One mother featured is Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, a professor and author who gave up custody of her children when she divorced. She explains,
I had this idea that motherhood was this really all-encompassing thing. I was afraid of being swallowed up by that.
Talyaa Liera, another mom who took the same course of action, describes her experience as a mother before she divorced and moved thousands of miles away from her ex and her children:
At the time I was a heavily involved, attachment-parenting Waldorf mom. I did the whole family bed, breastfeeding-into-toddlerhood, baby-wearing thing. I was at home with them for 10 years before their father and I split up, and stayed at home after that, trying to create a writing career to support myself.
Why is it that these women, who obviously cared deeply for their children, felt that they had no option but to give them up? It certainly doesn't seem that either suffered from any initial lack of dedication to her children. Liera, for example, practiced attachment parenting, which strives to build "a special bond between parent and child". Dr. Sears, the founder of the attachment parenting approach, explains,
Attachment means that a mother and baby are in harmony with each other. Being in harmony with your baby is one of the most fulfilling feelings a mother can ever hope to have. Watch a mother and baby who are attached (in harmony) with each other. When the baby gives a cue, such as crying or facial expressions, signifying a need, the mother, because she is open to the baby's cues, responds... Because the baby gives the mother the feedback that her mothering is appreciated, the mother-baby pair enjoy each other more.
So far, so good - who wouldn't want to feel in harmony with her child, respond appropriately to her baby's cues, and enjoy her child more? Any parent would, of course, and the fact that Liera subscribed to such a parenting philosophy perhaps makes it even more surprising that she ultimately gave up custody of her own children. What went wrong?
What attachment parenting holds is necessary to have a harmonious relationship with one's child helps answer this question. For a taste of what attachment parenting specifically counsels, see here, here, and here. In these responses, Dr. Sears counsels against parents spending even a single night apart from their child until the child is at least two or three, and against rushing children out of their parents' bed - if the child is still not ready to leave, at age 4-1/2, and dad is sleeping on the sofa, well, that may be fine if it's what the child needs.
Imagine the kind of life Talyaa Liera had, given these kinds of ideals - given the standards of parenting that she and her husband were trying to live up to. She and her husband had multiple children over several years, and over all that time that they had a "family bed", with breastfeeding into the toddlerhood of the youngest. They did this all perhaps without ever having even a single night to themselves or as a couple. It's surprising that their marriage didn't end sooner.
What is interesting - and very sad - about the story is that none of the women interviewed really question this self-abnegating ideal of motherhood, of which attachment parenting is just one manifestation. Instead they take the ideal for granted as the right one and explain why they gave up being custodial parents when they couldn't live up to it. As the stories in this article help indicate, this kind of ideal is incompatible with the woman's happiness, with either partner having any time for the marriage or for himself or herself, and with either parent (especially the mother) being able to enjoy parenthood; none of these things are good for anyone, which is why this is a seriously flawed way to approach parenting. If sustained, it also sets a bad example for one's children regarding their view of the importance of a person having his own values and pursuits outside of the family.
The current attachment parenting fad is just one manifestation of the wrong idea of what parenting is and should be that is unfortunately very widespread today. A good parent will give a child a sense that he is loved and supported, but she will do this in part by helping her child become a person - an individual in his own right, with his own interests and values - not by herself ceasing to be such a person.
Postscript: I should have mentioned that I think AP gets some of its specific recommendations right - especially its recommendations for newborn care - and that I think it is right to teach parents to try to understand and respond to children's individual needs. Nonetheless, I also think there are some fundamental problems with AP. For more on this, see the comments below.
I don't want you to judge attachment parenting by the moms who practice it selflessly. Which is most, probably, but most people are altruists, after all.
ReplyDeleteI considered attachment parenting to be in my own self-interest. It promoted the health and happiness of my baby (a big value to me), and it allowed me to parent in a way that felt connected and responsive. I enjoyed the extreme closeness of nursing and babywearing.
However, allowing the child to grow and develop independence when he's ready is also selfish. Attachment parenting is following the child's lead in how much closeness they need; it doesn't mean keeping the child artificially close when he is maturing.
It also doesn't have to be a big sacrifice. If something isn't working out, it's imperative for families to find another solution. However, I would take the child's attachment needs into consideration when looking for that new solution, and I would take my needs into account. It doesn't have to be a choice between dad sleeping on the couch and child alone in his room. What about getting a bigger bed, moving the child to a pallet on the floor, or putting siblings in a room together? It makes creativity to balance everyone's needs, but humans are so good at that!
Anyway, just wanted to say that it is possible to practice attachment parenting selfishly and really enjoy it (and the myriads of other values that moms ought not be giving up).
Kelly,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments! I didn't touch on this in this piece, but I DO think that attachment parenting gets some of its specific recommendations right, especially some of what it counsels with newborns - breastfeeding, co-sleeping during those initial couple of months, etc. I think these are good for the baby, good for mom getting any sleep, and good for parent-child bonds. I also think it's worth pointing out, as AP (and other parenting approaches do) that infants aren't capable of manipulation and thus, generally cry because of some real need or discomfort that parents should work to address.
But from what I know so far, what concerns me about AP generally - and what I think causes people to live out this parenting method as the women in the article did - is that it tends to treat what children want, in general, as an indication of their objective needs - e.g. if a toddler cries somewhat when first put in his own crib or bed for the night, AP tends to take it as a sign that the child is just not ready for this step, that his attachment needs cannot be met by him sleeping in his own room - not as a sign that change is simply difficult to get used to at first. The idea - in the one FAQ that I linked to - that a 4-1/2 year old might not yet be ready to leave the parental bed is one example of this. I could be wrong, as I have only begun to read about AP, but it seems as if AP holds up this false alternative between on the one hand, ignoring a child's needs and disregarding his emotional responses to a situation and on the other, to treating his wants and initial emotional responses to anything as absolute indicators of his needs.
I also think that while AP takes children to have these absolute needs, parents' needs are taken to be flexible almost to the point of dispensable - even when it'd be easy enough to, say, teach a toddler to sleep on his own at night. You have perhaps gotten the best out of what AP counsels by not treating your own needs in this way, but it doesn't seem that AP *itself* really gives parents the guidance they need not to do so.