PSY 409B, January 31, 2006
Outline #4 – Once Children Arrive
By: Anthony Lagondino
The Lazy Husband by Joshua Coleman Ph.D. (St. Martin’s Press, 2005), pages 49-71
Instructions
for this activity are found at:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy24/g24-oral1.htm
Instructor: Dr. Leon James
I. A. Once Children Arrive
a. A little known fact: A marriage typically takes a turn for the worse and doesn’t fully recover until the children have left for college
b. Most Learned Fact: Gaining the identity of “husband” or “wife” is nothing compared to gaining the identity of “mother” or “father”
B. What it Means to Become a Parent
a. A fundamental shift in how we see ourselves
b. A fundamental shift in how we see our Spouses
1. My husband is now the “father of my children”
2. My wife is now the “mother of my children”
i. Potential for stress, conflict or misunderstanding
C. Revisiting What it Was Like When You Were a Child
a. Can be a stressful or pleasurable experience
b. Offers an opportunity to heal the wounds and/or disappointments of your childhood
1. Being a better parent
2. Giving your children what you never received
II. A. “Becoming a Team”
a. 3 important Predictors of Couples who successfully Transition into Becoming Parents
1. Having a clear sense of who they are
2. Being able to stand back far enough from a marital conflict to see and understand the other’s perspective
3. Neither avoiding conflicts or prolonging them
B. Moving to “We”
a. Achieved if BOTH spouses are doing their part to reach out to each other
1. Many men feel rejected when wives are preoccupied with the baby
2. Men feel the “We” of the couple has been replaced by the “We” of mother and child
b. Men feel better about the marriage when their wife is able to manage stress and anxiety
c. Mothers who let their worries about the baby crowd out the marriage make their husbands feel more burdened and resentful
III. A. Women’s Identity after Childbirth
a. Dad’s stress level rises over first month after child is born
b. Mother’s stress level rises over first YEAR after child is born
1. Due to hormonal changes
2. Nursing, getting up in the middle of the night to care for the baby
c. Women may be affected by how their bodies change
1. Weight gain
2. Loss of figure
3. Feel less attractive
4. Leads to greater need for reassurance from their husbands
B. Some Children are Hard to Parent
a. Makes mother depressed or anxious regardless of the way she feels about herself or her identity
b. Parents need to make sure to have attentional, psychological problems or learning disabilities addressed immediately
c. Men often do not understand why women are stressed about parenting
1. Often because child depends on mothers in a more demanding or draining way
2. Men do not often spend as much time with the child to see all of the problems
C. Comparisons to Our Mothers
a. Hard comparison to live up to
1. Many women/mothers were stay at home mothers and were available to their children full-time
b. Women may feel guilty by not being as available as their mothers were
1. May be criticized by friends, parents, society, in-laws
IV. A. Identity Shift for Men
a. Men are more likely to resume their prior schedule after the arrival of the first child
1. Less tethered by nursing and/or feedings
2. Do not have to recover from childbirth
3. No hormonal changes to recover from
4. Less overall change in identity
B. Male Marital Satisfaction = Sexual Frequency
a. During first year after the child is born, sexual frequency drops by about 30%-40%
1. Due to stress
2. Exhaustion
3. Hormonal
b. Causes men to pull back from wives
1. Men may feel rejected or angry
2. Happens at a time when wives need their husbands the most
Related Links:
http://www.drjoshuacoleman.com/index.html - I thought it important to take a look at the website of author of the book that I am outlining. So the this link is to Dr. Joshua Coleman’s website homepage where it offers a biography of Dr. Coleman, including his credentials, where he has appeared, where is works have been published and information about his two books. I thought that the summation for The Lazy Husband accurately described what the book is about for someone who may be interested in purchasing his book. I was also interested in the description of his other book, The Marriage Makeover: Finding Happiness in Imperfect Harmony because the bulleted points are important to anyone who is married.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/mp/7m3/7m3016.html - This is a link to the website for Christianity Today.com which is basically an online Christian magazine. There is an article in the website written by David and Claudia Arp entitled, Partners or Parents? How to make sure the rigors of child-rearing pull you together rather than push you apart which I thought fell directly in line with this portion of Dr. Coleman’s book where he discusses the effects of having children has on the marriage. I think this is a great read for anyone who is married and is thinking of having or already have children and enhances and affirms the beliefs of Dr. Coleman.
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5054a_qa.html - This is a link to the Marriage Builders website where they state the mission of the website is offer advice for the best ways to overcome marital conflicts and some of the quickest ways to restore love. There is a question and answer section where Dr. F. Harley, Jr., Ph.D. answers questions and offers advice to married couples in distress. He is the author of His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair-proof Marriage. There is a discussion entitled, Should We Have Children, and he explains that difficulties in marriage can be amplified if they are not addressed prior to having children. I felt these discussions with real married people were very much related to the material in the above mentioned section of Dr. Coleman’s book, The Lazy Husband.
My Home Page: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/409bs2006/lagondino/lagondino-home.htm
Class Home Page: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy24/classhome-g24.htm