do not live with their children full-time). This could look like specifically recruiting for only individuals identifying with BIMPOC communities or narrowing into a more homogenous cross-section of a marginalized fathering experience. For example, researching Hispanic-identifying fathers who do not live with their children full-time, or Indigenous-identifying fathers who have higher income. Narrowing qualitative research on specific intersecting identities would highlight the variability that is inevitable within pre-supposed similar groups of people. Further research could also specifically look at fathers with various work commitments. All but one participant in this study worked fulltime. As a father myself who is actively trying to work less than full-time, I’m curious about the development of self-compassion for stay-at-home fathers or fathers who have creative part-time work commitments. Further, based on this study, I recommend research that looks at the new father’s experience of self-compassion longitudinally. This may capture with greater accuracy the ongoing developmental experience of growing in being self-compassionate and make space SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 169 for fathers to share about their experience beyond the first year postpartum. Interviewing fathers about their experience with their second child and/or reflecting on the difference between their personal experience of the first vs. second child could further add to the new father self-compassion literature. Additionally, there may be other qualitative methods that could capture different aspects of their self-compassionate experience. For example, action project method (Shankar et al., 2023) would highlight what feelings and thoughts participants are experiencing as they are being interviewed, and participants would be followed up with once or twice more to see how their experience developed. Or enhanced-critical incident technique (Butterfield et al., 2009) would capture more practical helping and hindering factors that may more directly inform perinatal healthcare. Conclusion As no other study has qualitatively explored how new fathers develop or practice selfcompassion, this research fills an important gap in understanding how self-compassion can serve as a vital resource for vulnerable new dads. Using the listening guide, analysis of the eight participants’ narratives revealed that new fathers often encounter profound personal suffering and have few opportunities to speak openly about their experiences. By engaging with their vulnerability, participants gradually accessed self-compassion as a bridge to more meaningful experiences of fathering. Adopting a compassionate stance allowed them to reframe hardship as an opportunity for growth, resilience, and deeper connection with their child, helping them realign with their values and cultivate a more sustainable approach to fatherhood. Ultimately, this study amplifies the often-overlooked voices of new fathers and SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD positions self-compassion as a values-driven, strengths-based, and relational process that supports men in navigating the joys and challenges of early parenthood. 170 SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 171 REFERENCES Adamsons, K., Cutler, L., & Palkovitz, R. (2022). Theorizing fathering: past, present, and future. In S. Molloy, P. Azzam, A. Isacco (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of fatherhood (pp. 1–27). 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Applied Psychology Health and Well-Being, 7(3), 340–364. https://doi.org/10.1111/aphw.12051 SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 199 APPENDICES Appendix A Research Assistant Confidentiality Agreement As a research assistant to the research project, New Fathers’ Experiences of SelfCompassion, you understand that you will be entrusted to keep information relating to participant identification and data in the strictest confidence. You will be in possession of sensitive material that will require your continual vigilance in discretion during your involvement with the study as well as after the study is complete. This material includes, but is not limited to, participant identifying content, transcripts, analysis, passwords, field notes, and any other data gathered in this study. By signing below, you acknowledge that you must password-protect all electronic data and diligently store any paper documents in a safe secure location when they are not directly on your person. You also agree to not make copies of any audio recordings, electronic files, or paper files, unless specifically asked to do so by Daniel Meszaros. At the end of the study, or at the request of Daniel Meszaros, you also agree to return all studyrelated documents to Daniel and delete all electronic files from your hard drive or any backup devices. By signing below, you also acknowledge that you are aware that you can be held legally liable for any breach of this confidentiality agreement and for any individual harm that a breach may cause. You also acknowledge that you have had your questions answered to your satisfaction regarding this agreement. