Things Just Haven't Been the Same: Making the Transition from Marriage to Parenthood

When happily married couples become parents, Sachs contends, their marriages all too often flounder or fall apart. A clinical psychologist based in Columbia, Md., he points out that a new child not only adds enormous responsibilities and stress to a marriage, but also stimulates the parents' childhood ``tapes'' and thus reactivates their old feelings of helplessness in relation to their own parents. But chaos, Sachs declares, need not ensue. To change, new parents must first achieve ``Selfhood'' by differentiating themselves from their ``first families.'' Then he advocates a ``dia-logic'' technique designed to ``depolarize our hyperparenting-hypoparenting or pursuing-distancing dance'' by dealing with our ``parents from the past'' and, finally, with our parents, grandparents and in-laws. Using a combination of case histories, clinical insights and mind-addling jargon, Sachs counters his gloomy diagnosis with a vision of hope. Author tour. (Nov.)