PARADOXES OF GENDER: WOMEN DECLINING MOTHERHOOD AND FATHERS CLAIMING THEIR CHILDREN'S CARE AND NURTURANCE

In this article our aim is to reveal an apparently paradoxical situation for normative sex/gender patterns in relation to upbringing. The discussion focuses on to what extend women discharging from the cultural mandate of motherhood, and men meeting as fathers the process of day-to-day care, would raise the appearance of new models who travel with greater freedom and autonomy, beyond gender roles forced limits. In the first part, a review of specialized literature has provided us with the conceptual developments around women without offspring and/or free from it, as well as the construction of paternity by men who assume and claim their children's care and nurturance. In the second part, we show the results of our field work performed through in-depth interviews revealing the experiences of women and men from their standpoint as subjects declining motherhood and vindicating fatherhood respectively.