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 200 ___________________________ ___________________________ ______________ Research Assistant Signature Printed First and Last Name Date (MM/DD/YY) SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 201 Appendix B Screening Questionnaire First Name: _______________________ Last Name: _______________________ Age: ___________ Email address: ______________________ Chosen alias name to preserve your confidentiality: _____________________ Sexual Orientation: __________________ Gender: ____________________________ Pronouns: __________________________ Sex (if different): ____________________ Thank you for showing interest in this research study! The purpose of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of how new fathers cope well through the first year of their child’s life and particularly how they benefit from being more compassionate towards themselves. We hope that our results can then help professionals working with new dads and inform resources and supports for new dads in the future. A bit about me: My name is Daniel Meszaros, and I am the principal researcher for this project on understanding first-time fathers’ experiences of coping and self-compassion. I am a dad myself of two girls under the age of three and in my own experience of being a new dad, I wish I knew what worked well for other dads going through the same thing. I also have a Master of Arts degree in Counselling Psychology from Trinity Western University and I am a Registered Clinical Counsellor in British Columbia, Canada. This project is part of a post- SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 202 masters research thesis and is supervised by Dr. Larissa Rossen, an Assistant Professor of Counselling Psychology at Trinity Western University. Being involved in this study includes three portions: 1) A 60-minute interview over Zoom video. This is the bulk of the study where we will ask you about your journey of being a dad for the first time and your experience of growing in being more compassionate towards yourself. 2) About 2-3 months later, there will be a 30-minute follow-up phone call, where we will discuss the research results that came from your interview and debrief how it was for you to be a part of this project. The 60-minute interview will be audio and video recorded to ensure accuracy in remembering your story and your participation will be held strictly confidential. The study is fully voluntary, and you can withdraw at any time, for any reason, no problem. If you have questions about the study that would be helpful to discuss before providing the below information. Please email me directly. This study also has some criteria that participants need to meet to be eligible. Please answer the following questions: 1. Can you describe to me how you feel you fit as a candidate for this research project? 2. Are you a father? Yes or No 3. How many children do you have? What are their ages and genders? 4. Do you feel like you have grown in being compassionate towards yourself as a parent? Yes or No 5. Can you speak and read English fluently? Yes or No SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 203 We also want to make sure that you feel your mental health is in a stable place so that we know that asking you about your personal experiences will not put you at any additional risk. Have you had any thoughts about suicide in the last month? Do you harm yourself on purpose? Yes or No When was the last time: Do you ever see or hear things that are not there? Yes or No Explain Thank you so much for taking the time to answer these questions! By clicking submit below, you indicate that after reading all the information above you would still like to be a part of this research study. Once I receive your responses, I will be in touch with you via email to coordinate next steps. Thank you, Daniel Meszaros, MA, RCC Principal Researcher New Dads, Coping Well, & Self-Compassion Study SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 204 Appendix C Demographics Information Sheet Thank you for your continued interest in this research study! The purpose of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of how new fathers cope well through the first year of their child’s life and particularly how they benefit from being more compassionate towards themselves. We hope that our results can then help professionals working with new dads and inform resources and supports for new dads in the future. Please complete the following information about yourself. Today’s Date: ____________________ Chosen alias name to preserve your confidentiality: _____________________ Age: __________ Sexual Orientation: __________________ Gender: ____________________________ Pronouns: __________________________ Sex (if different): ____________________ What $25 gift card would you like as an honorarium for participating in this study?  Coffee shop chain of choice: ____________________________  Restaurant chain of choice: ____________________________  Amazon.ca SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD  Home Depot  Other: __________________________ Relationship Status (check all that apply):  Single  Dating  Engaged  Common Law  Married  Remarried  Separated  Divorced  Other: ______________ Type of Father:  Biological  Adoptive  Stepfather  Other: ___________________________ Child Ages and Genders (Do not provide names): _________________________________________ 205 SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 206 _________________________________________ _________________________________________ Employment Status, check all that apply  Employed  Unemployed  Stay-at-home-parent  On Disability  On Leave  Student  Other: ______________ If employed, indicate occupation and how many hours you typically work per week: ___________________________________________________________________________ If on disability or leave, indicate type (e.g. short-term, long-term, Persons with Disabilities, Employment Insurance) and how long it has been so far: ___________________________________________________________________________ Highest Level of Education:  Grade _______  High School Diploma  Some college courses  Skilled Trades Program SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 207  Apprenticeship  Journeyman  Master  Undergraduate Diploma  Undergraduate Degree  Graduate Degree  Post-graduate Degree  Other: ____________ How would you describe where you live?  Rural  Urban  Other: ___________________ How do you identify ethnically and/or culturally (check all that apply)?  