New parenthood is stressful for both Moms and Dads. Life with a newborn consists of round-the-clock feedings and care, and is a lot like being in a Las Vegas casino. You lose awareness of night and day, your emotions vacillate between excitement and worry, and you can’t find the exit.
Now a new study shows that people who feel pressure to be perfect parents may actually undermine their own intentions by adding a level of stress that can hurt their kids. And fathers in particular, if they are susceptible to a certain kind of pressure, do worse than mothers.
For centuries, parents, pediatricians and psychologists have debated parenting styles. But it was British pediatrician and psychoanalyst, Donald Winnicott who finally coined the term “good enough mother.” His parenting advice lives long after his death in 1971. The theory is simple: Children do poorly if they are under or over parented. Children who are neglected aren’t given the security to explore the world on their own and often become clingy and dependent. Children whose needs are attended to in every aspect miss out on the gaps in parenting where they can learn to cope independently. Therefore, Winnicott’s ideal parent is a “good enough” parent.
But things get fussy when one talks about newborns. Because the other parenting advice doled out by modern day pediatricians and psychologists is “You can’t spoil a baby.” In others, during that crucial first year of life, when the developing human brain triples in size, a baby begins to form a blueprint for their life’s expectations. Can they trust that the world will meet their needs? Some psychologists believe that the roots of optimistic and pessimistic personalities lie in that first year of care. And there, lies the stress for new parents.
The latest research out of Ohio State University, that appears in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, suggests that parents who feel pressure to be perfect parents can work at cross purposes.
Called the “New Parents Project” this study is one part of a longitudinal look at how working parents cope with new parenthood. The researchers studied 182 couples who became parents between 2008 and 2010, and found that external pressure to be perfect parents affects parenting skills differently than self-directed, internal pressure to be a good parent. And the difference was most striking for fathers. If new fathers were particularly worried about living up to the social ideals of their peer group, then tended to do worse than fathers who put the pressure on themselves. Mothers on the other hand, showed more parental stress no matter where the pressure came from.
One other interesting note is that father’s who responded to self-directed, internal pressure and didn’t give a hoot about keeping up with the Jones’, tended to be better fathers. The researchers added that they weren’t sure what the long term effects on parenting this kind of internal pressure would have, but for newborns, it can be a good thing.
Reposted from AskMen.com