Stance: Studies on the Family

By: Elizabeth Hansen

Being pregnant with my first child, I have received a lot of great counsel and advice from my own mother and other women who are mothers in my life. While all of their advice was great, a lot of it didn’t answer some of my, apparently, misconceptions.

Whether you have kids, are currently expecting, or want to have babies in the future, I hope you can relate to and find some humor in my list of first-time mom misconceptions!

1. As soon as you get pregnant, you will have a cute baby bump.

You can almost always tell when you see a pregnant woman from her baby bump, which always brings a smile to my face. I always assumed that pregnant women were noticeably pregnant basically the entire time after about the first month of getting pregnant. Wrong. A lot of first-time moms don’t start showing until a good five months into their pregnancy, some a little sooner and some even later! I’ve heard this changes for when you get pregnant a second, third, etc. time. But with your first baby, you’ll have to endure the aches, pains, sickness, tiredness and more without having any glorious baby bump to show for it. But, it’s all worth it.

2. Everyone gets crazy, random morning sickness.

In my experience, the most common go-to pregnancy symptom everyone talks about is morning sickness. I thought it was going to happen all the time, but it didn’t, and it didn’t just happen in the morning. The only time I threw up during my pregnancy was at 11 p.m. For women who do have morning sickness, it happens at varying levels. Some women are even diagnosed with a condition called hyperemesis gravidarum, which is when they have extreme amounts of nausea and vomiting. Don’t compare yourself to others as far as morning sickness goes. Figure out what it means for you. For me, I had a lot of heartburn and certain foods made me feel sick, but I only actually threw up once. Don’t feel like less or more of a pregnant lady wherever you fall on the spectrum.

3. You don’t need to start consuming more food right away.

I thought I would need to start eating more food right away, but that is not the case. During a normal, healthy pregnancy, a woman should gain anywhere between 25–35 pounds. And don’t really even need to start thinking about putting on this weight until your second trimester starts. As much as I wanted the baby to be an excuse for eating lots of extra yummy food, it doesn’t go that way. The baby doesn’t even really start gaining weight itself until the last couple months of the pregnancy! Man, this baby grows a lot slower than I thought J. But I am glad I learned about this early on from my doctor. You don’t want to be putting on more weight than you need to, because whatever weight the baby doesn’t take with it at birth stays with the momma. It’s less about eating more and more about making sure you are eating healthy foods and creating healthy eating habits for after the baby is born. Keep checking up with your doctor to make sure your weight gain and eating habits are on schedule with your baby’s growth.

By: Laura Bushman

Service is something that my parents taught me to do from a young age and is still something that I try to do today. The service I do may be small, like doing my roommates’ dishes, or larger, like volunteering in a second-grade classroom at a local elementary school or helping at a food pantry. My habit of service has helped shape the person that I am today; I know the benefits of service and I strive to find ways to serve others.

Dr. Becky Bailey (2015) tells us, “Children need to be of service. Whom and how they serve must be developmentally appropriate in order to be meaningful” (p. 166). She goes on to explain how we can ensure that our children’s service activities are developmentally appropriate. Younger children don’t have much of a concept of the world beyond their own homes, families, and regular experiences. Therefore, they benefit the most from serving their families or other people close to them. Parents can help them do this by providing opportunities for children to serve at home.

When children are first learning to serve, they may need some guidance to know what to do, but after some practice, they will start to find ways to serve on their own. There are many ways for children to serve at home. Parents can help their children serve by encouraging them to make a sibling’s bed, unload the dishwasher, fold the towels, or make a card for their church leaders. They can also expand children’s immediate worlds and service opportunities by introducing them to new people; perhaps they could visit a nursing home and focus on one individual to visit every week. This type of service, directly influencing people close to them, will be the most meaningful to young children and will help them develop a habit of serving others.

Once children get a little older, around fourth grade, they can start to understand the world beyond their own homes and lives. By this age, children will understand the benefits of community service, even though they may not be able to directly see those who are benefitting. Parents can provide opportunities for their child to serve by donating to the local food pantry, organizing an activity to pick up trash, or helping a new family move in.

Even though certain types of service are most effective for different age groups, children can still serve in other ways. For example, young children may not fully understand what a food drive is, but they will learn that it is helping other people and that helping other people is a good thing to do. When parents involve their children in service from a young age, children will develop service habits and will continue to serve others as they grow up.

Bailey, R. A. (2015). Conscious discipline: Building resilient classrooms.Oviedo, FL: Loving Guidance.