Guilt. Augh, the guilt.
Many of us practice some form of natural parenting. Many of us choose breastmilk, cosleeping, babywearing, and whole foods for our babies and families.
But lately, I’ve noticed that something is lacking with a few vocal members of the attachment parenting community. Empathy. Yep, that’s putting yourself in another’s shoes.
You don’t have to agree. You don’t have to sanction. But it’d be nice if some APs would understand that it’s not as easy as popping a baby on a breast or in your bed. Life is not the same for everyone out there. Our experiences are different. Our reactions are different.
And until the Attachment Parenting community isolates the elitists, it will be hard to gain ground.
[social_buttons]
I babywear my son. He is over 15 months old and is still breastfeeding. He sleeps in a bed in our room and cosleeps with us if he needs to breastfeed in the night. I made his baby food and now he eats all the healthy homemade, homegrown food he can. We cloth diaper and line dry. I’m a convert.
But not because anyone forced me or guilted me into being a natural parent.
With my older son, I was a single mother. I went back to work at 6 weeks and pumped breastmilk for and during my night shifts at a nearby resort hotel. But my hours became longer and more frequent and demanding and eventually I had no time or too much stress to actually get any milk. My son was supplemented with organic formula while I worked those evenings after any breastmilk ran out. He breastfed for 10 months, though I used the Super Baby Food system religiously from the time he started eating solids.
Still, most of my friends considered me “crunchy”. Maybe it was my habit of recycling, though there was no curbside collection. Maybe it was because even 4 years ago, I asked for natural wooden toys only for the critter. Maybe because I coslept with my son before I even knew the term. Maybe it was that I minimally vaccinated and didn’t circumcise. Whatever the reason, I was still outside the mainstream.
And maybe that’s why I don’t have rose-colored glasses with every post I see about breastfeeding or sleep techniques. Because some writers simply do it poorly. Instead of touting the benefits of said natural parenting practice, they guilt their readers about choosing a different path.
Most recently, I saw this in a post that said that “forcing your baby to sleep alone” was akin to “forced sex”. (After numerous commenters protested, she changed the post to read that the “Cry It Out” method was disrespectful just as forced sex was disrespectful and removed the term “rape”.) I don’t even agree with CIO, but was turned off by the flippant use of rape imagery.
Hasn’t anyone ever heard the old adage about “catching flies with honey”? No, we don’t have to prance around the issues with Disney animals playing troubadour to our cause. But we don’t have to be so critical, either.
It’s elitist to advocate that all women breastfeed or to criticize all formula use without simultaneously fighting for family-friendly work environments. It is great to educate about elimination communication (EC) as long as you understand that many families don’t have the luxury of that time spent with their tot.
Just be open to understanding the “other side”.
Some people have said, “Well, if you don’t agree, go somewhere else and find like-minded people.” But why? Where does that lack of dialogue get us? It gets us preaching to the choir. No one is changing their behavior. There are still babies who never experience the joy of being worn. They planet continues to fill with disposable diapers. Women may hear Hanna Rosin and think hers is a pretty good reason to give up trying when it comes to breastfeeding.
And why? Because we’ve surrounded ourselves with “Yes!” Men.
Let’s do better.
I write about natural parenting. I follow children’s health studies and often use them to illustrate a point I agree with. When I found the study that showed that many researchers refuse to name formula as a culprit in a higher rate of illnesses, I blogged on it (partly because I loved their use of “Voldemort“). When I found a study that showed that “Home Birth Is-*Gasp!*-Safe!” I made sure people heard that. I don’t believe in fast food, and was intrigued when I read a study that suggested that the more often kids eat the junk, the lower they score on standardized tests. I both write human interest stories, and I post about breastfeeding laws, cloth diapers, and natural birthing.
I am opinionated about all of these things. But I try to tout the benefits of these granola-y lifestyle choices instead of vilify the “other side”. I’m not perfect. But I try. Mostly, I try by sharing my personal experiences in the hopes that others will understand what helped me get where I am today. (A place that still has a long way to go!)
I didn’t come to the natural parenting community through browbeating. I sincerely doubt we’ll win any converts like that.
So maybe we could all try to take one empathetic step forward, away from the guilt trips and into the education and excitement about our babywearing, cosleeping, cloth-diapering, food-growing lives.
