How they become dads or the Psychology of Fatherhood parents - mother and father - relate to how they communicate with him. A deficiency or lack of any of the communication models leads to difficulties in relation to the world around us and to oneself and distortions in perception. The two main components of parenthood are motherhood and fatherhood. Unfortunately, very often fatherhood is perceived not as something unique, unlike anything else, but as just an addition to motherhood. Motherhood is also a function of the female body aimed at the continuation of the human race, including the biological aspect - bearing, giving birth and feeding a child, and social function - raising a child. During pregnancy, the expectant mother naturally receives the attention of both relatives and doctors; she is examined, cared for, and taken care of. Despite the fact that the magazine is intended for expectant mothers, we will try to address the psychology of fatherhood and draw your attention to the future father. Let's try to understand how a man, a husband, becomes a Father, bearing in mind not only the biological aspect, but how he adapts to his new paternal role. Biologically, all men become fathers, and women become mothers from the moment their child is born. Unfortunately, the psychological development of parenthood is not automatically associated with the birth of children. Fatherhood is not just a blood relationship between a father and his child. Fatherhood is also defined as an innate feeling that encourages a man to act towards a child (or his children) with empathic responsibility, i.e. Fatherhood is the ability to provide conditions for the development of a child, and not only from a material point of view. But fatherhood also provides unique opportunities for the manifestation of the man’s personality. The main thing in developing a sense of fatherhood for a man – a future father – is awareness of changes in the image of “I”, awareness of oneself as a father. The main goal of the ongoing psychological changes is to provide the man, the husband, with the most favorable conditions for the development and birth of a new person, to preserve the mental and physical health of his wife. These changes include a serious reassessment of a man’s own values and the setting of new priorities in life. He has many new responsibilities and functions, changes occur in his relationship with his wife (after all, she becomes the mother of his children), new feelings and emotions appear that he has not experienced before, and his vocabulary even expands (at least to terminology related to pregnancy and caring for a newborn). That is, fatherhood is a completely new level on his life path, a new round in the development of a man’s personality. But a new step in life is always a test. Fatherhood is possible only due to the fact that a man abandons many of the already stereotypical patterns of behavior with others and attitudes towards himself. The feeling of fatherhood is often accompanied by a change in lifestyle to one that is more consistent with the role and title of the father and contributes to getting used to this role for the first time (before assigning this title), which can cause crisis states. How is “fatherhood” formed in the soul of a man? Of course, a lot depends on cultural and family traditions, but a man’s personal history, the history of his own relationship with his father, also plays an equally important role. Who is the future father going to raise: his own child or himself, the way he was in childhood? To what extent will a man be able to realize that his child is not himself, to realize the great responsibility that falls on him? A father’s attitude is laid long before a man’s child is born and is determined by childhood impressions, the assertion of oneself as a man in adolescence, it is influenced by erotic relationships of later years. The attitude towards the child is “predetermined”much earlier than the future father thinks about having a baby. Therefore, it is not at all surprising that those men who lived a happy childhood, who had a loving, caring, understanding father, more often want to have children than those who did not have such a childhood. An important moment of the beginning of psychological adaptation to the paternal role, the beginning of the formation of self- the concept of the father is the moment when a man finds out that his wife (or another girlfriend) is pregnant. What kind of storm did the news of pregnancy create in the soul of the future father: delight, joy, grief, or did it leave him calm and indifferent? And this largely depends on how the man’s relationship with his father developed. The birth of a child should also be separately identified as a kind of test in a man’s life. This is the moment when the birth of both the Mother and the Father occurs (maybe this is why men who are not present at the birth of their own child often dump unspent energy with the help of alcohol). A very important factor is the presence of a man during childbirth, if, of course, he feels internally ready for this (after all, his task since prehistoric times is to protect his woman if she herself cannot do this). In addition to the fact that this helps prevent unwanted events during childbirth, the baby’s first cry has the most tangible effect on the activation of not only the maternal, but also the paternal instinct. Fathers who witness the birth of their child, like their wives, experience deep emotions during childbirth and develop strong attachments to their children. American studies 50 years ago showed that if a father is present at the birth of his baby, then they establish a special contact and their own unique relationship. Such a father is more involved in the life of the mother and child, without shifting all responsibility to the woman; he can care for the child and play with him along with the mother. He does not need to wait until the child starts talking or playing chess to start communicating with him. It is the establishment of a relationship with the child, the process of caring for him