How you learn to be a parent


Anne Geddes
Fathers and mothers don't really find out how to care and manage children from books and lectures, though these may have value in answering specific  questions and doubts. You'll find that you learn the rest gradually through the experience of caring for your children. It's taking care of your baby, finding out that you can feed, change, bathe, and burp sucessfully, and that your baby responds contentedly to your ministrations that gives you the feelings of familiarity, confidence and love.

Mixed feelings about pregnancy

We have an ideal about motherhood that says that a woman is overjoyed when she finds that she is going to have a baby. She spends the pregnancy dreaming about the baby. When it arrives she slips into the maternal role with ease and delight.  But after a time, the woman realizes that there will be distinct limitations of social life and other outside pleasures.
Anne Geddes

Feelings are different in every pregnancy

The changes to be expected because of the arrival of one more child do not look so drastic after you have had one or two, but medical experience shows that a mother's spirit may rebel at times during any pregnancy. The child's arrival proves to be less of a challenge than the parents had anticipated, probably because they have grown in spirit in response to the need.

Love for the baby comes gradually

Anne Geddes
Many parents who are pleased and proud to be pregnant find it hard to feel a personal love for a baby they've never seen or felt. But when it begins to move, it helps them to believe that it's a real person, after all. As the pregnancy progresses, their thoughts turn more realistically to the baby, to what it will mean to care for it. The parents expect to recognize the baby immediately as their own flash and blood, to respond to the infant with an overwhelming rush of maternal and paternal feelings. But in many cases this doesn't happen the first day or even the first week. Instead it's a gradual process that isn't complete until they have been home together for a little while.






Text source: Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care -Beanjamin Spock and Michael Rothenberg