On Becoming a Grandparent: A Diary of Family Discovery

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.

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, Ohio
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Alma H. Bond, PhD, is a psychoanalyst and the author of 19 published books.  She received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University, graduated from the post-doctoral program in psychoanalysis at the Freudian Society, and was a psychoanalyst in private practice for thirty-seven years in New York City. She ”retired” to become a full-time writer, but now maintains a small practice in addition to writing. Her last book, Margaret Mahler, a Biography of the Psychoanalyst, received two awards: Best Books Award Finalist, USA Book News; and Foreword Magazine s Book of the Year Finalist.Her Maria Callas book, The Autobiography of Maria Callas: A Novel, was first runner-up in the Hemingway Days novel contest.

Her sixteen other published books include: Camille Claude: A Novel; Old Age is a Terminal Illness; Who Killed Virginia Woolf?: A Psychobiography; Tales of Psychology: Short Stories to Make You Wise; I Married Dr. Jekyll and Woke Up Mrs. Hyde; Is There Life After Analysis?; On Becoming a Grandparent; America’s First Woman Warrior: The Story of Deborah Sampson (with Lucy Freeman); and a children’s book, The Tree That Could Fly.

See a complete list of Dr. Bond’s books. 

Dr. Bond also wrote the play, Maria, about the life and loves of Maria Callas, which was produced off-off Broadway and is currently touring Florida.

Dr. Bond is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Dramatists Guild, and the Authors Guild, as well as a fellow and faculty member of the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, the International Psychoanalytic Association, and the American Psychological Association.

Dr. Bond is the widow of Rudy Bond, the acclaimed stage, screen, and television actor, and author of I Rode a Streetcar Named Desire. She is the mother of three children, Zane P. Bond, Jonathan H. Bond, and Janet Bond Brill, all of whom are published authors, and she is the proud grandmother of eight, none of whom has published a book . . . yet. But, as a wise friend of Alma’s put it, ”In her family, it’s pretty much publish or perish.”

For more information, Alma Bond’s website: alma_bond.tripod.com/