Don't Judge Attachment Parenting By its Cover

Something strange is happening.  I seem to be embracing the term “attachment parenting” more ever since the Time cover.  I’ve never liked labels.  Labels by their very definition attempt to make everyone the same.  And everyone is not the same.  So labels, by their very definition, fail every time. 

So I never voluntarily called myself AP.  I never embraced that title.  Heck, I’ve never even read a Dr. Sears book, and probably never will.  But there did come a time, when I wanted to find other people who parented the way I was parenting.  I wanted friends - mom friends - and using the AP label was the best and fastest way to do just that. 

Some seem to get all caught up in this word, “attachment.”  They think that AP means that you literally are attached to your kids 24/7.  If you don’t think people think that, just read THIS, written by a DOCTOR. 

And yes, I will freely admit there really are extremists out there that do try and literally stay attached to their kids 24/7.  They are few and far between; most AP parents are not extremists. 

Just like most republicans aren’t Ted Nugent, most computer nerds aren’t Bill Gates, most George Clooney fans don’t have an old VCR tape with every TV performance he ever made recorded on it (looks around innocently), and most people who advocate spanking as a discipline tool aren’t the parents on my local news last night who beat a toddler so bad she had two broken legs and two broken arms. 

Extremists do not discriminate; and honestly, we can all probably find something we are more extreme over than those around us.    But not all of us.  See what I did there?

Most AP moms are NOT extremists.  I can attest to this personally, because I practice AP type parenting like breastfeeding, cosleeping, and babywearing, yet I am not an extremist.  I have also used, at one time or another, a bouncer, swing, highchair, crib, and stroller.  I’ve used formula and bottles.  I’ve made wonderful parenting decisions and huge parenting blunders. 

It has been kind of my goal in life to find the exact opposite of extremist - balance.  I’m just seeking the balance of life. 

My kids balance each other out pretty well.  The 6-year-old hardly eats a thing and sleeps like a log.  The 20-month-old eats like a hobbit and fights sleep with every single fiber of her being. 

It wasn’t my parenting that made them like this.  I didn’t use one parenting style with one and a radically different style with the other.  I parent them both using as balanced a mix of education and instincts as I can.  And that balance has evolved and changed as my education has gotten better and my instincts have gotten keener. 

This is just who they are.  And for me, the biggest part about being an attachment parent is listening to my child’s individual cues.  I don’t parent by the book, anybody’s book. 

The problem with criticizing AP in general is you force everyone practicing these techniques into the same label, and that just doesn’t work.  You can’t look at one AP mom and see an AP standard.  When you do that, you aren’t seeing her, you are just seeing words on a page (or a severely staged image). 

When trying to judge an AP mom, I would instead suggest looking at snippets of that mom’s life.  This way you will be judging her, not a stigma, an image, or a cover of a magazine. 

Here’s a snippet of this AP mom’s life, today’s naptime:

When my 20-month-old daughter rubbed her eyes and laid her head on my chest, I knew it was time for nap.  It didn’t shock me, this happens every day around the same time.  Not the EXACT same time, just around. 

I could have marched her into the bedroom, tucked her in, and left the room.  Then I could have listened to her cry for an hour while I tried to ignore how awful it felt by watching TV or folding laundry.  But I didn’t.

I could have wrapped her up on my chest with my Wrapsody baby wrap and worn her through her entire nap while I tried to watch TV or do the dishes with a gigantic baby attached to me.  But I didn’t.

What I did do, was put on Linda Ronstadt’s “Get Closer” album, scooped up my baby girl, and danced around the living room singing along to some of my very favorite songs.  Scarlett immediately laid her head on my shoulder and relaxed.  This was something we both enjoyed. 

By the time “People Gonna Talk” started playing (oh, the irony!), she was fast asleep.  That was only the 5th song on side one (listening on my mom’s vinyl), which means she fell asleep within 12 minutes, 36 seconds.  It could have happened a little before that, while I was distracted by the rock and roll.

Here’s the kicker: when I noticed she had fallen asleep, I didn’t immediately put her down.  I kept holding her, snuggling her, taking in her heat, her snuggles, her love.  I was waiting for the next song, “Talk to Me of Mendocino.”  I wanted to hold my baby and listen to that song.

The reason has less to do with AP and more to do with my life experience.  Mendocino always reminds me of my mom.  We listened to this entire album together more times than I can count, and ever since she died, this song makes me miss her, feel close to her, and think fondly of her.  My mom never read an AP book in her life, I'm not even sure she ever heard the term.  I'll tell you what, I was attached to my mom until the day she died, and beyond.

Scarlett also reminds me of my mom.  She was conceived just months after my mom’s death and born on my mom’s birthday.  She reminds me of my mom in so many ways.  So as I stood there in my living room, waiting to put my sleeping toddler to bed, I decided to hold her, and dance to Mendocino, and think about how much I loved my mom and how much I loved my sweet baby.

