There is nothing quite like a quick poke at parenting on a public forum or news site for getting the blood boiling. I wrote the other week about how Cherie Blair had rattled cages all over by saying that what children needed was to have their mothers out at work being proper role models instead of all this fannying around being at home with their kids. This week it was the turn of BBC Breakfast, cheerfully asking people to comment on attachment parenting as a way of caring for and loving children. It always amazes me how it is okay to offer ordinary, every day, hardworking parents who want to spend time with their children up as ‘debate topics’, whether of the attachment types or the home educating types or the anything else that isn’t government approved parenting. Apparently we are fair game for discussion. I don’t recall the ‘BBC Breakfast discusses parents who entirely rely on after-school clubs/childminders/babysitting by Xbox’ programme and in the same way parents who work full time seem to be protected by some invisible “they are just doing what they think is best for their children and trying to give them a decent start” force field. Not so those of us who want to listen and respond to our children’s needs in our own personally crafted way.
I’ve got no beef with people who work full time. I’ve not got any beef with people who use all the above options for childcare if it works, they are happy and their kids are happy. Plenty of people would love to do things differently and can’t either – and that’s sad and frustrating on many, many levels. I’m no fan of cry it out, but I’ve done it. I’m no fan of childhood by Xbox but my children watched a fair bit of CBeebies when they were little and you know, we have a Wii. But somehow it’s just fine to treat people who attachment parent as some type of freak show; light the touch paper and sell tickets to the event. You know it’ll be a good one. You can decide if we better fit the Mary Poppins model or the are more like the Von Trapps in The Sound of Music. (I sometimes wonder if the shrieks that erupt from these oh so perfectly parented children aren’t more Sweeney Todd but let’s pretend I didn’t say that). Either way, you can guarantee we’ll be good entertainment; sit back and laugh and point to your hearts content.
It disappoints me when it is an establishment I’d expect to behave better. No thread on a Facebook page discussing attachment parenting described as ‘extended breastfeeding, co-sleeping and always carry them’ in a sensationalist ‘what a bunch of weirdos’ way is going to make a confirmed follower of ‘give them a good wallop and wailing for 6 hours never did me any harm’ parenting change their mind. There are too many people determined to see it as the ‘expert’ on the BBC saw it – as ’emotional abuse’. 🙄 While I applaud the people who tried to engage, how can you fight comments like “they’ll never learn to sleep on their own” or “the kids in my class parented this way are a nightmare!” You might as well not bother. I’ve argued myself black and blue often enough to know that most people won’t change their perceived ideas about any alternative family structure. It’s pointless. I could tell you 50 instances of people telling me home ed must be wrong and can’t give kids all they need and then telling me all the things wrong with their school or why it’s hard for their kids. It would be the same about co-sleeping if I bothered to have the argument.
My form of parenting involves responding to my individual child’s needs as closely as I can. Mostly. I’m not perfect. The child who liked to be held was held. The child who likes to sleep alone (2 so far) sleeps alone. Bene is my most attachment parented child in some respects, he was barely put down for 3 months and he’s never been in a pushchair. He sleeps alone – all night – in his cot because that suits him and is happy to be handed about and cuddled by anyone. Josie was breastfed till she was 2 1/2. She stopped when she was a ready. Amelie still crawls into our bed once a week, but she can go away without us quite happily. Maddy was the cat who walked alone and still is. Fran was parented ‘by the book’ and we spent months with her wailing in her room at night, months trying to get some ‘us time’ without her and trying to train her. It didn’t work and it did far more damage that we had to fix. She was the only one to be put in her own bed on purpose and the only one to have sleep problems.
But no. The clever thing is to sell cuddling your child, breastfeeding them for as long as they want and letting them sleep the way most adults choose to (with someone else) as weird. Something where people can be clever by leaving comments like “bitty!” and (honestly, I ask you?) “She’s got younger children while co-sleeping, it’s just wrong for children to witness that”. Dear commenter, let me introduce you to… the sofa! The stairs, the kitchen, dining room, bathroom, garage… we do not all need to conceive in our beds. You muppet.
