The two studies reported in this paper explored parental development in first-time mothers of handicapped, at-risk, and normal children. Measures of personality, motivation, belief system, knowledge of infant development, and anticipatory socialization (knowledge, beliefs or expectations of parenting) were used to examine differences between the groups of mothers and to assess the effects of socioeconomic status. Because the project used a short-term longitudinal design, intraindividual changes across time were also examined. The first study was designed to yield information about changes in first-time mothers during late pregnancy and the first few months of a child's life. Since the number of mothers of at-risk children in the first study was too small to provide a generalizable idea of the parents of handicapped children (N=6), the second study was included to provide a larger sample of mothers (N=42) and a control for repeated testing. Mothers in the second study began participation after the birth of their child. Results showed maternal changes across time in the variables of anxiety, self-sentiment, home parental sentiment, superego, knowledge and expectations. Differences in the means of the low- and middle-SES mothers were found for seven of the ten variables used. Mothers of normal and handicapped children were found to differ on career sentiment and expectations while mothers of at-risk and normal children showed very similar patterns of parental development. Other results are presented in detail and implications are discussed. Materials related to the administration of the study, information about the classification of handicaps and risk, and data in tabular form are appended. (JMB)