We were attached.  

I know, that kind of gloopity glop doesn’t have any science to back it up.  There is no parenting book that advocates it as a safe and effective way to get your kid to sleep.  There is no squeaky tight definition to describe it. 

It’s love.  That’s all.  This is how I loved my child today.  This is how I parented my child today.  This is how one AP mom got her child to take a nap today.  Tomorrow she may fall asleep in her stroller during our walk, she does that quite often.  Or maybe I’ll just lie her in bed and let her fall asleep while I lay next to her.  Maybe it will take 5 minutes.  Maybe it will take an hour.  Maybe it won’t happen at all and I will be thoroughly frustrated with nap time and spend the rest of the day trying to get over the irritation.

But today... for one AP mom mom.... nap time was a beautiful, musical success.

People Gonna Talk

People gonna talk about the things you do
They're gonna talk, be it lie or true
Night or day, day or night
They're gonna talk be it wrong or right

People gonna talk about you anyway
They're gonna talk no matter what you say
Night or day, day or night
They're gonna talk be it wrong or right

It seems they've just got to
Yakety yakety yak
Though they know best not to
The minute you turn your back

People gonna talk until they're satisfied
They're gonna talk until they make you cry
Near or far, here right now
They're gonna talk 'cause that's how people are

It seems they've just got to
Yakety yakety yak
Though they know best not to
The moment you turn your back

People gonna talk until they're satisfied
They're gonna talk until they make you cry
Here right now, near or far
They're gonna talk 'cause that's how people are
They're gonna talk 'cause that's how people are


Talk To Me of Mendocino

I bid farewell to the state of old New York

My home away from home
In the state of New York I came of age

When first I started roaming

And the trees grow high in New York state
And they shine like gold in Autumn

Never had the blues (from) whence I came

But in New York state I caught 'em

Talk to me of Mendocino

Closing my eyes I hear the sea
Must I wait, must I follow?

Won't you say "Come with me?"

And it's on to Southbend, Indiana

Flat out on the Western plains

Rise up over the Rockies and down on into California

Out to where but the rocks remain

And let the sun set on the ocean

I will watch it from the shore

Let the sun rise over the redwoods
I'll rise with it till I rise no more

Talk to me of Mendocino
Closing my eyes, I hear the sea
Must I wait, must I follow?
Won't you say "Come with me?"

Parental Civil War

This post was written as part of the Parenting In America Carnival hosted by Adventures in Mommyhood: Mommy Outnumbered. The Carnival is running from July 3-10, 2011.
  
When I became a mom, I instinctually sought out other moms.  I wanted advice, encouragement, and apathy.  I wanted to know I wasn’t alone.  As a stay-at-home-mom, I was definitely craving some adult conversation.  Since I am shy and kind of a homebody, I decided to jump on the internet and see what the world wide web had to offer.  This is when I first came across CafeMom. 

CafeWar!

At first, it seemed like a great find.  Moms supporting other moms in every single category your mind could imagine.  There really was something for everyone.  But then came my first experience with mom bullying.  It was horrible! When a mom would excitedly talk about how much she loved breastfeeding, the formula moms would jump on her for thinking she was superior to them.  When a mom talked about the fact that she liked formula feeding her baby, the breastfeeding moms would attack her for not doing what is best for her child.  Vaxers and anti-vaxers, circumcising moms and intactivists, the enemy lists go on and on.  After about a month on the site, I realized this was less a place for support and more a battleground for the ongoing parental civil war.  And CafeMom is certainly not the only parent chat site that has been sieged.  

 Now that I am attuned to the sounds of the parental civil war going on today in America, I hear the battle cries everywhere I go: the moms at the park afraid to breastfeed in public because they will be shelled with hurtful comments; the dads at the grocery store afraid to baby wear because their manhood could be amputated; the parents at daycare who are shunned as traitors for not vaccinating their children; the vaccinating parents shunned by the antivaxers for poisoning their children; the laboring woman who surrenders to her doctor and submits to an unnecessary cesarean section who is crucified by natural birth supporters.  No one is immune, neither side is showing signs of retreat, and everyone is suffering from heavy casualties.

As I have been watching the battles rage on for five years now, I often find myself torn, not sure on which side I should be fighting.  I certainly have strong convictions about all of these topics, but most of the time I just try to wave my little white prefold, signaling I don’t really want to fight at all.  I find myself defending everyone.  After all, this is America.  We all have a right to our opinions; we all have our individual freedoms to parent the best way we see fit, right?

On the other hand, what about the common good? If one way really is better than the other, shouldn’t we be trying our hardest to make sure most of America is practicing it? As parents, doesn’t the fact that we are responsible for the children of America mean that we are also responsible for the fate of the country?

I certainly don’t have all the answers.  Just as I could never tell you which of my children I love more, I cannot tell you which freedom is more important - the freedom of individual rights or the freedom to make a positive difference in your country no matter your race, creed, gender, or economic status.  But the more I look at the issue, the more I see I may not have to choose at all. 