Image: Smabs Sputzer of Flickr under a Creative Commons License.
Dig this? Follow me on Twitter.
Great post! Very refreshing to hear sensible comments rather than the “my way or no way” arguments often bandied about. It is worth remembering that some aspects of attachment parenting can be put to use, even if some others can not. We have never co-slept, and unfortunately I didn’t manage breastfeeding for very long, but as far as possible my boys have home made food, and I still wear my 2.5 year old. We both love it and it works for us!
I agree with the sentiment of your post.
I’m going to nitpick though, starting with “They planet continues to fill with disposable diapers.” YES, the planet DOES continue to fill with ‘sposies. And just like every other form of garbage, should be reduced.
But disposable diapers aren’t “AP”, and don’t really belong in this post.
Because in doing so, seems like you are participating in the isolationism of AP that you’re talking about! By linking things like cloth diapering to AP, another step of ground is lost in the strive for more AP-raised kids.
Because when not-yet AP parents believe that attachment parenting comes with a whole bunch of other stuff (albeit much good stuff), like homemade baby food (not necessarily AP), cloth diapers (not necessarily AP), most expensive carseats/infant carriers (not necessarily AP), homeschooling (not necessarily AP), and not working out of the home (not necessarily AP)it becomes something less attainable to the general public. Those things might be natural living, and might mesh well with AP, but they aren’t AP, and shouldn’t be “sold” as such. It limits AP exposure & reachability. If you want to sell AP, it needs to be attainable for EVERYONE (which it is).
AP is about honoring your baby. About believing in your babies cries as real form of communication. About babywearing (which can be done in a SNUGLI too!!), breastfeeding (or on-cue bottle feeding with love), bedsharing (which can be roomsharing or responsive nighttime parenting as well).
When we stick to the core facts of AP is when we’ll really start to gain ground.
It is funny how the term AP has become synonomous with all-things-natural. It really is an undeniable connection though. You rarely ever find an AP’er who won’t breastfeed, won’t promote natural birth, won’t make babyfood, and won’t consider cloth diapers. It’s really a rarity.
This is where I find myself in trouble (well, me and all the people who give me cyber high-fives because of my MODERATE parenting): I feel like because we circumcised, and choose to vaccinate, and have done GENTLE, LOVING sleep training, that somehow I don’t get to be in the AP club. And that’s exactly how it turns out. I tell that original blogger that I don’t like her self-righteous “sleep training is like rape” analogy, and she tells me to stop reading her site.
So they DO go hand in hand, whether we all like it or not. You’re not allowed to be AP unless you’re doing everything some super hardcore AP types are doing, which includes every single aspect of natural parenting. There is no middle ground anymore.
Sometimes people take things way too far before the rubber band snaps back and smacks them in the face.
I agree completely! What works for some babies/families doesn’t work for all…
Every baby is made different. Mine was breastfed till 20 months old because of many reasons. It was cheaper, I preferred the bond, he actually threw up or wouldn’t take formula.
I also couldn’t feed him many solids. I tried organic, I tried making my own baby food, mainly because he couldn’t eat anything that had carrots in it (which he threw up and had allergic reactions to).
And if you ever read the sides of baby food, almost ALL contain carrots!
I contemplated cloth diapers because he got rashes from certain diapers (and these weren’t normal rashes, these were chemically induced from something in the diaper)..
I still to this day co-sleep for at least a few hours before bed, or in the morning. I’ve been co-sleepin/feeding my son since he was born.
It started because I had to work, and if I was to get any sleep, it revolved around not having to get up every 30-40 minutes to feed my guy (since he was a cluster feeder).
On top of it all…I didn’t want to risk dropping him from being so sleepy while trying to rock and feed him and stay awake.
He also slept longer while with me.
And some families don’t have the luxury of allowing a baby to “scream it out” in the middle of the morning because there are other family members that are trying to sleep and need their sleep.
So when it comes to “text book” parenting…there is no ONE correct way!
To each their own. If the world were so black and white, then every child would be well behaved and every parent wouldn’t swing by mc donalds every week to feed their child.
Just as we as adults reflect on how we were raised vs. our friends..no 2 had the same parenting.
