The Birth of a Mother: How the Motherhood Experience Changes You Forever

by Nadia Bruschweiler-Stern and Daniel N. Stern

Book Overview

When a baby refuses to eat or begins to cry everyone seems to stare at the mother because it is generally assumed that'she should know what to do. When a woman becomes a mother, she is forced to make... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465015670
• ISBN13: 9780465015672
• Release Date: December 1998
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 3.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

An important contribution to the literature about parenthood

"The Birth Of A Mother" is an important contribution to the literature about parenthood. How rare and wonderful that a book about mothering (and fathering) embraces the challenges of bonding with and raising a child with special needs. The authors help us consider how through the entwined mysteries of love and biology, an ordinary man and woman procreate a child. What is less obvious but no less profound is how a singular child gives birth to two parents. For at the moment of birth a woman becomes a mother, a man becomes a father, and two new fundamental identities begin to emerge. The heart of the book is the enchanting description of the psychological birth of the mother in the months that precede and follow the birth of her baby. Through hundreds of interviews with new mothers and decades of clinical experience, the authors demonstrate conclusively how a woman's mental life changes fundamentally with the arrival of a baby. The striking change in perspective includes the shift from being a daughter to being a mother, becoming a part of the broad community of mothers, seeing one's husband become a father, forming a mother-father-child triangle, and an altered set of sensibilities that are brought to bear on every sight, sound, and smell of the new mother. In today's society, the new mother balances baby and career as she also finds a new role in her family of origin. A new era begins in the mother=s life as she counts time with a private calendar that is marked with her baby's age and developmental milestones. Parents, clinicians, researchers, and academicians will all find lasting value here for their day-to-day lives. Uniquely in this volume, any reader can conceptualize the parents of children with special needs within the developmental spectrum of the parenting experience. In a broad sense, no child is perfect, and it is the bond that attaches the parent and the child that will sustain families over the long haul. How these passions develop has uniqueness and similarities for parents with children developing typically as well as those with special needs. In all cases, the infant cradled in the parent's arms is different to some degree, small or large, from the child fantasized in the mind, and the reconciliation of these images is central in the daily work of parenting. Robert Naseef, Ph.D. is a nationally recognized psychologist specializing in families of children with special needs. He is the author of the highly regarded "Special Children, Challenged Parents: The Struggles and Rewards of Raising a Child With a Disability" (2001, Brookes Publishing). On the web at www.alternativechoices.com Special Children, Challenged Parents: The Struggles and Rewards of Raising a Child With a Disability

An amazing book!

If you have any doubts about buying this book, this review is written for you. I read this book in about 1 hour the first time and have read it about four more times since. I loved it! It's truly one of a kind and extremely enlightening. As a new mother, you are overwhelmed with so many thoughts and feelings and this book helps you feel normal and helps you understand yourself in a new way...as a mother!

Insightful

This book offers much valuable information about what goes on emotionally when your expecting a child, and once you've become a mom. It helps you to understand many of the "why's" about what you may be feeling or thinking. While most books offer information on pregnancy,labor and delivery, they leave a very important subject untouched...the psychological and emotional side of it all. This book is all about that and definitely worth reading.

Warm and Informative

Although written by a man, this book seems to grab the psychology of a pregnant woman quite successfully. The writer asks the accurate questions and enlightens the reader with the detailed and satisfactory answers. This is not a text book though, it is like a complete novel of the journey of becoming a mother. Highly recommended...

A chef d'oeuvre...

I bought the book today and I finished it. Sterns did a great job. They explained a highly complex developmental theory very simply for everyone who want to learn something on motherhood. I am psychologist who has been interested in their theory in a very sophisticated way for a very long time but I felt that I learned a lot while reading the book. Everyone should read this 'tour de force' to understand themselves, their mothers, their chilhood, their motherhood and also their 'fatherhood'. Congratulations Nadia and Dan !