Anyone who has visited the home of parents with a newborn baby can recognize from the outset a specific kind of atmosphere that seems to fill the space. It is often an atmosphere of anticipation, exhilaration, chaos, and apprehension that is tangible and felt “in the air.” The parents themselves seem to be expressions of the atmosphere, weighed down by fatigue if not anxiety but simultaneously awestruck by their new arrival. Both parents and visitors can perceive and feel the atmosphere even if both parties interpret the phenomenon differently. Such experiences raise the question of what kind of a phenomenon parenthood is. From a historical perspective, this question seems straightforward. Traditionally, parenthood has tended to refer to biological, legal, and moral categories. While these categories are vital to the concept of parenthood, parenthood is nevertheless irreducible to them. We can also think of parenthood as a “transformative experience,” one that cannot be fully grasped in advance, because becoming a parent constitutes a new kind of self. But parenthood involves more than the transformation of one’s …