It’s nice to get advice and from there, see what works best for you, your little one, and your family.
Otherwise, if we want the world telling us what is right and wrong for our babies, then we might as well hand over our babies to the government and let them do all of the parenting.
We’ve already seen where it’s taken the kids..
Kid’s killing parents, horrible portrayed video games, too much violent and provocative television shows, kid’s with unlimited cell phone use and no monitoring…
Only we as the parents know what our children need!
I always remember the episode of South Park where the town becomes so full of itself everyone begins to smell their own farts appreciatively. I think the problem is deeper than just being nice… although that is the answer to most things.
People who have gained the uphill ground on babywearing, attachment parenting, breastfeeding, and others all did so at considerable cost and in many cases were alone and ridiculed for their choices. This makes people isolated and defensive. Once you have a core group of people who are where they are because they fought tooth an nail to be there it is hard to react with compassion to others when the core idea becomes more mainstream. Sometimes the “real” message gets diluted or changed and the people who were there from the beginning feel cheated and still isolated and ridiculed.
The answer is easy… be nice… (and i believe that IS the answer) but the road to get there crosses religion, politics, marketing, social taboo and psychological areas as well. It is hard not to sound like an activist when talking about these things because we are all told this “natural” form of whatever is not as “effective” as what we can make or there is no difference between formula and breastmilk. Companies pay MILLIONS of dollars to make sure you do not know HOW MUCH better breastmilk is. I say this to illustrate that our actions between each other are not the only issue here.
But being nice is a start.
Great line of thinking. We should all stretch a little toward more empathy. Diversity of all kinds, including opinions, is what makes the world a richer place! Thanks for sharing.
Fruitcake! Serious fruitcake!
Glad my kids are too old to have any possibility of being around yours! Sorry for your neighbors!
Actually, I wrote a post similar to this regarding the whole green movement last week. (http://blog.thenatureschild.com/2009/06/how-green-movement-fails-and-baby-steps.html)
I think the same applies to both cases (to most causes where people are passionate, actually). And I wrote it before the whole rape/CIO drama…which became much more dramatic than you probably saw. Yeesh.
Regarding that case, I still don’t think that I or any other rape survivor should apologize or “gotten over it” (as some suggested) because that was *my* reaction as someone who has dealt with the horrors of the crime. I simply don’t think that people should be flippant about rape any more than they should pedophilia. Neither are a good analogy for much. Others are entitled to their own reactions to the use of rape imagery. But as I articulated above, it’s a pretty ugly way to convey a message.
So no, this blog didn’t start with that post. My life experience as a parent the past 4 years were the same either way, as were my baby steps to being more natural all the time.
But my feelings about this matter were certainly exacerbated by that blog.
This is the biggest issue I have with AP as well. Many (though certainly not all) moms of my acquaintance who practice AP have this self-righteous “crunchier-than-thou” attitude that rivals the worst ultrafundamentalist religious zealot “holier-than-thou” attitude.
I do a lot of the AP things for a lot of the same reasons. But I’m not a failure as a mom just because I choose to stop co-sleeping when my babies learn to crawl (using gasp! CIO), or wean at a year, or sometimes prefer the infant carrier and/or stroller to wearing my baby, or what have you.
Get over yourselves, ladies!
I agree about being nice and that goes for the other side of the fence as well. It takes 2 to tango. From what I can tell this whole conversation started with the sleep training/rape comparison. The people who were offended could have risen to a higher level. We could all use a lesson in forgiveness and understanding while at the same time having honest and growth oriented communication. I think that’s what most of us would want for our children regardless of how they are parented. We must remember that children are learning mostly by watching us. I think this is the most important aspect of parenting.
Arwyn,
I just discovered your blog when someone retweeted your –interestingly enough–post about “Raising a Non-Rapist”.
http://raisingmyboychick.blogspot.com/2009/06/raising-not-rapist.html
I saw your dialog with Emily on the CIO post, and have seen your comments elsewhere now.
I really appreciate your thoughtful, collected comments. Thank you for your peaceful contribution.