The vast majority of parents are busy trying to do their best for their children. There is room for diversity. There is room for error even. There is room for adapting even a parenting method with a name to the individual child. I stay at home with my children because having grown up with a career mum, I wanted to do things differently. Plus I didn’t have a career I felt passionate about. Some people would love to breastfeed longer but have to go back to work whether they want to or not. Some people are too scared to co-sleep or have children like Maddy and Bene who don’t need it. Some people hear rules laid down to cover smoking, drinking, drug taking parents and choose not to co-sleep because they are afraid they will do harm (I’ve never rolled on a child yet in 14 years of relatively persistent bed sharing but it worries Max so he tends to sleep in another room when they are tiny). Some people come to different parenting methods with experience, as we have done. Some people never really have the confidence to try a sling, some people just love the idea of spending money on a pram. Apparently, by the way, Victoria Beckham is leading the way in showing new yummy mummies to carry their children about rather than (and I quote) having them safely tucked up in a pram. Who knew?
Ruined. The lot of them. Obviously.
What this country does not have is a hoard of 32 year old men and women still breastfeeding, tucked up in their parents’ beds at night who like to be carried in a sling everywhere, so overall I’m pretty sure it doesn’t inhibit independence too much. And of all the comments that made me sad while I read the responses of people at large in this country, the saddest ones were people snorting about how kids* don’t learn independence if their parents try to react to their needs by parenting them in a manner which encourages gentle, supported separation at the child’s pace.
Just how screwed up is that statement exactly? How have we come so far down a path of not respecting childhood needs that we think that? That KIDS need to be independent before they are 1 or 2 in order to be normal? Do we have a country entirely filled with well adjusted children to support this comment?
*Kids. Definition of kids is very small people learning to live in the world who need guidance, love, care and TO.BE.DEPENDANT on their parents until they are adults. Duh.
Merry, I love you! Couldn’t have said it better myself! x
Grin. I thought you would approve 🙂
Excellent – I’ve had two breastfed, co-sleeping children who were held for HOURS. Whatever works for you and the child is what matters – one breastfed for 26 months, and the other for only 10 months, but that is what child-led weaning is about. Now that they are about to turn 13 and 16 in August, they both sleep in their own beds and are independent thinking young adults, of whom I am immensely proud!
I completely refuse to believe she is nearly 16!
You haven’t seen the nearly 16 year old for a while – the gymnast is only about to turn 13!
I’m not a parent because I’ve chosen to be that way. But even so I can’t see how ‘safely tucking your child in a pram’ and then pushing said pram into the road first when trying to cross the street is EVER going to be safer than keeping a hold of them!
Ah, now I nearly write that (I certainly thought it when I saw the article, though I have used pushchairs in the past and may again yet) but I thought I might get pilloried if I did!
SO well said. I have had a similar sort of post brewing for a while, just that i don’t often post on the live baby parenting side of things, but maybe that should change….
xo
Difficult to do that though. I can never decide if life on the blogging front was made easier or harder by already having a blog. Life goes on, as they say, but the pieces of it don’t sit easily together sometimes.
Thank you for such a brilliantly written post – couldn’t agree more – both my kids were breastfed (DS1 to 2 and a half, and DS2 nearly 2 and still going!), co-slept with me and carried around loads – made single motherhood a lot simpler!
I can imagine. I wish I had understood the concepts of babies needing time to adjust with my first. I think we made ourselves very miserable trying to get her to behave like an adult!
Brilliant. Our little boy was slinged, breastfed and kept company when he could not sleep alone. I did not follow an Attachment Parenting guide as I did not know of one. However I knew that ‘meeting his needs’ was my job and has been ever since. He is now four. I still face the condecension of working mothers who wonder how I spend my time. He is fiercely independent though very loving. I am proud of him and proud of us who are willing to be labelled weirdos – and worse – for the sake of our children. I just hope there are enough of us to make the next generation bearable. Abandoned angry children don’t make for very nice adults. Now let’s see, Cherie Blair … ah yes
Grin. No, I definitely haven’t seen my children struggling for independence, nor do I try to keep them tied to my apron strings. I wouldn’t say I am a slaving APer by any moeans at all, but the principles of it come naturally now.
Love it!! Excellent, excellent article that can apply to all aspects of parenting. Respecting other people’s choices, refusing to buy into “normal”, responding to each individual child’s needs and personality. Funny – “they” want all children to be raised the same way by parents, yet in the classroom teachers are expected to develop and carry out completely individualized “learning plans” for 20 – 30 + children every day. We live in a totally disassociated, split-personality society!!
Don’t we just :/ Don’t start me on personalised learning plans. I’ve heard LA officers ask how a home educating parent can deliver a personalised learning plan for their child without proper training before 🙂
A brilliant post (As always!), I am not / was not a parent that did the whole attachment thing, although with my youngest I used a sling when she was tiny and wished I had with the other 2, I think they are great. I like my bed and my own space and if I could get away with not sharing with my husband I would! So apart from the first couple of nights my children have always slept in their own crib / cot / bed, but for those that chose to do things differently that is up to them.
