Mid Sweden University

Novels about men and children written by Swedish men have often been stories about an adult man and his relation to an authoritarian absent father. In my study I wanted to examine if there has been a change in Swedish novels written by Swedish men during the period of 2011–2021, compared to years around 2000. I wanted to see if the relation between men and their children is expressed in a different way.

The two novels from 1998 and 2000 that I have examined describes the relation between an adult man and his absent or dead father. The sons accuse their fathers being absent during their childhood, being not interested in their children and unreliable. The fathers have caused their sons sorrow and anger, they have missed a caring father. Their mothers have been the parent they could trust and depend on.

In the novels from 2011–2021 that I have examined there is a lot more daily care described, where the young fathers take care of their children both emotionally and practically. But there remains the focus on their own absent and/or authoritarian fathers. The difference is that the men do not accuse their fathers in the same way as before, instead they reflect upon their fathers and how their childhood affect their own fathering. The novels describe men who want to break old patterns from their fathers and in several novels actually succeed. The men have “looked into a mirror” and realized that they in some parts behave like their own fathers and are now trying to get away from the pattern to abuse or to escape from their own children emotionally.

I found that novels from 2000 more concerned a story about sons breaking up from their fathers while the novels from 2011–2021 more tell stories about fathers “coming home” to their children by breaking an old pattern for men. The “old man” is still there, demanding their sons to tell their common story, but the reason is different, not to accuse but to reach understanding, accept and a way to move on.

The mothers are described like often before as the reliable parent, the one the child can depend on, the parent who does not fail. In the case they are visible at all.