I like this post; I also liked the original post, although I saw why people were offended by it. I think she did leave herself open to misinterpretation, and could have done a better job in the empathy department. But I also think a lot of people will get offended personally whenever one critiques a particular parenting choice, and there’s a lot we can and should do to avoid that (which is why I avoid rape analogies, for instance), but at some point we also have to say it’s not our responsibility to avoid offending if it would require avoiding speaking the truth. Including the truth that CIO carries risks of damage, to the child, to the parent, to their relationship. People who use it are not evil, not bad parents, don’t love their kids less, and I don’t think I’m better than them. But some people are going to hear that no matter how gently I speak against CIO, so I understand why others choose not to bother trying to “tone it down”, and I don’t think they’re wrong either.
I do wish everyone would use more empathy (or as I state, place the judgment on society that is structured poorly, not individuals who are doing the best they can), so I appreciate this post. I’m just not going to sit in judgment of those who advocate in a different way than I do either.
You make a good point. What works for me might not work for you (or even my twin sister). Every family is different, each one of us is different and unique. To blame other people for not doing stuff “our way” is self righteous and wrong.
Oh…Russ! I kept meaning to respond to you today, but I was busy trying to broker a deal to sell my kids to the circus.
Anyhow, you’re right. Fruitcake sounds delicious.
Also, different kids respond differently to CIO. I’ve heard stories from fellow moms that made me inwardly cringe. If my babies had responded to CIO the way their babies had, I would never have continued it. But my 2 older kids responded amazingly well to CIO (the 3rd is only 5 months and still co-sleeping).
I agree with kblogger. It seems that all things natural got mixed in with what AP is. I thought it was about the 7 B’s. Bonding at Birth, Breastfeeding, Babywearing, Bedsharing/sleeping close to baby, Belief in baby’s cries, Beware of Baby trainers and Balance.
Ultimately it is about responsiveness to your baby. Not cloth diapering – but changing their diaper as soon as it needs changing. Sure, some other natural green lifestyle choices may seem like a natural complement, like homemade baby food- but it is not a requirement and nor is following all of the 7 B’s.
Why do women have to be so self-righteous and snub those who may not be able to live up to so many expectations? It’s hard enough just navigating the world of new motherhood. We all walk in our own shoes.
Isn’t the point (of sharing AP choices) to show others a more loving way to relate to their child? Why offend some of them and make it an unattainable goal for others?
Pure Mothers,
I’m sorry if it seemed like I confused being “natural” with all things AP. I know they’re not the same thing. But let me say that a few years ago, when my now-almost-4yo son was an infant, I was practicing many aspects of AP without ever having heard the term. I think (hope!) that may be the case for a lot of people, and good writers may be able to help them get on track to do more.
Not all things natural have anything to do with AP, but you’d be hard-pressed to find an AP blogger who doesn’t also tout green living, at least in part. I was illustrating the points and/or lifestyle changes that many APs tout as positive for their families. And indeed they are. But nagging people about ALL of these practices, be it babywearing or beneficial foods, gets us nowhere.
I also find it interesting–and I should have included this–that people write things that they would *never* say to someone’s face. It’s the safety of the [somewhat] anonymity of the internet. I can’t imagine someone telling a mother (notice–mother, not father), “You’re abusive” for CIO if they talked about it over coffee. But they’re more than willing to say it on the Web!
Many AP writers articulate their arguments without being critical of the “other” side. It’s entirely possible to disagree with those who don’t practice AP without belittling them.
We’ll get more converts that way.
I think this is a very important point. I totally agree. It’s easy to see someone doing something differently than you and assume that they are uneducated, uncaring, etc. It is important to realize that many people are facing challenges we know nothing about, and have made decisions based upon factors we are unaware of. Sharing our experiences is good, preaching and belittling will never help anyone.
Great post!! thx for sharing..
btw i think breastfeeding is good for our kids, it is the best milk for their growth..
thanks a lot for your post, i’m looking forward to your post
Great Day!!
Cindy Tanady
All Parenting Secret
Thank you for a beautifully balanced post on the subject. I find it’s a very hard line to walk sometimes. My goal is to educate people on the natural parenting choices I’ve made, without judging their own choices, but sometimes it seems, just by being proud of my choices, others think I’m belittling theirs, which is never my intention. Hopefully we can all find that balance, and we’ll do our cause far more good!
Thank you for your post. It has strangely made me feel better. My daughter was born October 2008 and I was doing many of these AP techniques without even knowing there was such a thing as AP.
