Like most parents, Greta and I were very excited about having our first baby (Greta, I imagine, might be somewhat less enthusiastic about me putting this vintage photo of her online...). We weren't naive, though -- we had heard from friends and family about the sleepless nights, the juggling of jobs and child care, the constant requirements for feeding, and the endless stacks of diapers. We knew it wouldn't be an easy task, but we felt we were up to it, and we were overjoyed to be having a child.
But at what point does this optimism become a burden? If you're unrealistically hopeful about the experience of having a baby, could that adversely affect your ability to care for your child? What about your relationship with your spouse or significant other? Might that suffer, too? Might you yourself sink into depression, or have other mental health problems?
A 1992 study found that women are often over-optimistic about having children: when their babies were 12 months old, they rated their relationships with their partner, family, and friends as less satisfying than they expected prior to having a child. But this study did not use standard measures, so it's difficult to assess how reliable the findings were. It's also impossible from this study to tell whether the initial optimism was helpful or harmful. Other studies have found that overoptimism can be beneficial for relationship happiness, and even completing student research projects.
A team led by Kate Harwood attempted to rectify the problems of the 1992 study with a new study of 71 women having babies for the first time. In the new study, the researchers were careful to use only measures that had been previously normed in other studies. Pregnant women completed surveys before birth, and four months after birth. Were these women generally overoptimistic, as Harwood's team expected to find? No. Below is a graph showing the difference between pre- and post-natal parenting expectations:
As you can see, most women had a positive difference; their parenting expectations actually improved after they had their babies for four months. In fact, for each of the five scales studied, measuring depression, parenting competency, relationship strength, social support, and parenting expectations, average scores were better or the same when babies were four months old compared to the end of pregnancy.
This was indeed a surprising result, since it contradicted earlier research on the subject. Perhaps the earlier study was flawed, or perhaps this group, recruited from prenatal classes or a private doctors' waiting group, simply had more realistic expectations than average women. Perhaps there's a cultural difference in prenatal optimism between Australia, where this study was conducted, and the U.S., where the 1992 study was conducted.
Nonetheless, some of the women in this group were indeed overoptimistic. Is it possible that their feelings of optimism had a different effect than for the other women?
Indeed it is: Harwood's team found that women who were overoptimistic about having a baby reported poorer psychological adjustment when their babies were four months old. Interestingly, these women were not especially overoptimistic: we're talking about a small amount of extra optimism resulting in measurable problems, including poor relationship adjustment and reduced belief in their efficacy as parents.
Of course, these problems affected only a minority of the women studied, and the researchers themselves acknowledge that their study has limitations. Perhaps at different points in the baby's life (1 month old, 12 months old, and so on), these effects, and their relationship to overoptimism, change.
Perhaps there's no way to know you're being too optimistic. After all, some babies are more difficult than others, and this study didn't attempt to measure the child's temperament.
Despite these limitations, the researchers conclude that "realistic" optimism is a good thing, while unrealistic optimism isn't. Unfortunately if it turns out that the child's temperament is what determines whether or not optimism is realistic, then that's not much help to an expectant mother.
Harwood, K., McLean, N., & Durkin, K. (2007). First-time mothers' expectations of parenthood: What happens when optimistic expectations are not matched by later experiences? Developmental Psychology, 43(1), 1-12.
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The difference between the studies that most grabs me is between evaluating reality at 4 months or 12 months. I think I, and perhaps most women, had unrealistic expectations of how quickly the baby's growing up would start allowing more space and time for other relationships. Before birth I expected that at 4 months the baby would be almost my full-time concern, so that wasn't a surprise, but I don't think I fully understood how much of my emotional and physical energy having a 12 month old would still take up. As it happened I had great support and didn't mind, but I could imagine other outcomes!
Of course, this presupposes that one *wants* to squeeze out a baby. I don't. On to your other, more relevant topics!
My wife had a baby in the past year. I haven't had sex in months. My wife is perpetually grouchy from lack of sleep. When the baby cried last night, her first words were "god damn-it." If the baby wasn't doe-eyed, smiley and soft, we'd probably eat it.
The birth of my child was an experience that nothing prepared me for. I was 35, had read everything I could get my hands on about pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood for over ten years (fertility problems will do that to you). I had close friends with babies and I'd helped them out from the beginning. Yet when I came home with my son, the enormity of being a parent was at least an order of magnitude greater than I had expected! The next four months were the most difficult in my life to that point, yet they were also the most exhilarating. Even with sleep deprivation, post-partum depression, colic (on his part, not mine!), and the news that my own mother was dying, the intensity of purpose and the joy in life were so strong and pure -- I had NO questions about priorities or goals. They were all embodied in that little person.
When my son left for college two years ago, I relived the wave of protective love with its tinge of desperation that I felt as a new mom. I didn't know how to do things perfectly then, but things happened so fast I had to think on the fly. I feel somewhat the same now, as I can't directly guide or shelter him any longer, I can only support him at a distance. It's all, always, new and exciting and very, very hard. It's the greatest joy I've ever known.
I hope for your sake that you didn't actually mean "enormity" in the comment above.... (maybe immensity? heh)
Being both an Anthropologist and a salesman, expectations are THE main ingredient in satisfaction...yet, Kids are at risk from far more mundane things than over optimism on the parts of their parents. How about studying mom's diet pre-pregnancy, during, after and during infancy of the child to see how that affects the child and the mother...Just a thought.
When I read the article's title, I misunderstood the topic, sorry.
I thought it was really about how optimistic ought a mother to be be, not how will her state of optimism affect her desire/ability to raise the child!
Being child-free and an optimist, I'm also a Volunteer in the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement.
Happy your babies are well, may they also live long and die out.*
*my secular prayer.
http://www.nonshoppingchannel.blogspot.com/
I'm not quite a "joiner" in the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement; the people seem somewhat too harsh for me. Yet, I just posted elsewhere that although I wasn't quite a convert to it, it looked as though (given only those two extreme choices) the world and the cities would be better off with VHE than with our overbreeding.