I really do not understand the sort of society that we are becoming where we have to put down other people as they chose to do things differently, I could never home school as I don’t think I am intelligent enough, but more importantly I would not cope with having the children with me all the time, as much as I love them I also need my space. I applaud those who chose to do so, and make a success of it. I am sure that there are children who are home schooled who do not do well, in much the same way as children who go ‘out’ to school.
With my youngest I have had the opportunity to stay at home and not go back to work (although this has been partly through illness), and I so wish I could have done it with the other 2, but they are getting the benefit as I take them and pick them up from school.
What I am trying to say with all my waffle is that we should respect each parents way of bring up their child, and unless they are doing them obvious harm they should be left to keep doing the good work.
To be fair I haven’t really come across a home educated child who has done badly, but I entirely take your point. I suppose I struggle not to be judgmental about such things by accident, but I do believe people should do what is right for them. I just want it to be REALLY right for them. I’d like no one to feel they have to school/parent in a particular way because government propaganda tells them so and I’d love everyone who wants to be able to stay at home with their kids be in a position to do so.
Whilst I don’t particularly agree with severe attachment parenting, that doesn’t mean to say I don’t think children need to feel dependant. It’s definitely a choice parents are entitled to make for their children and circumstances and that decision should in no way be mocked, judged or made to make the parents feel weird. I chose to bottle feed my daughter from the outset and some parents have thought me odd and selfish for not even attempting breast feeding, but it was MY choice, not theirs, and I refuse to let anyone make me feel guilty or weird for a decision I was perfectly entitled to make.
I think anything that is done “differently” is ammunition for people to mock and it is just human nature to judge each others methods. But to call AP weird is just rude and ignorant. People should mind their own business, live and let live, and stop watching ridiculous debates on the BBC Breakfast sofa!
CJ x
Well, there is certainly a danger with being too extremist in any way. It’s similar to people who are so committed to autonomous education that they think people like us, who have a semi-structured education, are terrible.
If Bene and I had failed at breastfeeding, he would still have been parented via what I would describe as attachment parenting; I would have done all his bottles and gazed into his eyes and I’d probably have been less happy to move him from my bed too to try to keep the bond going. He’d still have been slinged, I would have expressed for longer. Slavish obsession is silly really. It’s not like I would have said “No breastfeeding; off to your pushchair, bedroom and nursery with you!” 😉
Thank you, thank you, thank you, my darling, for writting such a lovely post. You are far more eloquent on the subject than I might have been!! I’m glad I didn’t go and read the thread, especially with my mood as it already was that morning! I shall remain in my blissfully happy ‘extremist’ AP bubble ;o) Lx
I highly recommend avoiding it.
Do NOT get me started on how furious this kind of crap makes me. Somehow it is alright to attach those of us who believe in AP, but if we utter any sentiments about why we stay home with our children we are labeled as attacking those who work. It is such a double standard.
Well said Merry- thank you for bringing attention to this…
xo
Yes. It is EXACTLY like that. Sigh.
I think the best thing to do when you encounter those who would like to judge your parenting style (or even your being a parent in the first place) is to smile sweetly, ignore them and get on with living your life. Sometimes it’s just wasted energy arguing with people who think life really is what they read in the Daily Mail.
Yes, yes, yes! I completely agree. While I’m beating myself up for not living up to my ideals (using pushchairs more than slings, sometimes being grumpy with big long-limbed wriggly children for being in my bed, and – the biggest guilt-inducing one – having given up on breastfeeding at six weeks with my first baby) other people are freely and publicly criticising my choices (co-sleeping, home educating and still breastfeeding my son at 2 years and 3 months) which I know are right for my children because I have responded to their needs as individuals instead of trying to fit them in to the one-size-fits-all mould of society. And I don’t ask them why they leave their children with other people for most of their waking hours, why they leave their babies to cry alone for a terrifyingly long time, why they prop their baby up in the pushchair with a bottle and walk around the shopping centre… (I must add that I know the latter only applies to a tiny minority of bottle-feeding parents, and most give their babies just as much love, touch and attention as breastfeeding mothers do – having been a reluctant bottle-feeding mum I would hate to heap any more guilt on anyone who is making the best of the situation.) I don’t ask because frankly it’s none of my business. However, if I say anything positive about home education or extended breastfeeding I often feel that some people interpret it as a criticism of their own way of parenting. I would sometimes just like to celebrate what I love about the way of life we have chosen without it being seen as a manifesto.