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Becoming a parent is full of contradictions: It’s a time in life when love and meaning and joy crash headlong into worry and exhaustion, so much so that some new parents struggle to maintain their own identity. A new study out of the Netherlands suggests that this is especially true for mothers. 成为父母是一件充满矛盾的事情：在生命的这一阶段，来自爱、意义和喜悦以及忧虑和疲惫的互相冲击，让一些新晋父母必须非常努力才能维持自己的身份认同。荷兰的一项新研究表明，这对妈妈来说尤其如此。 The researchers found a consistent pattern: Women experienced declines in self-esteem during their pregnancies, and then increases in the six months afterwards. But then their self-esteem declined once again, and continued falling. By three years into their child’s life, it was still lower than their original “baseline.” 研究人员发现了一个始终一贯的模式：女性的自尊心在孕期会下降，分娩六个月后有所回升。不过，紧接着她们的自尊心又会下降，并保持下降的趋势。直至孩子长到三岁，仍低于原来的“基础值”。 Because they didn’t keep collecting data, researchers don’t know if the dip lasted even longer, but they do know it wasn’t permanent: Women who completed the survey again for a subsequent child had returned to their baseline by the time the process began anew. | 