After searching the web for questions about various new parenting things I came across a breastfeeding and parenting forum and from there learned about AP, etc.
It began to make me feel bad because I had given my daughter some formula in the beginning because I was having trouble with breastfeeding and had no one to help me figure it out. Thankfully she and I worked it out and are still happily nursing after 8 months. We also cosleep and babywear, CD, do BLW, etc…
But reading all these things on the internet began to make me feel so guilty for the little bit of formula that she did receive or the disposable diapers she used. And I’ve been driving myself nuts (and my husband too) over trying to make all the “right” choices so I don’t “mess her up.”
So for some reason your post made me relax and know that I’m doing a good job responding to my daughter’s needs. And it made me chill out and not be so judgmental about everyone and on the defensive about all my choices.
Thanks!
Cate – I found it entirely in character for Annie to make that CIO/rape comparison, frankly. And I have to say that I agree with the main thrust of your article – that emphasizing the positives of your parenting practices is a more effective draw, and also a better defense against criticism, than pointing out the supposed negatives of how other people parent. Your recognition that the way to elevate breastfeeding rates needs to go hand in hand with fighting for women’s rights in the workplace is also something I can agree with.
But there is a deeper problem with AP advocacy that you’re not addressing. APers tend to think that because the method resonates with them, it must be the ideal parenting method for everyone, and something every parent should strive toward even if they have a sufficiently vaild (in your eyes) ‘excuse’ not to out some of the tenets into practice. Frankly, all this talk about honey and vinegar and converting parents to AP and feeling sad about how “There are still babies who never experience the joy of being worn”… it’s not any less judgemental than those elitists you decry. The judgement may be implicit rather than explicit, but it’s no less there. Proselytiizing is all about judgement, as any born-again Christian handing out Chick tracts on a street corner could tell you.
I think that I speak for a growing segment of mothers who’ve looked at the evidence for practicing AP and found it…underwhelming, to say the least. While we may breastfeed, use a sling when convenient or have ‘natural’ births, we don’t feel the need to buy into the ideology that by doing so, we’re remaking humanity into a kinder, gentler species.
You might consider that the best way to gain acceptance for your parenting practices would be to be equally accepting of. Not as a last resort or needing a good excuse, but because what they do woroks for them the same way what you do works for you. And perhaps say, “if whatever you’re doing isn’t working, here’s something that worked for me that you might try”…
As much as this article is preaching empathy, statements such as ” No one is changing their behavior. There are still babies who never experience the joy of being worn.” and “The planet continues to fill with disposable diapers” are totally judgemental. Some of us have physical limitations to babywearing and how much more wastewater are you using constantly washing diapers? My son slept in our room with us until he was 6 months old and if he cries at night we attend to him. He now is 2 and goes to bed very very happy and wakes up happy. He was formula fed on demand with my attention on him while he fed (certainly not the case all the time with nursed infants either!) And he is certainly a very bright, happy, well adjusted little boy. While I agree with some of the things about AP, it’s proponents forever come across as preachy, even when trying to “be nice”. Most need to realize that just because something works for you and you can totally devote all your waking time to your baby (I’ve even seen raves for slings so you can take your baby in the shower with you!) does not mean those of us that really need a little “me time” are raising children who will not become productive and empathetic members of society.
What a great post.
As an early childhood professional, I’m always considering the unique needs of each family.
I’m sort of caught because I believe the best place for children is with their family and community, but I realize how many families need childcare and preschool services, so I try to provide the best play-based, exploratory-based, child-centered environment.
Like you said, for example, “It is great to educate about elimination communication (EC) as long as you understand that many families don’t have the luxury of that time spent with their tot. Just be open to understanding the “other side”.”
I work with another teacher who is from India, and when she brought up EC as the norm in India, everyone rolled their eyes as if to say: “That’s nice, but that’s not how we do it here.” And of course, with 5-19 children in one class (depending on age), even with 2 adults at all times, it’s not something we can do at school, either.
Thanks for the analogy of attracting flies with honey. I know how important it is not to alienate parents, and it’s always good to have some reminders!
