O objetivo deste estudo foi compreender os processos desenvolvimentais de homens que se tornaram pais pela primeira vez após os 40 anos. Foram entrevistados quatro pais, com idades entre 44 e 58 anos, a partir da técnica da história de vida e de um roteiro semiestruturado. A análise de conteúdo revelou que a assunção da paternidade está intimamente relacionada à percepção do próprio genitor. Destacaram-se nos discursos aspectos positivos e negativos da paternidade nessa fase e também a importância de conciliar as funções parentais com a conjugalidade e as relações familiares e sociais. A paternidade na meia-idade é um fenômeno que nos obriga a analisar diferentes facetas do desenvolvimento, tanto físicas como culturais, reconhecendo a necessidade de novas investigações com essa população.

The concept of fatherhood and its experience became subject of intense research in scientific literature from the beginning of the 1970s. Studies emphasize the accelerated processes of structural and organizational changes that affect both family and society, which constantly redefine the understandings about paternity, thus intensifying the interest in comprehending paternal experience in several diverse contexts. Despite many discussions surrounding this subject, regarding age, most of the studies focus on the experience of fatherhood during adolescence and young adulthood, and their relations with their children and spouses. The present study aimed to comprehend the experience of fatherhood in middle-age from the perspective of fathers, mothers and children. This is an exploratory, descriptive and cross-sectional study. Participants were members of four families named: Campos, Sampaio, Azevedo and Pires. Instruments used for data collection were: (a) Sociodemographic form, which includes the Brazilian Economic Classification Criterion; (b) Semistructured interview with fathers; (c) Semistructured interview with mothers; (d) Semistructured interview with sons and/or daughters; (e) Family Drawing (FD), used with children younger than 12 years old; (f) Genogram, used with all members of the Family together; and (e) Field diary. Interviews were audiorecorded and transcribed in full. Corpus of research was organized through content analysis in thematic modality, and data interpretation was based on psychoanalytic theory and on the available literature regarding fatherhood. The analysis of collected data, along with dialogues with literature, enables the development of three thematic categories: (a) Building a family: Adaptations of conjugality to the new experiences of being a father; (b) What father am I and what father do I want to be?; and (c) Strengths and weaknessess of fatherhood in middle-age. Results showed fatherhood in middle-age as an experience composed by multiple articulations. Conjugality and reassessment of the model provided by their own parents were revealed as important aspects to the exercise of fatherhood and to the expectations regarding performance of this role. Among the specifities of the experience of fatherhood in middle-age, maturity and financial stability were considered 13 desired strengths, whereas physical indisposition and the fear of not being able to follow children´s development were characterized as weaknesses/barriers. We expect that this study can foment new research approaching the experience of fatherhood in different stages of life cycle, from the perspective of the main characters and those with whom they share such experience.