The Grief of Dads

We are pleased to share an excerpt from Chapter 1 of Patrick O’Hearn’s new book The Grief of Dads published by Ave Maria Press.

Grief Defined

First, what is grief ? Most dictionaries define it along these lines: “deep sadness caused especially by someone’s death” or “keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss.” Grief and loss, especially human death, go hand in hand. In response to extreme loss, humans experience various, distinctive stages of grief. The stages noted below are often not sequential, nor do they have clear beginning and end points. But each stage does represent a general characteristic that most people experience when grieving. Understanding these general characteristics can help you understand your own experience of grief.

• Denial—the action of declaring something to be untrue. As you first learn of the loss, you may feel shocked or numb and question whether the news is true. Although your rational mind can see that the loss has in fact occurred, often your actions or behaviors take some time to catch up to that reality.
• Anger—a strong feeling of displeasure or hostility. As you under- stand the news to be true, you may experience anger, which you may direct at yourself, others, or God.
• Bargaining—an effort to negotiate the terms and conditions of a transaction. You may begin thinking about what you could have done to prevent your loss and consider making deals with God. Bargaining often comes into play with the news that a loved one is going to die but has not yet passed.
• Depression—feelings of severe sadness. As your loss concretely begins to affect your daily life, sadness may arise in varying degrees. You may experience crying, sleeplessness, or eating changes.
  
•   Acceptance—the action of consenting to receive something offered.

At some point you accept the reality of your loss, and although it still hurts, you’re able to move forward in life.

After the loss of a child, a father is likely to cycle through these stages of grief in unpredictable patterns that are unique to his own journey of grief, but every man experiences a type of these characteristics in his own way and in his own time. The following is a review of the scientific literature regarding how men grieve and the effects of that grief.

Male Grief

Men grieve differently than women. (4)  To us men, this is no surprise! But this difference is a major theme that appears over and over in the research literature. Many times men and women have been compared in research studies examining grief after child loss, with the resulting observation that the two sexes grieve in different ways, at different times, and with different severity.

Here are a few common differences:

• Men generally grieve less intensely and less enduringly. (5)
• Men typically cry less, talk less about the event, and generally do not find seeing a pregnant woman as painful as women do. (6)
• Men typically report less severe anxiety and depression immediately following the loss of a child. (7)
• Most men believe their primary role is to support  their wives during times of grieving. (8)
• Most men feel more marginalized and less acknowledged than women following loss. (9)

Though male grief appears to be less intense than female grief, this is not always true and is very dependent on the unique loss of every man. For example, in a research study examining men’s response to miscarriage, men reported higher levels of grief than women on a gen- eral grief scale—a result not anticipated by the researchers. (10) The result likely was surprising because social expectations encourage men to be stoic and unwavering. And this social expectation does reflect how men generally are less likely, compared with women, to accept support and outwardly display emotional reactions. (11)  Of the men who grieve externally, many grieve alone with feelings of sadness, devastation, powerlessness, fear, and shock. (12)

Many studies focus on grief shortly after a loss, but men tend to grieve more after the wife has recovered from her initial grief. (13) In fact, from the time of loss until present, men are preoccupied by their loss in every aspect of their daily lives. (14) Men feel the loss of a child differently perhaps, but no less than women do. (15)

Not only do men grieve differently than women, but they also grieve differently from each other. Because men express different forms of grief, flexibility of support is necessary following a loss. (16) Grief is different for all of us because each of us has a different history. Our age, past trauma, previous child losses, length of marriage, issues with infertility, religious beliefs, living children, and many other factors can all impact how we grieve and how devastated or isolated we feel following a loss. (17)

Regardless of the circumstances, child loss is a significant life event for all. (18) The loss of a child changes the way we deal with grief and how we view the world. It also significantly affects how we respond to subsequent pregnancies, particularly with loss from miscarriage or stillbirth. Previous losses and struggles with infertility make the emotional toll even greater. (19) In subsequent pregnancies, negative psychological symptoms, especially anxiety, are profound, and yet most fathers want to be more involved in the obstetric care than they had previously been. (20)

After the loss of a child, men typically feel powerless. Particularly following miscarriage and stillbirth, the possibility of future pregnancies produces anxiety, and subsequent pregnancies produce constant fear of loss. Soon after the loss, there is internal and external pressure to delay or prioritize conception. (21) Following another conception, men understandably  withhold telling anyone too early about a new pregnancy for fear of loss. (22) However, grief declines during subsequent pregnancies with routine confirmatory ultrasounds. (23)

Stillbirth presents the life-and-death paradox: the act of giving life through birth, and the death of the child during or before that birth. (24)

Themes of grief common to men experiencing stillbirth include the centrality of hope, the importance  of the personhood of the baby, protective care of the child, and the impact of the loss on personal relationships. (25) In stillbirth, many fathers regret not holding or spending time with their baby. (26) Stillbirth also leads men to avoid activities associated with the loss or other babies. (27)

Though most research on child loss is centered on miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant loss, in the few studies focused on adult child loss, the same realization resounds—men grieve. A major source of grief for all men is having to give up their hopes for and expectations of the child. (28) Maybe this theme helps explain the differences between male and female grief; men have something inherent in their fatherhood that only they can provide to their children.

