The birth of a child can affect its family "as a baleful disease," asserts Freudian psychoanalyst Bond ( Who Killed Virginia Woolf ), a mother and a grandmother. Here she writes in a diary format to confide last night's dreams and today's worries--that she will "lose" her daughter after the baby's birth; that she fears competition from the child's other, richer grandparents. Having closely followed (and described) the growth of her daughter Janet's embryo, and fantasized about her first grandchild-to-be, Bond then realizes she'll have to "mourn" before she will be able to love the real child, and dolefully reflects that the child--Rachel Alana--"brings her that much closer to death." It's refreshing to listen in on such candidly inparted mixed feelings. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Relying on her own experience, Bond examines the impact an upcoming birth has on a family, especially the soon-to-be grandparents. Her diary explores all the family members' relationships and the emotions and reactions she herself experienced as a prospective grandmother. Bond (Is There Life After Analysis?, LJ 6/15/93) brings to this work 38 years of experience as a psychoanalyst, and, given her training as a Freudian, sometimes tedious and superfluous dream interpretation plays a larger than needed role in her diary. That quibble aside, Bond's analysis of what grandparents can expect with the birth of a child fills a definite need and will complement the many books available on the art of grandparenting, such as Lois Wyse's Grandchildren Are So Much Fun I Should Have Had Them First (Crown, 1992).Priscilla Davis, Cuyahoga Cty. P.L., South Euclid, OhioCopyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From The New Yorker

Dr. Bond combines professional insight with her personal conflicts as she draws from her own family history, recalls her relations with her daughter and daughter-in-law, and ties last night's dreams with today's worries.

Review

"Alma Bond's newest book, On Becoming a Grandparent: A Diary of Family Discover, warm and insightful, part memoir and part case study, is an engaging and probing look at a neglected life cycle event. This book walks the fine line between personal reverie and public revelation. It incorporates the generosity and wisdom bond has shown in almost 40 years of professional psychoanalytic practice with openness in sharing her personal experience of becoming a grandparent. Her book is generative for all those working in the fields of parenting, female psychology, and life cycle development, and for those looking for new ways to mine psychoanalytic insights." -- Psychoanalytic Books, V. 6, #3, 1995, pp. 373-376For all generations. -- Tampa Tribune

Product Description

ON BECOMING A GRANDPARENT concerns my daughter's pregnancy, as seen through the eyes of a grandmother who is a psychoanalyst. The book stresses the changes wrought in the entire family, including the grandparents, by the newest family member, and forewarns that each new addition will awaken unresolved conflicts among family members. Changes are explored in part through the interpretation of family member's dreams. The development of the fetus is carefully followed from conception to delivery, and complete descriptions of the labor of both my daughter and daughter-in-law are given. The experience also brought back memories of my own pregnancies and childbirths.

From the Back Cover

PRAISE FOR

On Becoming a Grandparent "This is a no-holds-barred account of the emotional pitfalls - and satisfactions - that accompany an expanding family. With warmth and candor, sill and insight, Alma bond weaves her own personal experiences and her trained psychoanalytst's observations into a tale that is bound to be valuable to all those interested in learning more about the dynamics of family relationships." - W.P. Kinsella, author of Box Socials, Shoeless Joe (made into a major motion picture, Field of Dreams, with Kevin Costner), and other novels.

"Alma Bond has written a fascinating, outrageously honest, self-revealing, sensitive and insightful book on one of life's less-studied passages, that of becoming a grandparent." Albert M. Sax, M. D., faculty member and training analyst, American Psychoanalytic Association.

"Alma Bond's latest, extremely moving book, On becoming a Grandparent, reveals that the love of one's children when they give birth to a child, at least for her, is passionate and primitive. She explains that the love for one's daughter-in-law, if one is lucky, is much more civilized, it is the affection one feels for a dear, younger friend. This highly readable book brings new feelings to the reader that the author has been given an unexpected gift in that finally, after decades of resentment, she understands how much her mother and she are alike. The knowledge no sustains her that she is permitted to 'memorize my children's faces and touch the hearts of my grandchildren', knowing that to be a grandparent 'is to pierce the bulls-eye of eternity'." Lucy Freeman, author of Fight Against Fears, What Do Women Want? and other books.

About the Author

Dr. Alma H. Bond is a noted psychoanalyst and author who has published seven books and many articles in prestigious psychoanalytic journals. She was one of the first American non-medical analysts to be elected to membership in the International Psychoanalytic Association. She is a Fellow, Training Analyst, and faculty member at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, and a member of the American Psychological Association, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Florida Freelance Writers association, and the Dramatists Guild. She is listed in twenty Who's Who directories.

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