Early parenthood is an opportunity for parents’ own growth. How can we leverage it?
Early parenthood is an opportunity for parents’ own growth. How can we leverage it?
When I was pregnant and during the earliest days of parenthood, every day felt like being in the front row seat of a great science experiment.
He quickly morphed into a tiny person and with that came a loaded spectrum of emotions and entanglement in the myths of parenting. Breastfeeding should be a special, shared experience, but it isn’t that way for everyone. You’ll look at your peaceful baby sleeping and think, how did I ever live without him? When the truth is, pre-baby life was also great.
Binaries are easy to lean into during a time of absolutely transformational change, but my most self-affirming moments over the last 2 years happened because I finally accepted that motherhood looks different for everyone.
How working on a movie about overcoming intergenerational trauma uncovered an even more hopeful message
I met Hopewell Hodges through Ashley Rogers Berner, a powerhouse on education policy at Johns Hopkins who has become a friend and close collaborator on this Civic EQ journey.
Hopewell is getting her PhD in developmental psychology and clinical science at the University of Minnesota’s Institute for Child Development, one of the country’s leading programs for childhood development. What began as a conversation about intergenerational trauma to discuss Titus Kaphar’s movie EXHIBITING FORGIVENESS (coming to theaters October 18 and truly the most mesmerizing account of parenthood and forgiveness) lead to a conversation about how our brains may be more receptive to longterm, positive changes during pregnancy and early stages of parenting.
In sum, these overwhelming times of physical, emotional, and neurological change could actually be unique windows to adopt habits and positive ways of thinking that can help intergenerational family resilience processes (in layman’s terms, help us be better parents and grow as people).
This struck me as such an empowering and hopeful idea, and I asked Hopewell and her colleague Emily Padrutt if they would write a short piece explaining this for parents in a much more articulate way than I ever could.
Hi! Emily and Hopewell here. We are doctoral candidates in a developmental and clinical psychology PhD program (and we’re also good friends). On a given day, we both spend time doing research on mental health in children and families. We also both provide therapy as a part of our training.
As developmental scientists, and as therapy providers, we have thoughts about the early stages of parenthood, and it is quite a hopeful message: The one-year spans before and after welcoming a baby can be a prime opportunity for supporting parental mental health and the future functioning of the family.
Don’t get us wrong: From a public health perspective, the perinatal period (think: pregnancy and the first year after a child’s birth) does come with vulnerabilities. Expectant and new caregivers (that is, biological and adoptive parents, foster parents, or other family members taking on primary caregiving roles) experience increased financial strain, demands on their time, identity transitions, and substantial sleep changes, all of which can act as mental health risks (e.g., Vesga-Lopez et al., 2008). Despite these challenges, our health systems and social structures often fail to support caregivers during these periods; for example, pre- and perinatal care mostly attends to physical health and often feels more focused on babies than on the family structures into which they are born.
In developmental psychology, we often talk about “sensitive periods,” or times in development when experiences are more likely to have important and long-lasting effects on an individual’s health, behavior, or functioning. Infancy and adolescence are both considered sensitive periods. These stages coincide with a lot of physiological change (like the birth of new neurons in the brain during prenatal development or new hormonal paths initiating during adolescence), and these changes in the body may partly explain why experiences during these periods can have such long-lasting effects.
It is not difficult to grasp the negative side of sensitive periods. It’s common knowledge, for example, that exposure to alcohol in utero is more harmful than it is after brain development has slowed, or that trauma may be more damaging to social skills in a young child than in an adult. But this is not the only story worth telling about sensitive periods, because they are also times when supportive experiences and inputs can have long-lasting positive effects. A secure attachment to a stable caregiver and predictability in the environment during infancy can help children trust others and learn to manage their emotions while they navigate the world around them. Starting therapy or other health-promoting activities during adolescence has a lot of bang for its buck, because teenagers’ brains and social lives are already primed to be changing in response to new inputs (Gee, 2022). Caregivers’ actions early in a child’s development—like investing in positive parenting practices, or even engaging in healthy processing of difficult events—can bring about changes in children’s bodies and minds that, in some cases, may change the way genes are expressed and even be passed down to future generations (Smeeth et al., 2021). In other words, sensitive periods are not just periods of risk, but also windows of opportunity, when exposure to positive and supportive environments can set the course for a more positive future trajectory—even when a person has been exposed to risks in the past (DePasquale et al., 2021).
While the perinatal period has long been considered a sensitive period for fetal and infant development, experts in perinatal mental health have more recently begun to consider that it may be a sensitive period for parents as well (Davis & Narayan, 2020; Howland et al., 2023). For birthing people, it is certainly a period of rapid physiological changes (e.g., Dickens & Pawluski, 2018), and similar shifts may also happen for non-birthing parents as well, though to a lesser extent (Sobral et al., 2022). On top of that, the transition to parenthood is marked by enormous social and role changes for all caregivers. In our clinical work, we often find that becoming parents leads expectant caregivers to reflect on their own histories, current circumstances, values, and dreams, for both themselves and their child(ren). People may be newly motivated to change patterns that are not serving them. Additionally, they often have more points of contact with healthcare providers who can support them in making desired changes (Rockliffe et al., 2021). The bottom line is that this period has the potential to be an exciting window for resilience, where new ways of thinking, resources, and skills can have substantial impacts on shaping future trajectories for caregivers and babies.
