It is important during this period of adjustment that the couples' bond is strengthened and not divided by the extended family network. The pressure to put the needs of a work schedule over the needs for caretaking drive many couples towards a detrimental imbalance in the first year of their child's life. For example, mothers can experience their needs and their children's needs as repetitiously secondary to the father's work schedule. Unconsciously, the expectation that the wife defer to her husband's needs which place work above nurturance can leave a couple feeling estranged from one another. The following diagram illustrates the potential cultural force towards this imbalance and the ensuing shift contributing towards a weakened couples' bond and an increasingly remote paternal-child relationship.
Intimacy suffers in the couples' relationship and generational boundaries blur.
This can result in parents who uphold their own bond, especially through the activities of shared work schedules, however the baby suffers a weakened bond with both parents. In a balanced system parents devote their attention to bonding and getting to know their baby together. Even when one partner specializes in economically providing, both are involved in responsibilities and equal decision-making about caretaking and about their shared economic future. There is however an awareness of this first year as a very special year which establishes the foundations of trust in relationship. Decision making is shared.