Black or African Canadian, further specification: _________________________________  Indigenous, further specification: _____________________________________________  Asian or Asian Canadian, further specification: __________________________________  Latin American or Latin American Canadian or Hispanic, further specification: _________________________________________________________  Asian/Asian Canadian, further specification: ____________________________________  South Asian or South Asian Canadian, further specification: ________________________ SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 208  Caribbean or Caribbean Canadian, further specification: ___________________________  Middle Eastern or Northern African or Middle Eastern/Northern African Canadian, further specification: _________________________________________________________  White or European Canadian, further specification: _______________________________  Mixed Ethnic Background, further specification: _________________________________  Other: ___________________________________________________________________ Primary language spoken at home: __________________________ Do you speak English fluently?  Yes  No How did you hear about this research project (check all that apply)?  Friend  Family member  Social Media: Specify: __________________________  Poster in the community: Location: __________________________  Other: __________________________ SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 209 Appendix D Semi-Structured Interview Guide Thank you for agreeing to be a part of this study. As I have mentioned, I am interested in hearing from other first-time fathers about their journey of being a father, particularly in that first year. I’m also interested to know about your relationship with self-compassion throughout. I know that so much happens in this timeframe and so I’ll ask some guiding questions throughout to help us get a full picture. To begin, Tell me your story of becoming a father, starting from when you found out your partner was pregnant, up until about your child’s first birthday. What was it like for you? Prompts: What surprised you about being a father? What were some of the challenges that you faced? In relationship with your partner, your baby, your work, other people? How did you cope or move through these challenges? What is your understanding of self-compassion? How has your ability to be compassionate to yourself changed over that first year? How has being more compassionate to yourself helped you cope? SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD Appendix E Recruitment Poster 210 SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 211 Appendix F Recruitment Script Hi _____________________, I wanted to let you know that I am doing a research project hoping to better understand men’s experiences of being a dad for the first-time and about their experiences of selfcompassion. I’m looking for participants who a) identify as a father and have a child who is at least one years old b) feel they have grown in their ability to be compassionate towards themselves and c) are willing and able to share about these experiences. Participants will be required to complete one up to 60-minute interview over Zoom discussing the topic, and a 30-minute phone conversation to discuss the shared themes and your experience of participating in this study. If you think you or someone you know would be interested to participate, please have them call, text, or email me and I can answer any of their questions and then schedule a time to see if they would be a good fit. I will send you a poster with the details that you can pass along to whoever you think. Thanks for your time! Daniel Meszaros SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 212 Appendix G Follow-up Individual Interview Script Interview Summary Check 1. What stood out for you as you read the interview summary? What did you feel when reading it? 2. Do you have any questions about the interview summary? 3. Are there any changes you would like to make? Interview Debrief 1. What was it like to go through the interview? 2. What have you noticed about yourself since the interview? 3. Do you have any feedback about the interview questions or process? SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD Appendix H Reduced-Cost Counselling Resources in the Greater Vancouver Area Fraser River Counselling 7600 Glover Road, Langley, BC V2Y 1Y1 604.513.2113 ext. 1 https://fraserrivercounselling.ca/ Moving Forward Family Services Based in Surrey, BC, offers services online 1-877-485-5025 https://movingforward.help/ Prospect Counselling Based in Burnaby, BC, offers services online https://www.prospectcounselling.ca/ UBC Counselling Clinic 1100 – 2125 Main Mall – Neville Scarfe Education Building Vancouver, BC 604.822.1364 https://psctc.educ.ubc.ca/counselling-clinic/ Fraser Health Crisis Line 604.951.8855 or toll-free 1.877.820.7444 213 SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 214 Appendix I Letter of Consent New Dads, Coping Well, & Self-Compassion Research Study Principal Investigator: Daniel Meszaros, MA Trinity Western University Research Supervisor: Dr. Larissa Rossen Assistant Professor, Counselling Psychology Trinity Western University Second Reader: Dr. Phillip Sevigny Associate Professor, Counselling Psychology and School and Clinical Child Psychology University of Alberta Purpose: You are invited to participate in a research project exploring new dads’ experiences of coping well and being self-compassionate. You have been asked to participate because you have shown interest in this topic and have valuable experience to share. The purpose of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of how new fathers’ cope well through the first year of their child’s life and particularly how they benefit from being more compassionate towards themselves. Study Procedures: As a voluntary participant for this study, you will be asked to