4. K. L. Obst and C. Due, “Australian Men’s Experiences of Support follow- ing Pregnancy Loss: A Qualitative Study,” Midwifery 70 (2019): 1–6, doi:10.1016/j. midw.2018.11.013; N. Dias, S. Docherty, and D. Brandon, “Parental Bereavement: Looking beyond Grief,” Death Studies 41 (2017): 318–27, doi:10.1080/07481187.20 17.1279239.

5. M. Beutel, H. Willner, R. Deckardt, M. Von Rad, and H. Weiner, “Similar- ities and Differences in Couples’ Grief Reactions following a Miscarriage: Results from a Longitudinal Study,” Journal of Psychosomatic Research 40 (1996): 245–53, doi:10.1016/0022-3999(95)00520-x.
6. Beutel et al., “Similarities and Differences.”
7. K. Jones, M. Robb, S. Murphy, and A. Davies, “New Understandings of Fathers’ Experiences of Grief and Loss following Stillbirth and Neonatal Death: A Scoping Review,” Midwifery 79 (2019), doi:10.1016/j.midw.2019.102531.
8. Obst et al., “Men’s Grief following Pregnancy Loss”; L. D. M. Lizcano Pabon, M. E. Moreno Fergusson, and A. M. Palacios, “Experience of Perinatal Death from the Father’s Perspective,” Nursing Research 68 (2019): E1–E9, doi:10.1097/ NNR.0000000000000369.
9. Jones et al., “New Understandings.”
10. K. Conway and G. Russell, “Couples’ Grief and Experience of Support in the Aftermath of Miscarriage,” British Journal of Medical Psychology 73, pt. 4 (2000): 531–45, doi:10.1348/000711200160714; M. P. Johnson and J. E. Puddifoot, “The Grief Response in the Partners of Women Who Miscarry,” British Journal of Medical Psychol- ogy 69, pt. 4 (1996): 313–27, doi:10.1111/j.2044-8341.1996.tb01875.x.

11. Obst et al., “Men’s Grief following Pregnancy Loss.”
12. Obst et al., “Men’s Grief following Pregnancy Loss”; E. J. Miller, M. J. Tem- ple-Smith, and J. E. Bilardi, “‘There Was Just No-One There to Acknowledge That It Happened to Me as Well’: A Qualitative Study of Male Partner’s Experience of Miscar- riage,” PLOS One 14 (2019): e0217395, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0217395.
13. H. Volgsten, C. Jansson, A. S. Svanberg, E. Darj, and A. Stavreus-Evers, “Longitudinal Study of Emotional Experiences, Grief and Depressive Symptoms in Women and Men after Miscarriage,” Midwifery 64 (2018): 23–28, doi:10.1016/j. midw.2018.05.003.
14. J. O’Leary and C. Thorwick, “Fathers’ Perspectives during Pregnancy, Post- perinatal Loss,” Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing 35 (2006): 78–86, doi:10.1111/j.1552-6909.2006.00017.x.
15. Volgsten et al., “Longitudinal Study.”
16. Obst and Due, “Australian Men’s Experiences of Support”; Dias, Docherty, and Brandon, “Parental Bereavement.”
17. Volgsten et al., “Longitudinal Study”; C. S. Huffman, T. A. Schwartz, and K. M. Swanson, “Couples and Miscarriage: The Influence of Gender and Reproduc- tive Factors on the Impact of Miscarriage,” Women’s Health Issues 25 (2015): 570–78, doi:10.1016/j.whi.2015.04.005; Y. F. Tseng, H. R. Cheng, Y. P. Chen, S. F. Yang, and P. T. Cheng, “Grief Reactions of Couples to Perinatal Loss: A One-Year Prospective Follow-Up,” Journal of Clinical Nursing 26 (2017): 5133–42, doi:10.1111/jocn.14059.
18. Obst et al., “Men’s Grief following Pregnancy Loss.”
19. Volgsten et al., “Longitudinal Study”; D. Armstrong, “Exploring Fathers’ Expe- riences of Pregnancy after a Prior Perinatal Loss,” MCN: The American Journal of Maternal/Child Nursing 26 (2001): 147–53, doi:10.1097/00005721-200105000-00012.
20. C. Burden et al., “From Grief, Guilt, Pain and Stigma to Hope and Pride: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Mixed-Method Research of the Psychoso- cial Impact of Stillbirth,” BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth 16 (2016): 9, doi:10.1186/ s12884-016-0800-8.
21. Burden et al., “From Grief, Guilt, Pain and Stigma to Hope and Pride.”
22. Miller et al., “There Was Just No-One There.”
23. Johnson and Puddifoot, “The Grief Response.”
24. P. Martinez-Serrano, A. Pedraz-Marcos, M. Solis-Munoz, and A. M. Pal- mar-Santos, “The Experience of Mothers and Fathers in Cases of Stillbirth in Spain: A Qualitative Study,” Midwifery 77 (2019): 37–44, doi:10.1016/j.midw.2019.06.013.

25. D. Nuzum, S. Meaney, and K. O’Donoghue, “The Impact of Stillbirth on Bereaved Parents: A Qualitative Study,” PLOS One 13 (2018): e0191635, doi:10.1371/ journal.pone.0191635.
26. Burden et al., “From Grief, Guilt, Pain and Stigma to Hope and Pride.”
27. Burden et al., “From Grief, Guilt, Pain and Stigma to Hope and Pride.”
28. Beutel et al., “Similarities and Differences.”