It is a qualitative study that aimed to understand the issues that underlie the end of the marriage relationship and the parenthood performed post-dissolution as well as to understand the differences attributed to the performance of the parental roles under the eyes of the women householders. The study included ten women, who are mothers, from lower class groups and that made a single-parent family. Among them, seven were single, one separated and two divorced. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and focus groups and were analyzed according to the assumptions of the thematic content analysis. The results pointed to a marital separation experience, in which the partners transfer the conflicts to the relationship with their children. In addition, we evidenced the importance of overcoming some paradigms related to the motherhood and the fatherhood, dissolving, in particular, the naturalized perspectives on the mother always be the best caregiver while the father is secondary in relation to his children.
Marital separation; parenthood; women