participate in one interview over Zoom video that will take approximately 60 minutes. This interview will be audio and video recorded. In this interview you will be asked about your story of becoming a dad, particularly about your experience of the first year of your first child’s life and how you coped well. You will also be asked about your understanding of selfcompassion and the role this has played in your story. Following this interview, a 20 to 30minute phone conversation will be scheduled to review a summary of the interview content, get your feedback on the shared themes and discuss what your experience was like throughout the process. At your written or verbal request, a copy of the results will be emailed to you once the project is complete. Potential Risks and Discomforts: You may experience discomfort or unexpected emotion as you share personal experiences with an unfamiliar person. If this becomes burdensome, the interview will stop, and you can choose to carry on when you are ready or to end the interview. You are free to end the interview or withdraw from participation in the study at any time without any cost to your person. SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 215 Potential Benefits to Participants and/or to Society: As research suggests that common humanity and connection bolster self-compassion and psychological well-being; by sharing your story you may gain a sense of relief, peace, connectedness, or greater self-awareness. The information gathered from this study will help the research community and healthcare professionals better understand the experiences of first-time fathers and how to help them cope. Confidentiality: Any information that is obtained in connection with this study and that can be identified with you will remain confidential and will be disclosed only with your permission or as required by law. To honour this, all documents related with you, including video and audio files, will be identified with an alias name that you choose and will be stored in a locked filing cabinet or as an encrypted and password-protected electronic file on the cloud. This method of identification will stay consistent throughout all aspects of the research process, including the results. For confidentiality purposes, all physical documents and electronic files relating to your participation in this study will be destroyed after three years post completion of the project. Remuneration/Compensation: As a gesture of appreciation for your time, a $25 gift card of your choice will be given to you upon the completion of the initial interview. Should you choose to withdraw at any point during the interview, you will still receive this honorarium. Contact for information about the study: If you have any questions or desire further information with respect to this study, you may contact the principal investigator, Daniel Meszaros, or the research supervisor, Dr. Larissa Rossen, with the contact information above. Contact for concerns about the rights of research participants: If you have any concerns about your treatment or rights as a research participant, you may contact the Ethics Compliance Officer in the Office of Research, Trinity Western University. Consent: Your participation in this study is entirely voluntary and you may refuse to participate or you may withdraw from the study at any time up until the completion of the project. Upon your verbal or written request to withdraw, any documents related to you, physical or electronic, will be destroyed. Your signature below indicates that you have had your questions about the study answered to your satisfaction and you have received a copy of this consent form for your own records. Your signature indicates that you consent to participate in this study. ___________________________________________ Research Participant Signature ____________________________________________ Printed First and Last Name of the Research Participant _______________________ Date (MM/DD/YY) SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD 216 Appendix J Debriefing Script Thank you so much for giving your time and energy to participating in this study. I was struck by the courage that you demonstrated in sharing your story of becoming a dad. I hope that you felt that your voice was heard and that your story mattered. This research seeks to bring forward the voices of fathers that have coped well through the first year postpartum. Our aim is to better understand the complexities of fathers’ experiences of self-compassion so that we can, as professionals, more effectively support and equip expectant and new dads who are having a hard time. Different people will have different responses to sharing such personal parts of their story. You may find that you start to feel heavy or low, or alternatively, you might begin to feel lighter, with some relief and understanding. Either way, make sure to pay attention to what you are experiencing and attend to it as best you can. Try to do something for yourself today, to honour the challenging work that you did. If you find you are feeling more distressed later today or in the future, I encourage you to talk about it. If there isn’t someone close to you that you feel comfortable with, I encourage you to connect with one of the resources that I have provided [see Appendix H]. These are trusted counselling agencies that offer reduced-cost counselling and can support you in whatever reaction you may have from the interview today. Also, just a reminder that we still have a follow-up 20-minute phone interview where we will have an opportunity to debrief and see how your experience connects with the other new dads in this study. At that time, you can let me know if you would like to receive a copy SELF-COMPASSION IN NEW FATHERHOOD of the results when they are complete. And of course, you may still withdraw your participation at any time by simply sending me an email. 217