Attachment Parenting is for Non-working Moms
Attachment parenting surely led me down the wrong pass. Freshly pregnant, I was innocently reading about different ways to parent, wondering why all this leaves me so indifferent. And then attachment parenting screamed my name. I was no longer indifferent. I held its postulates close to my heart and with my child's arrival I followed them religiously. I did it all: we co-slept, we not just breastfed, but did so every 45 minutes to an hour for months, because the child demanded. He never left my arms, only when he wanted. No little peep went unanswered - I continued to amaze myself with how fast I learned to sprint across the apartment. Just when I thought I couldn't get any faster, I beat the record. For beautiful 16 weeks it was as nature inteded it, mother and child - nothing clouded our sky.
I did it all - my heart would not let me do otherwise.
The only problem was that I stopped doing it every day. I left him. Left him after the beautiful 16 weeks. He did not speak my language to hear, to understand that I'm still with him if only in spirit, that he can still trust me. He did not hear me, so he did not believe. He did not believe that I would return.
My baby is insecure and confused. He doesn't understand what happens to mommy, where does she go? Does she love him? Will she come back? He is nervous and he cries. He cries a lot. He cries at the sight of strangers, because he doesn't know for sure that his mommy will not put him into the strangers' arms and leave. He cries the hardest at the sight of his own grandmother, because he knows that most of the time his mom will put him into the grandmothers arms and... leave. Once again. It never ends. He can never be sure. He can never trust again.
But it's that promise of eternal trust that lured me into the trap that is attachment parenting.
Dr. Sears, you were wrong. The emotional distance to preach to avoid is an essential element in the relationship of a working mother and her child. You were wrong to tell me not to create that distance, just because in a few weeks I would go to work. I should not have listened to you, you self-proclaimed attachment parenting God.
In that emotional distance there could have been a promise of some emotional stability of my child. In that distance could have been born a completely different temperament. He could have been brave, he could have been social. He could have been free of confusion.
I can only hope the nervousness and tears go away. For now, my heart continues to ache. But worst of all - so does his.
UPD: Published on Parenting Express: http://www.parentingexpress.com/Words/Memoirs/0047.htm
After I told Liosha that this will be published on Parenting Express, I expected him to share in my excitement. Instead, after some thinking he said something that really upset me. Why is it that I got this published when it bashes something we really believe in - Attachment Parenting? But I hope that peoeple who read this piece realize that those are my feelings in the moment of great frustration - not my true opinion of AP.
I did it all - my heart would not let me do otherwise.
The only problem was that I stopped doing it every day. I left him. Left him after the beautiful 16 weeks. He did not speak my language to hear, to understand that I'm still with him if only in spirit, that he can still trust me. He did not hear me, so he did not believe. He did not believe that I would return.
My baby is insecure and confused. He doesn't understand what happens to mommy, where does she go? Does she love him? Will she come back? He is nervous and he cries. He cries a lot. He cries at the sight of strangers, because he doesn't know for sure that his mommy will not put him into the strangers' arms and leave. He cries the hardest at the sight of his own grandmother, because he knows that most of the time his mom will put him into the grandmothers arms and... leave. Once again. It never ends. He can never be sure. He can never trust again.
But it's that promise of eternal trust that lured me into the trap that is attachment parenting.
Dr. Sears, you were wrong. The emotional distance to preach to avoid is an essential element in the relationship of a working mother and her child. You were wrong to tell me not to create that distance, just because in a few weeks I would go to work. I should not have listened to you, you self-proclaimed attachment parenting God.
In that emotional distance there could have been a promise of some emotional stability of my child. In that distance could have been born a completely different temperament. He could have been brave, he could have been social. He could have been free of confusion.
I can only hope the nervousness and tears go away. For now, my heart continues to ache. But worst of all - so does his.
UPD: Published on Parenting Express: http://www.parentingexpress.com/Words/Memoirs/0047.htm
After I told Liosha that this will be published on Parenting Express, I expected him to share in my excitement. Instead, after some thinking he said something that really upset me. Why is it that I got this published when it bashes something we really believe in - Attachment Parenting? But I hope that peoeple who read this piece realize that those are my feelings in the moment of great frustration - not my true opinion of AP.