MrDad.com - Armin Brott in the San Francisco Chronicle

June 10, 2001

Love and Carriage
Birth of baby doesn't have to mean death of marriage

Jonathan Curiel

The birth of a child is one of life's blessed events, and while parents typically prepare themselves to welcome a new baby, they often neglect their own relationship -- until it's too late, and marital discord becomes overwhelming.
     Armin Brott, the author of a series of books about fatherhood, has noticed this pattern in scores of couples.
     "I'm convinced that this is one of the major reasons why so many divorces happen when the kids are young," says Brott, 42, who is himself divorced. "You're focusing on the kids. You're tired as hell. You don't go out on dates anymore. You don't spend time nurturing your relationship. You don't spend time nurturing each other very much."
     In his best-selling book, "The Expectant Father" (Abbeville Press, $11.95), Brott writes that a couple's sex life can suffer when kids are born, partly because men and women view themselves differently after childbirth.
     "When you had sex with your partner before, she was the woman you loved," he writes about men. "Now, she's also a mother -- a thought that reminds many men of their own mothers and can be a big turnoff. Several studies have shown that many women, too, have a tough time reconciling their roles as mother and lover, and may see themselves as unsexual."
     Brott's 1995 book, which has been updated and re-issued this month, isn't a screed against marriage and partnership. In fact, "The Expectant Father," which has sold more than 500,000 copies, is a month-by-month guide to parental commitment that was co-written with a woman, Jennifer Ash. The tome stood out immediately when it was published six years ago because of its perceptive insights and because so few books were devoted specifically to expectant fathers.
     Books about motherhood have been written for centuries, though Vicki Iovine proves there are always new subjects to tackle. Her latest work, "The Girlfriends' Guide to Getting Your Groove Back" (Perigee, $13.95), dissects the ways women can regain control of their lives once their children have grown a little.
     With humor that is known to readers of her previous "Girlfriends' Guides," Iovine advises women what to wear (out: the little black dress that fit before marriage; in: "body slimmers" and loose-fitting skirts and pants), what to expect back at work (ease back part-time if possible -- and don't volunteer for extra assignments), how to have more a enjoyable sex life ("make the first move" and "remember that sex keeps you young and beautiful") and more.
     In a telephone interview from her home in Southern California, Iovine repeats ideas that may surprise some people. Speaking about looks, she says women "owe it to the wellness of their community to put lipstick on. If you don't care how you look -- I care, and I might come across you."
     Iovine, 47, is a former Playboy pinup, having posed in the magazine's September 1979 issue. "I'm what they call a vintage playmate," she says.
     Iovine also is a onetime lawyer who got her degree at Hastings School of Law in San Francisco (and her undergraduate degree at the University of California at Berkeley). Iovine admits she has altered the "much more liberal" views of her 20s, when she tried not to generalize about people.
     "Having lived as long as I have," says Iovine, "I've found that my bull-- detector is hyper-developed. I can say if I meet someone, 'He's one of those guys. I've seen 37 of them before, and he's the type who will do this and this. ' Most of the time, I'm right."
     A regular guest on NBC's "Today" program, Iovine has four children and is married to Jimmy Iovine, the president of Interscope Records. If she and Brott share a philosophy, it's that partnered men and women should be deeply involved in their children's lives and that they should try to understand each other as much as possible. Brott encourages couples with children -- even families with newborns -- to take a break from parenting in order to re- establish bonds and focus on outside interests.
     "Have a friend, parent or someone in town take care of the kids for an evening and go out and talk about something other than the kids," says Brott, who lives in Berkeley. "Talk about what's going on at SFMOMA, or the Legion of Honor, or 'How 'bout those Giants?' What makes people interesting are their interests."
     Brott, who is engaged to be married again, has two daughters -- Tirzah, 11, and Talya, 7 -- from his previous marriage. He has always been active in raising his children, despite societal obstacles that he says help keep fathers from getting involved. He describes those obstacles as a "glass ceiling" that's equivalent to the barriers women face in the corporate world. While employers are reluctant to give men time off to spend with family and men worry that a leave-of-absence could derail their careers, wives are (unconsciously) resistant to men helping out too much at home because that would trespass on their duties, Brott says.
     "It's a 'learned helplessness,' to put it in terms that usually don't get used with fathers," says Brott. "Guys come into parenthood seeing medical messages and cultural messages that they're not really important or participants in the whole thing. You go to the OB and you're kind of shunted off to the side.
     "The bottom line: Men don't have the social support and experience with kids (that women have), so it's easy for us to back off. You have a crying baby and the wife comes in and says, 'Let me take care of the baby,' and you say, 'OK, here you go.' You don't realize that that's reinforcing the situation."
     Brott's advice: Men should learn how to calm babies down. Though women have the advantage of breast-feeding, men can use other methods -- which includes recognizing if a baby's diaper needs changing.
"The way she learned how to take care of the crying baby is not because she's got a gene that tells her how to do it," Brott says. "It's because she practiced. If you want to get good at soothing crying babies, you have to do it. There's no gene for changing diapers -- you practice doing it."
     Brott has mixed feelings about the annual ritual of Father's Day. He welcomes the day for its emphasis on male parents, but he says the reality is often disappointing.
     "If you talk to AT&T, you'll find that Mother's Day is the biggest day of the year for phone traffic," he says. "Father's Day is the biggest day of the year for collect calls. And media coverage tends to be negative. You see articles about abusive fathers and growing up without a father and dads not paying child support. You would never in your life see a negative thing written about Mother's Day. It's just not done."
     As more men get involved in parenting, that view will change, Brott says.
     "Guys are taking more time off," Brott says. "The change is going to be from within, rather than from outside."

Helpful hints

-- Authors of several new books on parenting offer keen advice to couples with kids: -- Keep a focus outside of the children. In "The Expectant Father," Armin Brott tells new dads, "Don't allow your relationship with your partner to be based solely on your child. If she's up to it, go on a date with your partner and leave the baby with a relative or friend." -- Share responsibilities. To stay involved, Brott writes, fathers should make "a special effort to share with (their partners) such responsibilities as meal planning, food and clothes shopping, cooking, taking the (children) to the library or bookstore, getting to know their friends' parents, and planning play dates."