Babies bring 'becomings': women becoming mothers, men becoming fathers, couples becoming a family. "Becoming Us" is more than just a physical transformation; it's a psychological, emotional and spiritual one, too. In older cultures and in villages around the globe, parenthood was honored and supported as a rite of passage, yet guidelines for the transition have largely been lost in our "First" world, until now.
Becoming Us is about in-betweens. It's about the stages of personal and relationship growth that come after 'pregnancy' and before 'parenting.' It's about the relationship we have with our newly unfolding parent-self and the one between us and our lover as we grow from connected partners into connected parents. Becoming Us forms a bridge from expectation to reality, in between who we are and how we hope our family to be.
Whether you're welcoming your first baby or your fourth, this ground-breaking book weaves new research with age-old wisdom and the stories of hundreds of mothers and fathers to support all families - traditional or non-traditional, straight or gay, with biological children or adopted - through the eight steps of the modern parenthood rite of passage. Becoming Us provides the nutrient-rich soil for couples to prepare for and grow a family that thrives.