Ways of being a father: how first-time fathers and public health nurses perceive men as fathers.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the different ways of being a father identified in a sample of Finnish men. The data consisted of 71 interviews with fathers and 175 essays written by public health nurses. The fathers and public health nurses described different ways of being a father: bystander, supporter of spouse, partner, and head of the family. The spouse, relatives and maternity health care workers could encourage the father to choose a specific way to be a father, or discourage them from adopting a specific way. The information obtained in this study will be helpful in supporting the different kinds of fathers and their individual needs in family nursing.