MIDDLE-AGED SONS REACTIONS TO FATHERS DEATH

This article concerns the domain of men's grief and bereavement. It re ports on findings from a research project in which we qualitatively in terviewed, in a 2 x 2 design, middle-aged sons and daughters concernin g the meaning of the death of their widowed elderly mother or father. We interviewed forty-three sons who recently experienced the death of their widowed father. We suggest that the normative model of bereaveme nt is feminized and does not adequately account for men's experiences. In the domain of bereavement, men are often ''the other.'' We outline and discuss four themes in men's bereavement: control, action, cognit ion, and privacy.