NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota
State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665
February 12, 1998
Kim Bushaw, Parent Line Program Specialist
NDSU Extension Service
The crib is up and the nursery coordinated in soothing prints. Tiny clothes fill every drawer. The first diapers are stacked neatly on the still fresh-smelling changing table. Bottles, booties and the gleaming new stroller are telltale signs that a baby is about to arrive. The countdown to the due date begins. How much more ready could a couple be for the birth of their baby?
Sarah and Mark thought they couldn't be any more prepared, but only six weeks after Nicole was born, the couple began to realize that they may have left out some important groundwork. Although they had been married five years before Nicole was born, they hadn't given much thought to the emotional work and life changes this baby would bring.
By the time Sarah was scheduled to return to work, she had fallen deeply in love with Nicole and couldn't imagine trusting someone else to care for her. She even doubted that Mark could do as good a job as she could. Sarah worked over their budget feverishly, trying to determine a way to stay home with Nicole and trade whatever she had to to meet that goal.
Mark, on the other hand, was waiting for life and his wife to return to normal. He was visibly shaken to think that Sarah didn't want to return to work and that he would be solely responsible for their finances. With bills coming in for baby expenses and Sarah sad about work, Mark felt helpless and overwhelmed.
Unable to see Sarah's side of the story, he became angry and sullen. The worse he behaved, the more Sarah feared to let Mark care for Nicole alone. They began to argue a lot. Parenting practices came under scrutiny as tempers flared.
Mark loved holding his new baby but had no trouble putting her in the crib to fuss while he tended to other matters. He remembered his younger siblings spending great amounts of time in the crib, often crying themselves to sleep. Sarah's family always held their babies, sometimes even while they napped. Both held fast to their beliefs that their own family had parented the right way.
Dale Hawley, associate professor in the NDSU child development and family science department, and graduate student Jennifer Peterson recently studied this topic using a tool that measures both family strength indicators and parenting attitudes in couples who are about to give birth. They found that as the number of stressors a family is experiencing goes up, positive family functioning and parenting attitudes decrease.
Future parents were asked questions regarding their expectations of the child's development, their attitudes regarding physical punishment and how conflict is handled in their family. Some of the stress indicators included moving, finances, housing, health and social supports.
Preparing for the arrival of a baby is like preparing for any guest. You get a space ready and make plans for what you will do when the guest/baby arrives.
Planning for parenting is another issue. Readying oneself for the responsibility of caring for and raising a child takes a great deal of thought and preparation. This readying may include examining each parent's experiences growing up in their own families. Minimizing major stressors before starting a family can help ease the transition in a variety of ways.
I watched the remake of an old movie the other night. At one point the man turned to the woman and said, "You don't even know if I like children." Oh, brother, I thought. Liking them doesn't even scratch the surface. Living with them in a happy family requires a whole different set of questions . . .
Ask those questions early.
More than 100 Parent Line columns are in the book "Please Tell Me This is Just a Stage." To order, send $9.95 per copy to Distribution Center, Box 5655, NDSU, Fargo, ND 58105-5655.
Kim Bushaw answers the Parent Line, an information and listening support warmline for North Dakota parents from the NDSU Extension Service. Call the Parent Line at 1-800-258-0808 (231-7923 in Fargo) with questions about this column and other parenting topics.
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Source: Kim Bushaw (701) 231-1070
Editor: Becky Koch (701) 231-7875