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4 - Meeting the Challenges of New Parenthood: Responsibilities, Advice, and Perceptions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 July 2009

Allison Sidle Fuligni
Affiliation:
Research Scientist Center for Children and Families, Teachers College, Columbia University
Jeanne Brooks-Gunn
Affiliation:
Professor of Child Development and Education; Co-Director Center for Children and Families, Teachers College, Columbia University; Director Columbia University Institute of Child and Family Policy
Neal Halfon
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
Kathryn Taaffe McLearn
Affiliation:
Columbia University, New York
Mark A. Schuster
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Summary

How do American parents respond to the changes involved in becoming a new parent? In this chapter, we consider three main questions: How do parents divide the responsibilities of daily care for the very young child? What different sources do parents use to obtain information and advice about parenting? and How well do parents feel they are handling their parenting responsibilities? All parents who participated in the Commonwealth Fund Survey of Parents with Young Children had a child under the age of three, so all had recently experienced the transition to being a new parent. The data from the Commonwealth Fund survey offer some of the only nationally representative data on these issues and provide a picture of child rearing in American families today.

THE CHALLENGE OF NEW PARENTHOOD

The transition to parenthood is a life-changing event. New parents are suddenly responsible for the care of a virtually helpless infant, who requires feeding, changing, and soothing 24 hours a day. Caring for a very young child is physically demanding, emotionally intense, and continuous; the transition to being a new parent is therefore both physically and emotionally challenging (Antonucci and Mikus 1998). Lack of sleep alone, part of the lives of all new parents, and often a new experience for them, may affect parents' perceptions of how well they are doing in their new roles and the help or advice they feel they need.

Type
Chapter
Information
Child Rearing in America
Challenges Facing Parents with Young Children
, pp. 83 - 116
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2002

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