Every parent has a different relationship with his or her children and finds that relationship in a different way. One of the greatest challenges new parents face is allowing each other enough space to discover those relationships with a new addition individually. Commonly, relationships are strained by mothers’ frustrations about how their husbands’ bond with a new baby, so for men it’s important to show that bonding. One way to do that is to take an assertive role whenever celebrations are in order, buying baby Halloween costumes, birthday party decorations, and so on.
Generally, we don’t pay nearly enough attention to the way that relationships necessarily change during the first year of a child’s life. It’s hard to speak truthfully and openly about areas in which we are insecure, and since every parent makes mistake after mistake in child-rearing, we all tend to be highly defensive about how we go about that enterprise. But the overall sadness on the subject is problematic.
The fact is that while a new addition causes us to experience an extraordinary kind of love that we cannot experience any other way, the term “bundle of joy” is a bit of an overstatement. Along with all the positive feelings that do greet a new arrival to the family, there are emotions of loss and frustration as well. We tend to sweep those under the rug because we don’t think we’re supposed to feel them.
But every other relationship in a family changes in order to make room for a new baby. And a first child changes everything about the dynamics of a family. He brings new meaning to the marriage; in fact, it could be argued that a marriage isn’t really a marriage without children. When he arrives a couple becomes a family. But the freedom, fun, and ability to do things together that made the marriage enjoyable up to that point basically get thrown out with the bathwater.
We tend to marry a person we enjoy spending time with doing things. Once we’re married we get a lot of joy and fun out of doing things together. When a baby arrives he suddenly becomes priority number one, and we don’t get to do those things together anymore. That forces a marriage to become more about the underlying nature of being a team than it is about the superficial enjoyment of spending time together. It has to deepen, and if it doesn’t deepen it cracks.
When a young couple seeks counseling in an effort to save a marriage one of the primary issues a wife is likely to have is that the husband doesn’t take enough interest in bonding with the children. Even when both parents work and the children are left in daycare most of the day, this sentiment is still almost always at the top of a frustrated wife’s list.
Women are forced to bond with their children by biology. Nursing gives them an automatic way to bond and requires that they do it. Men, on the other hand, have to find a way to connect, and sometimes that is much more difficult than his wife understands.
This is true to some degree in nearly every relationship, so any celebration that comes up during the first year or two of a child’s life is an opportunity for a man to score some points with his wife. Bringing home baby Halloween costumes, a birthday cake, or best of all a half-birthday cake, is an excellent way for a father to say: I’m here, and I’m interested.
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