Why the passage to parenthood rocks even thebest of couples today:
A cautionary tale
Babies are getting a lot of bad press these days. Newspapers and
magazine articles warn that the cost of raising a child from birth to
adulthood is now hundreds of thousands of dollars. Television news
recounts tragic stories of mothers who have harmed their babies while
suffering from severe postpartum deppression. Health professionals
caution that child abuse has become a problem throughout our nation.
Several books on how to "survive" parenthood suggest that parents must
struggle to keep their marriage alive once they become parents. In fact,
according to recent demographic studies, more than 40 percent of children
born to two parents can expect to live in a single-parent family by the
time they are 18. The once-happy endings to family beginnings are clouded
with strain, violence, disenchantment, and divorce.
What is so difficult about becoming a family today? What does it
mean that some couples are choosing to remain "child-free" because they
fear that a child might threaten their well-established careers or
disturb the intimacy of their marriage? Is keeping a family together
harder than it used to be?
Over the last three decades, sociologists, psychologists, and
psychiatrists have begun to search for the answers. Results of the most
recent studies, including our own, show that partners who become parents
describe:
o an ideology of more equal work and family roles than their
mothers and fathers had;
o actual role arrangements in which husbands and wives are sharing
family work and care of the baby less than either of them
expected;
o more conflict and disagreement after the baby is born than they
had reported before;
o and increasing disenchantment with their overall relationship as
a couple.
To add to these disquieting trends, studies of emotional distress
in new parents suggest that women and possibly men are more vulnerable to
depression in the early months after having a child. Finally, in the
United States close to 50 percent of couples who marry will ultimately
divorce.
We believe that children are getting an unfair share of the blame
for their parents' distress. Based on 15 years of research that includes
a three-year pilot study, a 10-year study following 72 expectant couples
and 24 couples without children, and ongoing work with couples in
distress, we are convinced that the seeds of new parents' individual and
marital problems are sown long before baby arrives. Becoming parents does
not so much raise new problems as bring old unresolved issues to the
surface.
Our concern about the high incidence of marital distress and
divorce among the parents of young children led us to study
systematically what happens to partners when they become parents. Rather
than simply add to the mounting documentation of family problems, we
created and evaluated a new preventive program, the Becoming a Family
Project, in which mental-health professionals worked with couples during
their transition to parenthood, trying to help them get off to a healthy
start. Then we followed the families as the first children progressed
from infancy through the first year of elementary school.
What we have learned is more troubling than surprising. The
majority of husbands and wives become more disenchanted with their couple
relationship as they make the transition to parenthood. Most new mothers
struggle with the question whether and when to return to work. For those
who do go back, the impact on their families depends both on what mothers
do at work and what fathers do at home. The more unhappy parents feel
about their marriage, the more anger and competitiveness and the less
warmth and responsiveness we observe in the family during the preschool
period--between the parents as a couple and between each parent and the
child. The children of parents with more tension during the preschool
years have a harder time adjusting to the challenges of
kindergarten.
On the positive side, becoming a family provides a challenge that
for some men and women leads to growth--as individuals, as couples, as
parents. For couples who work to maintain or improve the quality of their
marriage, having a baby can lead to a revitalized relationship. Couples
with more satisfying marriages work together more effectively with their
children in the preschool period, and their children tend to have an
easier time adapting to the academic and social demands of elementary
school. What is news is that the relationship between the parents seems
to act as a crucible in which their relationships with their children
take place.
Tags:
child abuse,
children,
cost of raising a child,
demographic studies,
disagreement,
disenchantment,
egalitarian,
family,
family beginnings,
family roles,
happy endings,
health professionals,
last three decades,
magazine articles,
marriage,
mothers and fathers,
parenthood,
postpartum,
single parent family,
sociologists,
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