veteran parents don’t focus on the hardness of having babies is that “hard” is not the whole story. It’s not even the major part. The time you will actually spend with your kids is breathtakingly short. They will change very quickly. Eventually, your child will find a sleep schedule, turn to you for comfort, and learn from you both what to do and what not to do. Then he or she will leave you and start an independent life.
What you will take away from the experience will not be how hard having a baby was but how vulnerable to it you became. Author Elizabeth Stone once said, “Making a decision to have a child—it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”
Veteran parents have experienced the sleepless nights, but they’ve also experienced the exhilaration of a first bike ride, a first graduation, and, for some, a first grandchild. They’ve experienced the rest of the story. They know it’s worth it.
There’s more good news. Couples who know about the Four Grapes of Wrath and who begin preparing in advance are much less likely to trample on them once the baby comes home. When conflicts occur for these couples, the effects are usually much milder.
The first step is awareness
I can attest to that. I grew up in a military household in the 1950s. Whenever we took a car ride, my mother scrambled to prepare two kids under 3 years of age for the excursion, assembling blankets, bottles, diapers, and clean clothes. My father never assisted and actually grew impatient if preparations took too long. Storming out of the house, he would plunk down in the driver’s seat and gun the engine to announce his irritation. Lots of strong feelings there, about as useful as a heart attack.
I only dimly recalled this behavior as an adult. But six months into my own marriage, my wife and I were late to a grad school meet-and-greet dinner. She was taking an especially long time to get ready, and I grew impatient. I stormed out of the house, got into the car, and put the key into the ignition. All of a sudden it hit me what I was doing.
I remember taking a long breath, marveling how deeply parents can still influence their kids, and then recalling novelist James Baldwin’s quote: “Children have never been good at listening to their parents, but they have never failed to imitate them”. Slowly, I removed the keys from the ignition, returned to my new bride, and apologized. I never pulled that stunt again.
Years later, getting ready for a trip with two kids of our own, I was putting our youngest in the car seat when suddenly his diaper exploded. I grinned as I felt my car keys in my pocket and repaired to the changing table, humming. There would be no gunning of an engine. The lesson was long-lasting, the change surprisingly easy to maintain.
There is nothing particularly heroic about this story. Nothing really changed except a specific awareness. But it is this awareness that I want to share, for its inner workings have very powerful positive consequences. Researchers know how to make the transition to parenting easier on couples, and I wish to not only tell you how but to testify that it really works. As long as you are willing to put in some effort, babies are not some terminal disease from which no marriage safely recovers. As of this writing, I am into my 30th year of marriage, and my children are near teenagers. These have been the best years of my life.
What is obvious to you is obvious to you
The story of the car keys involves a change in perspective, which is captured in one of our Brain Rules: “What is obvious to you is obvious to you. My father did not see what needed to be done to get the kids ready (and may not have wanted to help even if he did). But my mother saw very clearly what needed to be done. There was a “perceptual asymmetry” in their points of view. It led to some really nasty fights.
In 1972, sociologists Edward Jones and Richard Nisbett
What you will take away from the experience will not be how hard having a baby was but how vulnerable to it you became. Author Elizabeth Stone once said, “Making a decision to have a child—it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”
Veteran parents have experienced the sleepless nights, but they’ve also experienced the exhilaration of a first bike ride, a first graduation, and, for some, a first grandchild. They’ve experienced the rest of the story. They know it’s worth it.
There’s more good news. Couples who know about the Four Grapes of Wrath and who begin preparing in advance are much less likely to trample on them once the baby comes home. When conflicts occur for these couples, the effects are usually much milder.
The first step is awareness
I can attest to that. I grew up in a military household in the 1950s. Whenever we took a car ride, my mother scrambled to prepare two kids under 3 years of age for the excursion, assembling blankets, bottles, diapers, and clean clothes. My father never assisted and actually grew impatient if preparations took too long. Storming out of the house, he would plunk down in the driver’s seat and gun the engine to announce his irritation. Lots of strong feelings there, about as useful as a heart attack.
I only dimly recalled this behavior as an adult. But six months into my own marriage, my wife and I were late to a grad school meet-and-greet dinner. She was taking an especially long time to get ready, and I grew impatient. I stormed out of the house, got into the car, and put the key into the ignition. All of a sudden it hit me what I was doing.
I remember taking a long breath, marveling how deeply parents can still influence their kids, and then recalling novelist James Baldwin’s quote: “Children have never been good at listening to their parents, but they have never failed to imitate them”. Slowly, I removed the keys from the ignition, returned to my new bride, and apologized. I never pulled that stunt again.
Years later, getting ready for a trip with two kids of our own, I was putting our youngest in the car seat when suddenly his diaper exploded. I grinned as I felt my car keys in my pocket and repaired to the changing table, humming. There would be no gunning of an engine. The lesson was long-lasting, the change surprisingly easy to maintain.
There is nothing particularly heroic about this story. Nothing really changed except a specific awareness. But it is this awareness that I want to share, for its inner workings have very powerful positive consequences. Researchers know how to make the transition to parenting easier on couples, and I wish to not only tell you how but to testify that it really works. As long as you are willing to put in some effort, babies are not some terminal disease from which no marriage safely recovers. As of this writing, I am into my 30th year of marriage, and my children are near teenagers. These have been the best years of my life.
What is obvious to you is obvious to you
The story of the car keys involves a change in perspective, which is captured in one of our Brain Rules: “What is obvious to you is obvious to you. My father did not see what needed to be done to get the kids ready (and may not have wanted to help even if he did). But my mother saw very clearly what needed to be done. There was a “perceptual asymmetry” in their points of view. It led to some really nasty fights.
In 1972, sociologists Edward Jones and Richard Nisbett
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