A Gentler Approach

When I was a child, I was bullied into going on my first roller coaster by my family (Dad, aunts and uncles).  As we stood in line for an hour, I was terrified. I knew I wasn’t ready to go on this ride.  But my family dismissed my fears as childish (um duh, I was a child!) and said once I got on, I would be fine.  Well, I wasn’t fine.  I was frozen in fear through the entire ordeal and the minute the ride was over I broke into tears and was inconsolable for the next hour.  The experience traumatized me.  For years I refused to go on any kind of ride or water slide and I refused to listen to anyone’s opinion on the matter.

A few years later, my mom took me to the local street fair.  I rode the merry-go-round, jumped in the moon bounce, and ate cotton candy.  It was comforting because I knew what to expect.  It was fun because it was all things I had done before, things I knew would be fun.  Mom looked bored though.  I watched her eyes as she peered longingly up at the Rainbow.  That’s the ride where a big flat group of seats starts slowly swinging back and forth until at last it starts going all the way around in big circles.  It is by no means an extreme ride.

 “Would you like to try the Rainbow, Leah?” Mom asked excitedly.

“No way!” I cried, the fear of my last roller coaster experience already bubbling up in my sensitive gut.

Mom took a much different approach at convincing me to try out this new, terrifying ride.  We sat down on a bench and watched others go on the Rainbow.  We watched it make its passes back and forth and listened to the riders scream as it finally made its inevitable loop all the way around.  As we watched, Mom told me about her first experience with the Rainbow - how she had been frightened too.  But once she gathered the courage to go on, she experienced wonderful things: the butterflies in her stomach waiting for the ride to begin, the anticipation in her fingertips that gripped the safety bar as the ride floated up into the sky, and the feel of the wind lifting her hair away from her shoulders as she descended towards the ground.

After about 15 minutes, the ride looked different to my inexperienced eyes.  It was no longer new and unpredictable.  I could see exactly what was going to happen, I could count how many times it would swing back and forth before it finally plunged over, and I could hear the sheer delight in the shrieking voices that once had only sounded like petrified screams.  I could also see that nobody was walking off in tears.

I fixed my face with the bravest look I could muster and stood up. 

“Ok, let’s do it.”

And the rest is history, of course.  I went on the Rainbow at least 10 times that night.  The next night I went back to the fair and rode it another 20.  I’ve been on at least two dozen other new and thrilling roller coasters since that day.  And I will admit freely, that I am still terrified every time I’m standing in line.  But instead of trying to avoid the fear like I did as a child, I find that the fear is as thrilling and as useful as the new experience that follows it.  And every once in a while, I find the experience less than thrilling.  Some roller coasters really are no good - they hurt your neck, upset your stomach, or lead you down a path you realize you never wanted to go down.  But one bad ride doesn’t stop me from testing out others.  Every journey has a lesson to deliver.

You Do What?

The first time I heard of ideas like breastfeeding to four years old, elimination communication, and extended rear-facing car seats, I had the same terrified feeling I did the first time I looked at the Rainbow.  For one, these were brand new experiences I had never heard of, and the unknown can always be a little scary.  But even more, I was scared of what it meant if I considered these new ideas.  If I pondered these new and different paths, did that mean the mothering I had been doing up to now had been wrong? And if I actually decided to incorporate these ideas into my parenting style, did it mean I was somehow a better mother than I was before? If I changed the way I thought about parenting, would it change the way I loved my children?

Insert the best quote ever: “You did then what you knew how to do.  Now that you know better, you’ll do better.” - Maya Angelou

The very tools used in the “gentle parenting” method are the same ones we need to use on each other and ourselves.  If we don’t expect our children to always know the right thing to do, why do we expect it of ourselves? If we say its ok for our kids to make mistakes, why do we expect our fellow moms to be perfect? If we have to show patience to our children to teach our children patience, why are we so impatient with each other? Why can we be so tolerant of our children’s shortcomings and so demanding of ourselves? If we would never say it to our kids, we shouldn’t say it to each other or ourselves.  How much I love my children is not congruous to how much knowledge I have of different parenting techniques. 

So what’s the moral of my incredibly long blog? Parenting in America does not have to be some kind of civil war.  We don’t have to kill the other side in order to prove our side the victor.  And we don’t have to run away in fear.  Instead, we can all take a long hard look at each new and sometimes scary path presented to us and listen with anticipation to the exciting tales other parents have to tell us about those paths.  We can relate our own tales of our own paths to other parents with just as much excitement and compassion.  We can sit on benches and take our time pondering which new and exciting roller coaster we want to ride today.  Sometimes the journey other parents love will just not have the right fit.  Other times, we will find ourselves gleefully over the rainbow.




***This post was originally written under my previous blog name, Zen and the Art of Cloth Diaper Maintenance.***