How to transition to parenthood.

How to transition to parenthood/parents.

The transition to parenthood/ parents

The transition to parenthood is a major step in the life trajectory, desired by a very large proportion of adults (80 to 90%; Howe, 2012). It meets important social expectations and has a very strong positive connotation. However, a certain ambivalence often accompanies the fact of becoming a parent because of the multiple rearrangements that this transition provokes, both at the level of the personality of the mother and the father and the level of their relationship as a couple (Pape Cowan and Cowan, 1992). . Long considered a women's affair in the post-industrial period, the transition to parenthood has indeed become a couple's affair, particularly following the social changes initiated in the post-war period: entry of women into the world of work,

Since the end of the 1960s, longitudinal studies have been carried out to understand the psychological variables at play in the transition to parenthood, the pitfalls encountered, and how the "family" emerges from the couple's relationship (see for example Pape Cowan and Cowan, 1992; Lewis, 1989). Thus, at the individual level, links have been highlighted between the representations of the mother on the one hand of the child coming during pregnancy, on the other hand of past relations with her parents and her mothering behavior; so-called “autonomous and balanced” representations, in which the mother can, in particular, differentiate her own psychological needs from those of her child,

Fewer studies have been devoted to paternal representations; the few data available show that fathers who, during pregnancy, have representations of their future family as a warm and empathetic group invest more in family interactions once the child is born (McHale et al., 2004). The child also makes his contribution to the development of the family, in particular through his temperament: thus, a so-called "difficult" child (with intense emotional reactions and difficulties in self-regulation) tends to aggravate the tensions between parents who are already in conflict but also to strengthen the ties of parents whose relationship is satisfactory (Croute and Booth, 2003).

At the interpersonal level, studies have shown that the formation of the co-parenting relationship, defined as the support mother and father provide to each other in their parenting roles, is central to the transition to parenthood (McHale, 1995 ). We will dwell more on this relationship later in this article because its influence is increasingly recognized as cardinal not only on the bond between parents but also on the development of the child (McHale, 2007). We will then present an example of a longitudinal study of the development of the mother-father-infant relationship during the transition to parenthood, in which particular attention was paid to co-parenting coordination.

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