Attachment Parenting and Its Discontents (or my discontent, anyway).

Okay, let me preface this post by saying that I believe very strongly in the importance of creating strong relationships between babies and their parents and/or other caregivers. I will be the first to say that a strong bond between babies and parents is crucial to their development. In this regard, I support Attachment Parenting (AP) theories.

But I have found that all too often, proponents of AP are so intent on spreading the word about it, that they neglect some very real practical concerns that become apparent to most of us trying to implement AP methods. I want very badly for my baby to develop in a healthy and happy way, so I work very hard to be appropriately responsive; I carry him as much as I can (to the point of developing back and wrist problems- I can't get him in my carrier anymore). I play with him, talk to him, breastfeed, co-sleep (more like no sleep...), and I don't leave him with another caretaker for long periods of time. He's doing great. I, and this is hard for me to admit, am not.

I am burned out (and, did I mention, physically injured?). I cannot continue this level of attached-ness or I will lose my mind and/or break in half, neither of which will make for good mothering of any variety. I am doing too much, I tell myself. I need to allow myself to take some breaks once and a while. Here's the thing: I don't always have help when I need it; I can't always take time for myself. I don't have much of a support network besides my husband that can help me in this way. And besides that, when I have AP advocates telling me not to leave my baby and to avoid letting other people hold him (yeah, a woman at a recent talk said to "minimize the amount of time other people hold your baby"), where does this leave me except in a lose-lose situation? On the one hand, I am told to barely ever put my baby down or be out of arm's reach. On the other hand, I am supposed to make time for myself. I can't make time for myself without that entailing me being away from him and someone else holding him.

I'm not saying AP doesn't have the answer to this; but I am saying that I've been doing my reading, and I haven't seen an answer to this. Dr. Sears, whose Baby Book I really do like, does a nice job of evading this particular topic. I have all these suggestions for how to do a good job as an AP mother, but no real suggestions for how to prevent "mommy burnout."

Thinking through this conundrum has raised other questions that are important for AP proponents to answer, as well. First of all, if they are going to assert that babies not parented with AP techniques develop a host of social and cognitive problems, they need to be more specific: what problems, at what rate? Are we making a distinction between babies raised without any caregiver relationship and those raised with loving parents, but perhaps without AP methods in particular?

Because here's the thing: we can't all do everything AP suggests all the time. Some babies don't want to or can't co-sleep; some babies don't want to ride in a carrier after they get to be a certain age; some women can't breastfeed; some parents face physical challenges that make certain AP techniques unfeasible. To boot, what about parents- and this applies to more and more of us these days- who both have to work full time to make ends meet? To suggest- and AP advocates are at the very least suggesting- that the children of parents in these situations are going to have developmental problems is, to me, very bothersome. It's an unfair suggestion and one that only further serves to make parents feel that they aren't doing enough. Do we not have enough guilty and incompetent feelings even when we are getting it right?

Which brings me to the issue of "blaming the mother." AP supporters might say that they don't believe this, but the claims they make about the importance of following AP methods directly implicate "bad mothering" in social and cognitive disorders. This implication is an echo of times gone by, when it was believed that mental illnesses were caused by poor mothering during infancy. This belief is no longer supported by modern psychology, thankfully, and deserves to remain in the (dare I say) shameful history of mental health treatment in America. To imply that mothers who do not follow AP techniques are putting their babies at risk for addiction, developmental delays, etc., is to resurrect an archaic and obsolete idea. If this is not, in fact, what AP proponents mean to suggest, then it is certainly a point which they must clarify.

As I said, I support building strong relationships between caregivers and babies- not just mothers, but fathers and other family and friends, as well. AP has suggested some great ways to do this, many of which are things most parents do anyways, like talking to their babies, and breast-feeding. However, in pushing for this objective, I think that AP proponents have made it sounds like you HAVE to do all of these things all the time, or your baby will be completely ruined for the rest of his or her life, or at least until you get your AP act together. This adds unfair and unnecessary pressure on parents (especially mothers), who are taking good care of their children, to the best of their abilities, but who may not be following the AP methods all of the time. If AP wants to thrive, wants to seem both appealing and realistic to parents, it needs to address these challenges more adequately.

Post Script

In conjunction with my last post, I have had three experiences at the grocery store, with men, that I feel compelled to relay here, because they confound me.

1. Around Christmas 08, I ran into a man who had audited one of my grad school classes, a retired neurosurgeon. I had the baby with me and he said to me, I guess in reference to my "past life" in academia, "So, I guess you decided to turn off your brain for a while, huh?" Yes, now I am brain dead. Nothing goin' on up there.

2. Last month, I ran into an another acquaintance who is the father of a very precocious two year-old. He asked me if I was working. I said I was working very part time, but mostly taking care of the baby. He said, "You think that's hard; you should try working full time and taking care of a baby!" FYI, people, taking care of a baby full time is working full time.

3. Recently, I ran into someone I know somewhat better than the other two; we have known each other for a while. I didn't have the baby with me this time, and he said, "I almost didn't recognize you without the baby." Funny, because when I have the baby with me, people don't usually see me at all.

To Market, To Market...

I guess because it's the place I go with the most predictable frequency, I have very interesting interactions at the grocery store nowadays. With baby in tow, I meet and converse with more moms than I did before, and have discovered how, for many of us, the trip to the grocery store is a significant social event in our weekly routines. There we are peeking down the aisles looking for each other, for solace and camaraderie as much as we are yogurt and granola bars. How did we get to be so isolated from our surroundings, from our neighbors and friends, that food shopping is where we find each other, bleary-eyed and starved for grown-up conversation? I have stood in store aisles laughing and crying with other new mothers. Yeah, crying. It happens.

On the other hand, maybe this habit is a continuation of historical practices, the modern-day version of hunting parties or foraging expeditions. The search for, or cultivation of, food has- out of necessity- always been a group activity; you can grow and catch and gather a lot more food as a group than you can on your own. That is, until grocery stores (and suburbs and all the conveniences of modern life) made us into self-sufficient animals... or so we thought. We still need each other, especially new mothers. We need support and comfort for and from each other. We don't live in groups anymore, for the most part; we don't have many group rituals left. I can't help but view my weekly trips to the grocery store as being as much about food-procurement as connecting with that social networking need, reminding each other that we are not alone.