Psychological Conditions Of Successful Maternal Role Development

The aim of this work is the investigation of psychological conditions, helping primiparous women to develop the role of mother. 73 primiparous mothers of 6—24 months children took part in the study. Three groups of conditions turned out to be important in the process of mastering the new role: the level of flexibility, realistic expectations and emotional attitude to the components of the mother role (towards the care of the baby, towards woman herself as a mother and the baby). Mothers with high level of rigidity estimate the difficulty of mastering the new role as the highest in the sample. It is also harder to adapt to the new role of parent for women with unjustified expectations about motherhood. They more often experience motherhood as a refusal of many life spheres. The difficulties associated with caring for the child are better tolerated by women who emotionally accept the components of the maternal role, have positive attitude to themselves as mothers, to the baby and to the process of caring about it.

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