One out of seven Quebec fathers with children aged between 0 and 18 experiences high psychological distress, but even those who need it the most still often refuse to seek professional help, reveals a survey released Monday by the Regroupement pour la valorisation de fatherhood.
“In the entire population of Quebec fathers, that’s about 130,000 fathers,” said Professor Carl Lacharité, from the psychology department of the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, who participated in the development of the survey. It’s crowded at mass, as they say. »
Made public as part of the tenth Quebec Paternity Week and a few days before Father’s Day, the SOM survey specifies that the situation is even worse among fathers who earn less than $35,000 a year or who are without employment, since almost a third of them claim to feel high psychological distress.
A quarter of fathers who have gone through a separation in the past five years are in the same situation.
Twenty-nine percent of fathers with a high psychological distress index admitted to having had suicidal ideation in the past year, a figure four times higher than the average of 7%.
Anglophone (19%), allophone (17%), single (19%) and fathers who were abused during childhood (17%) are also somewhat overrepresented in terms of high psychological distress.
The pollsters asked participants if they felt “nervous”, “so tired that everything was an effort”, “desperate”, “restless or unable to hold up”, “so depressed that nothing could make (them) smile anymore” or “good for nothing” in the past month. The percentage of dads who answered “All the time/most of the time/sometimes” ranged from 25% for “good for nothing” to 54% for “nervous”.
Despite all this, 83% of survey participants indicated that they had not consulted a psychosocial resource or worker in the past year. We note, however, that one-third of fathers with high psychological distress sought professional help ― which also means that two-thirds did not.
These findings, said Professor Lacharité, are a “call for empathy for what fathers may be going through.”
“In a survey like this, they tell us what they feel, what they are going through,” he explained. They don’t necessarily tell us what they express to those around them and so we find ourselves somewhat with the stereotype (of the invulnerable father), then on the other side, there are fathers who break down, who commit irreparable acts . But between the two, there are a lot of things, and this survey shows us a little of this lot of things. »
feeling of loneliness
Several fathers testified to a certain feeling of loneliness in the exercise of their parental role.
For example, more than half of dads surveyed said they cannot ― or rarely can ― rely on help from their parents (59%) or step-parents (64%) in fulfilling their family responsibilities.
Recourse to help from other family members or friends is even less frequent (respectively 69% and 76% have little or no access to it).
“It increases even more the difficulties that they will experience, warned Professor Lacharité. So the fact of creating links, of saying: “Come, don’t isolate yourself, we will discuss it, we will talk about it, we will examine things together, the decisions you have to make, you are not alone , we will talk about it together”. »
Finally, the proportion of fathers who say they are dissatisfied with their relationship with their co-parent fluctuates around 15%, but it jumps to 35% among single fathers, especially those who have been separated in the last five years. The quality of the relationship with the co-parent was evaluated according to criteria such as “the sharing of tasks related to the care and education of the children”, “the quality of the communications (between the co-parents)” and “the feeling of be valued in your role as a father by your co-parent”.
other data
Nearly 60% of the fathers who took part in this survey revealed that they had suffered some form of violence (physical, psychological or sexual) during their childhood.
On a more positive note, the vast majority of dads believe they have all the skills needed to be a good dad. However, more than a quarter of them admit to struggling to manage the difficulties that can arise on a daily basis.
While multiple researchers have been interested in the psychological distress associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, their work has essentially focused on the distress of mothers or even that of children, lamented Professor Lacharité.
“We have a lot of research data showing that it has had an impact on the lives of families, but […] little was said about what is happening with fathers, he said. However, in families, fathers are a character that is just as important as the character of mothers. »
Despite this, about 60% of fathers who responded to the survey said they felt that society values the role of the mother more than theirs.
The tenth edition of Quebec Paternity Week is presented from June 13 to 19, 2022, under the theme “Dad, do you need help? Because all parents can need support”.
The results of the survey were obtained using an online survey conducted by SOM from March 1 to 11, 2022 among a representative sample of 2,119 Quebec fathers with at least one child under the age of 18 and who identify personally with this parental role.