Have you seen this?
Have you heard about this cover of Time on the news? Talked about it at work? Maybe over dinner? Heard the opinions?
Sexualizing breastfeeding. . .exploiting a young child. . .waging a war on career-focused women who don't want to be home with baby every-given-minute. . .
I can't take it. And it's only been about 72 hours since the cover was leaked. And you know me. I'm rarely compelled to respond to something like this. . .(or is it that I'm always compelled. . .).
The article is about the attachment parenting movement, it's founder Dr. Sears, and if this approach is psychologically damaging women who are trying to live up to its' goals. Is attachment parenting just a misogynistic way to keep women in the home by psychologically guilting them to believe there's real developmental harm to be done by leaving baby in the care of someone else? Is it simply the return-to-nature approach to parenting? Which approach produces more socially-adept citizens at the end of childhood? Who cares?
We're missing the point here, folks.
This debate isn't pitting a parenting style against another. It's pitting women again women. Mothers against mothers. And I'm having a tough time believing that we can't see this for what it is.
I've heard some say 'to each their own', and I guess that's good in a non-judgemental kind of way. But I also think it's a cop out. Why not take a stand and say that you support women. You support mothers. Whether or not you agree isn't the point. The point is that by being passive, you're wasting a chance to voice support for each other. . . while we're all trying to get through this really, tough thing called motherhood.
We ought to be discussing how tough it is to be a mom. It's really, really tough. We're living in an age where we have so much information available to us. . .to guide us. . . to help us make decisions about our lives and our families and determine what approach we'll take to it all. Doesn't that sound funny? We actually decide what approach we'll take to parenting. I'm pretty sure my mom just did what her mom did, like her mom did before her.
And it's tough. It's tougher than any of us thought. Isn't that the biggest common denominator we could have? Shouldn't we be talking about how we can support those that want to breastfeed, and those that don't? Supporting moms who work and moms who stay home? Gymboree and ballet classes or the backyard? Limited TV time. . .no TV time. Co-sleeping, baby-wearing, cloth-diapering. . .or none of it?
Who cares? They are all tough decisions. And none of us knew what we were signing up for before we were thrust into it. No one could prepare us. None of us knew we'd be making these decisions and that in making them. . .we'd polarize ourselves from other moms. From women, just like ourselves.
We tried to prepare though. We read books. I've read Dr. Sears' books. I've read those by doctors who disagree with him, too. I've made charts and menus and chore lists. Bill hates when I do that. And at the end of the day, it didn't matter. I made the best choices I could and leaned on my family, my other mom friends, and my partner for the confidence I needed to be secure with our decisions.
But I still don't know if I'm doing it right. I don't think I'll ever know. Just like I would say my mom didn't always make the best choices for me, Cole and Till will say the same. All I can do is make the best choices with them in mind, given what I know, what is available to me at the time, and what I'm capable to do. Just like my mom. Just like yours.
The world that I parent in is a different world than the ones we were children in. Is it tougher? Maybe. Most likely just different. Why not write an article in Time Magazine about that? About the decisions we all make as mothers to shape the best little people we can. Maybe about all of the white noise out there about parenting. . .and how it's so darned tough to find a quiet moment to think. Make a decision without guilt. Without labels and without having to choose a side.
Okay. So speaking of a side. . .I suppose you will want to know where I fall with the attachment parenting thing. . .because we all do fall somewhere, I suppose. In the spirit of being 100% honest with you, here goes.
I'm 100% for living a 100% attachment parenting lifestyle. But that doesn't mean I pulled it off.
With Cole, we were 100% attachment parenting. I wore him or held him all day. He slept with Bill and I at night (and still does, quite a bit. . by the way. . .) and I breastfed him past age 1. Thinking back on it though, I had no idea that what I was doing was called "attachment parenting." I held him all day because he was colicky. He would only sleep 20 minutes outside our bed. We did what we did mostly out of survival in those early days. . .and it stuck. And before I could realize. . .we were all, really happy with the way we lived our new life of three.
With Tills it was different. I was different. I was 100% attachment parenting until she was about six months old. Then she slept by herself. I went back to work. Our breastfeeding slacked off. And we adjusted and chose a path that worked for us. . .a hybrid. I think she'd tell you she's a happy kid. Well-adjusted. Connected. We're just as happy with the way we live our life of four, as we were with three. It's just a different way. It's not 100% what I would have chosen, but it works for us. For now.
We're doing okay. . .but man, it's tough.
When I yell at them (again!) to stop taking off their shoes and hiding them on me because we're already 25 minutes late and I know I'm going to be late to work. . .(again!). . .I wonder if I'm making the right choice. When it's Spaghettios for dinner for the second time this week (::holds head in shame::), I wonder if spending my time at work and on my career is the right choice. If I was home, we'd be having something homemade. If there wasn't anywhere to be in the morning, I wouldn't yell . . .and they could take off their shoes all they wanted. Hiding-shoes-from-mommy might be a pretty fun game.
And when I was home with Cole and not working I always wondered if he was developing socially the way he might if he were at a daycare with other kids. Was I able to teach him all he needed to know? Were we making the right choice? What about me? Was I the best woman I could be for Cole and Bill, if I wasn't attending to all of me and only focusing on the mom part?
You just don't know. But you need to be confident in your choices as a mother, and other moms are the best people to help you find your confidence. They are also your toughest critis. And I think it's time that we think more about that.
The article, ironically, isn't really about breastfeeding at all (or even that much about attachment parenting) as it is about it's founder, Dr. Bill Sears. What I found most interesting were the researchers that were studying indigenous moms in the South Pacific, and how they influenced his work. It all comes from somewhere. There are no new ideas. . .just recycled ones.
Twenty years from now, will we be reading about the link between attachment parenting and some new social disorder that many of our young adults are displaying? Who knows? It's wasted energy to think that way.
Let's just be confident in ourselves as mothers to know that we all want what is best for our kids. We make decisions with them in mind. We sacrifice ourselves in ways that none of us could have imagined, for no other reason than their happiness. Let's really think twice before we criticize another for what she thinks is best. Reconsider your silence and what saying nothing really says. . . or passing the buck and saying you've no opinion. You know you do. . .share it and start becoming part of the solution.
Enough on my soapbox. Phew.
No new pictures of the kids for now. Bill and I are going to try and take the kids bike riding the afternoon. I'm sure I'll have something to share with you then.
