The Mixed Emotional Journey of Chinese Fathers With Disabled Children: A Qualitative Enquiry

In a family, the father with a disabled child plays a crucial role in that child’s development. However, studies addressing fathers’ emotions related to their involvement in rearing disabled children are rare. Therefore, given the masculine norms of Chinese fathers, this study adopted a qualitative research method to understand those fathers’ emotional journey. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 31 fathers who were rearing 2- to 12-year-old disabled children. The research findings revealed that in a proposed model of fathers in the “flagship of roles as fathers/men in rearing children with disabilities,” the roles of fathers as men are unique and are mutually inclusive in the family and society. The findings also agreed with a “five stages of horseshoe-shaped emotional reactions of fathers rearing children with a disability” model, suggesting that fathers’ emotions at different stages of rearing their disabled children are ambivalent, mixed, and fluctuating.