Glad to read this… Attachment Parenting is fundamentally about a nurturing compassionate relationship with our children. If we can’t also do that for other people… are we really managing it in our homes? And will our children learn how to be empathetic? I find some people mistake AP for a checklist of parental “behaviours” but that is just another for of behaviourism… It’s not a contest… and the only way to help other parents shift is if you meet them where they are at and help them articulate their goals and help them meet those even if it’s not how you would do it. We don’t like people telling us to how to parent…. and what we are doing wrong… why would we do this to others?
Thanks for the post!
I’m an anthropologist and I have to tell you that in African villages it absolutely cracks people up to learn that Americans need to read books to learn how to take care of their babies. Where I have worked, in equatorial Africa, by the age of eight or nine, children, almost all of whom have been sibling or cousin caretakers at times when mothers have not taken babies in a back sling to work in a field or do another task, know everything there is to know about raising a baby in their culture except what one learns through the direct experience of breastfeeding. Books? they laugh. Do Americans need books to tell them how to eat, too? Um, yeah, I have to admit.
One thing I’ve learned about human beings, including very tiny human beings, is that we are amazingly adaptable. So Katie’s response about her guilt over having given her child formula for a while struck me as a particularly instructive response. As parents, we do the best we can, but we can’t always do things exactly as we wish we could. And we need to be as tolerant with ourselves as we wish other people would be about Attachment Parenting.
A friend’s daughter can’t use a baby sling because of severe chronic back problems. Will this blight her child’s life? No. Is Katie’s little one going to suffer irreversible harm because of ingesting some formula? No. If a baby has to cry it out because Great-Uncle Frank had a heart attack and Mom had to give him CPR until the EMTs arrived, will that baby be scarred forever? No. Is (Heaven forbid) something terrible going to happen to FeministBreeder’s (love that name) son because he’s been vaccinated? I don’t think so. Is the fact that as a single mother who needed to support herself and her son, Cate was unable to breastfeed past ten months going to ruin his life? No. She made a wise judgment that only she could make between stress and sanity and which would be harder on her little boy, as well as a recognition that she couldn’t keep her milk supply going.
Attachment parenting is about much bigger issues than these: it’s about generally being available, loving and responsive to our little ones.
When I had my first baby – at home – thirty-five years ago this week, I breastfed her (and her younger sister) for three years. We co-slept with both of the kids and I carried them around in a front-pack or backpack until they got too big for me. I wasn’t following a particular “creed” of infant parenting; those things just seemed – I hate to use the word, natural – to me and to my friends who had babies around the same time. My mother gave birth without medication, breastfed all of her five children for at least a year, and while she’s no longer alive to ask about co-sleeping when we were infants, my younger sister and I slept in our parents’ bedroom until we were 4 and 7 and the next baby came along. I don’t know why my mother was breastfeeding her first baby in 1935, when few middle-class women did, but my guess is that it just seemed like the obvious thing to do. And having watched her style of parenting, it just seemed to me to be what you did.
It’s been interesting to watch my daughter mother her now four-year-old son. She was dogmatic about Attachment Parenting, and a loving, stimulating mother. Sometimes she wore herself awfully thin trying to be a perfect AP mother. She’s expecting again, and tells me she plans to loosen up somewhat this time, or she will go nuts. I think that for her, at least, this is a wise course. If we stress ourselves out too much, we stress our babies out. Be as gentle with yourselves as you would like other mothers to be with you.
I really enjoyed this article until I read the words “minimally vaccinated.” Vaccinations protect babies, young children, and people in general from many otherwise dangerous illnesses. Any advocating of elimination or reducing routine vaccinations to me is child endangerment (Yes that does sound harsh and not very nice but it is the truth). Not being fully vaccinated doesn’t only affect your child it also affects other people’s children as one of the main reasons vaccinations are so effective is herd immunity. My community suffers from low vaccination rates due to the long since debunked connection between Autism and the MMR vaccine and has seen a resurgence of illnesses that not to many years ago were extremely rare due to vaccination. If we want AP and ‘natural’ parenting to become more common place I think we need to make sure the claims being made are scientifically backed up by peer reviewed studies. The benefits of getting vaccinations at the scheduled intervals and the safety is backed up by numerous scientific studies – scientific studies also show that minimally vaccinating children or eliminating vaccination increases the chance of harm to not only to that individual child but to everyone that child encounters.