in the first months of life that determines the final stage of the Father’s birth. Thus, there are three stages in the formation of the paternal sphere: 1) a stereotypical idea of fatherhood before the wife’s pregnancy; 2) rethinking stereotypes during pregnancy; 3) the actual formation of a sense of fatherhood after the birth of a child. Let's try to look into the family where the child was born. What is father doing? What does mom do? Traditionally, the roles of husband and father have remained the same for many generations. In recent decades, some confusion has arisen. A modern man is faced with numerous confusions of concepts. He is required to be both strong and soft at the same time. He must work hard, but at the same time he must also put up with his wife’s work. In addition to everything that a man traditionally should be able to do and do, in our time it is assumed that he should also be able to change diapers, feed a child and much more. For many men, it is not entirely clear what their role as a husband and father is, and it is not easy for them to play the former role of the breadwinner of the family, while also fulfilling maternal responsibilities. However, all this is required of a modern man, and therefore the education of future men and fathers should be built on this basis. For the sake of fairness, it should be noted that some today's fathers have become such excellent specialists in caring for a child that they can compete with the most skilled mother. Unfortunately, adaptation to fatherhood for many personally immature men, even before it has begun, immediately ends with the news of pregnancy . The future father can leave, shifting all the problems arising in connection with the birth of the child onto the future mother, without worrying about what will happen to his family next. If, due to his beliefs or situation, he cannot leave his family, his dissatisfaction with the appearance of a child may manifest itself in an indifferent attitude towards him, and in the worst case, in strict authoritarian modelsbehavior, manifestation of violence towards their child. All this - the history of the relationship with their father, the model of fatherhood of their own father, cultural, social and family characteristics, physical and mental health - influence the readiness of men for fatherhood. Egocentrism, infantility, and sexual promiscuity of a man show his inability to demonstrate a fatherly attitude. But every man should think that the opportunity to become a father will allow him to fully realize not only his male, but also his personal potential. A man directly gives life to a new person and gets a unique opportunity to care for him, love him, and pass on his life experience to him. It is in fatherhood that a man satisfies many of his vital needs. By becoming a Father, a man gets the opportunity to creatively transform himself and the surrounding reality. For many men, the period of a wife’s pregnancy, anticipation of the birth and, finally, the birth of a child itself can greatly influence the formation of their manhood. Men who strive to try on the new role of a father have an increased sense of self-esteem; through their child they realize and confirm their masculine worth. As a result, a man acquires a new personal and social status. He develops ancestral consciousness, a sense of responsibility for his family. But during this period, men may experience psychological problems and personal conflicts, in particular related to their own experience of negative relationships with their father. That is why we can confidently talk about “pregnant dads”. Yes, they, too, in their own way, like men, “bear” the child, they take care of their wife, create the best conditions for her, solve the family’s financial problems, help in caring for the baby after his birth, build their own unique relationship with the child , but are also left alone with their own intrapersonal conflicts. And no one pays attention to them, no one cares, but on the contrary, they demand care and attention from them. And if most women feel like mothers for the first time during pregnancy, then most men do so after the birth of the baby, with whom the man is not involved in the prenatal period. has such a connection as a woman. This is why it is so important for the expectant father to talk to the child before birth. The child hears his gentle voice and perceives it almost better than the mother’s voice. Yes, naturally, a woman is more involved in communication with her child before birth and in the first months after birth. For her, pregnancy is a period of preparation for communicating with a child after his birth, and this preparation occurs through direct physiological changes in a woman’s body, changes in her values and priorities during pregnancy, because her whole life is aimed at the well-being and development of the baby in her womb. Thus, maternal feelings and attachment to the child are formed during pregnancy, including thanks to new bodily experiences. And for a father, the formation of attachment to the unborn baby is not associated with new bodily sensations. The period of pregnancy of the wife changes the self-awareness of the man and results in him accepting a new social role. Psychoanalysts believe that during pregnancy, changes also occur in the emotional sphere of the woman. These changes manifest themselves in such defensive reactions as: regression, repression, infantilism. These are temporary changes, a protective mechanism that allows you to prepare for such a complex and important event as childbirth. But such emotional reactions of a woman trigger in the man - the future father - the desire to care and patronize and show towards the pregnant wife those feelings and responsibility that he will then show towards the child. Thus, a man’s preparation for communicating with the child during the waiting period the child still occurs and occurs indirectly, through a woman. Men deeply worry about their wife’s pregnancy and show miracles of care and attention (for example, running away in the middle of the night to.