How do we do this in our work? In short, we leverage the changes a caregiver is already experiencing, encouraging and supporting the reflection in which they often naturally find themselves engaging. We hope to empower caregivers to think about their own experiences being cared for, their traditions and values, their current environments and supports, and what they want to carry forward or might want to change. Importantly, we do not expect caregivers to engage in these reflections or make these changes on their own; we help them identify current sources of support in their lives, figure out how to access those supports, and find additional ones when needed. Below we provide some ideas based on our research and clinical experiences for caregivers who are interested in considering what positive opportunities the perinatal period may hold for them and their child(ren).
Tips for parents:
Think through some of your influential caregivers (including parents, grandparents, neighbors, teachers, or any important adult in your life). Consider: Which assets, gifts, or strengths do you want to pass down into the next generation? These could be specific skills you were taught (e.g., making amends with others, appreciating music) or ways that these people made you feel (e.g., “My grandmother always made me feel like she was listening,” “My librarian made me feel safe,” etc.).
Reflect: Who or what formed your images of parenting? Do you need a broader imagination of what it can look like to be a parent? You could consider things like approaches to limit-setting, warmth, styles of discipline, closeness, emphasis on shared family values, and whether the child (as opposed to the adult) was placed at the “center” of the family.
For many parents, the period of expecting and welcoming a child brings up memories of their own childhoods. There are a few ways to maximize the benefit of this tendency. Even for those who experienced a lot of challenges during childhood, it is often possible to remember moments when adults helped them feel unconditionally loved, protected, and important. Many clinicians and researchers believe that calling these positive memories back to vivid consciousness can help parents access the skills and motivation to support loving and protective caregiving practices (Lieberman et al., 2005; Narayan et al., 2019). With a friend or partner, try to tell a story about a specific moment in your childhood when an adult made you feel very cared for, appreciated, and safe. Remember as many details as you can to bring the memory back vividly to your mind.
Spend time with other families and observe diverse parenting approaches. Consider joining in on family dinner, bedtime processes, or getting ready for school. Take mental notes! What are some new things you notice? What are some new approaches you may wish to incorporate into your family routines? What do you see that aligns with your hopes and goals for caregiving?
The transition to parenthood is a time of immense change, both positive and challenging. Many people benefit from additional supports, including mental health resources, during such times of transition. In identifying supports that work best for you, it may help to seek out someone who will recognize your individual needs as well as your changing role as a parent. This may be someone who specializes in perinatal mental health, a parenting-focused provider, or a family therapist, for example. Even if asking for help in the past has felt difficult, seeking out support during this period may initiate a new pattern of asking for help when you need it, and of modeling this important skill for your loved ones.
More about Hopewell and Emily
Hopewell Hodges, M.A.
I am a PhD candidate in developmental psychology and clinical science at the University of Minnesota’s institute for Child Development, where my mentors include Dr. Ann Masten and Dr. Saida Abdi. Before moving to Minnesota, I earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree at Yale University, both of which focused on literature that came out of violence and on the ways that communities collectively make meaning after trauma. During that time, I also served on the clinical staff of Dr. Dylan Gee’s developmental neuroscience lab, supporting research on young people’s responses to stress and trauma.
Today, I provide therapy around traumatic stress, attachment, and anxiety to children ages three to 12 (and their grown-ups) as a practicum trainee. I also conduct community-engaged research on community- and family-level resilience processes that support positive outcomes for young people exposed to multi-system adversities like forced displacement and housing loss. My work focuses on the collaborative design of culturally responsive interventions that leverage locally effective resilience mechanisms. I currently partner with Studio Elsewhere as a consultant on the design and evaluation of physical spaces that support people’s social and emotional needs in healthcare spaces.
Because children’s health depends so much on the health of the systems around them, I also believe in interventions that build the capacities of the systems in the adult world. To this end, I design educational materials and offer trainings to help school administrators, teachers, caregivers, mental health practitioners, and local government representatives recognize and respond to children’s needs after adversity. Young people going through stress and mental health risks deserve resources that not only reduce their symptoms and end the dangers in their lives, but also strengthen their relationships with the people around them, reignite their imagination, and equip them to participate joyfully in their communities. My driving dream is that children find these supports not only in therapists’ offices, but also in every corner of their daily lives.
Emily Padrutt is a fifth-year doctoral candidate in Developmental and Clinical Psychology at the University of Minnesota's Institute of Child Development, working with Drs. Sylia Wilson and Daniel Berry. My research focuses on understanding pathways of risk in the intergenerational transmission of depression, with a focus on the perinatal period and the development of self-regulation in infancy. My clinical work focuses on supporting both perinatal and infant mental health.