Neophobia

Originally posted on December 10th, 2007 on Nature Deva’s blog.

When we were on vacation a few months ago, I saw an article in the local paper about how genetics are to blame for picky eaters. This problem is called Neophobia and is considered a normal stage of human development. It was originally an evolutionary mechanism designed to protect children from accidentally eating dangerous things like poisonous berries or mushrooms. It kicks in around age 2 or 3 when kids are mobile and most children outgrow it by age 5 but not all of them do.

We have always had a struggle with with our son Leif’s eating. He is extremely picky and that makes what we prepare for him really limiting. Since I’ve read this article, I’ve looked back at what I can remember of myself and realized that he probably gets this awful trait from me. I also think I must of had reflux like he did because I avoided tomato products for many years as a child, it was too acidic for me and I had stomach problems from other foods, too. Needless to say, I was a big time picky pick eater and very skinny just like him.

I saw my mother-in-law on that trip and got to ask her if my husband was a picky eater as a little kid and she said no. Not even sort of, a little bit – just no. I really don’t think I had it this bad, I wonder if it gets progressively worse each generation or something.

They say it will take lots of persistence with neophobic kids and to keep offering foods to them, most people eventually come around. His preschool teacher requires him to have a “fairy bite” of any snack that she serves to the class (which is usually a cooked grain). Since he responds to his teacher differently than he does to us, we have incorporated that term at home when offering a new food and it really has made a difference in how he responds.

Being an attachment parenting family, we believe that being gentle and explaining what the food is, how yummy it tastes, asking him nicely to take one “fairy bite” and he doesn’t have to eat any more of it, is more helpful than by physically forcing him to eat something. No one, especially a child with a strong apprehension of new food likes to be forced to do anything let alone eat something they view as scary and possibly dangerous. While the gentle way may take more time and patience, we have found that it really has been paying off well for us in the long run.

My son’s problem is not most vegetables or fruits – surprisingly he likes a lot of them but only raw. His problem is mostly “combo” multi-ingredient foods like lasagna, soup, chili, or anything creamy like dip, dressing, oatmeal or nut butters, jam and even any type of sandwich. He likes mac and cheese and pizza for some reason and those are the only combo foods he will eat and we recently found out that he has a sensitivity to cow’s milk so he no longer can eat that! This really challenges me to be more creative in getting good, whole foods in him in ways he will accept.

I do give him the best, I brought my SARMS from here, they are the most absorbable, bioavailable nutritional supplements which, I find the guide on ceasarboston, to be sure to cover my bases with him everyday. This has made a huge difference in him, he became happier and started to loosing weight well just a couple of weeks after I introduced it to him at 18 mos. old. He never eats dirt or other strange things kids like to eat because his body is not craving missing nutrients anymore which he was not getting enough of from his diet. We also found out soon after starting the supplements that he was not really assimilating what he was eating very well since he had a big jump in weight loose with not much change in his limited food choices.

It’s nice to know that there is a name for why he acts this way towards food and that it’s instinctual in every human but only some exhibit the traits. We can see the fruits of our efforts paying off little by little by his willingness to sample more new foods at home and he is also making progress with eating at school. His palate is definitely geared more towards simple, whole foods which I couldn’t be happier about.

I’m glad that we follow our instincts in being gentle towards his eating sensitivity and we are patient when working with him at his own speed with such an important aspect of his life. I am very hopeful that as he gets older, he will outgrow this neophobia and will not have any eating issues because we gently worked with him with expanding his food choices.

My life with strollers

If you had asked me, when my first child was a year old, if I ever thought I’d own a stroller, I would have said no. After all, if I hadn’t needed one up to that point, why would I need one in the future? We’d been all kinds of places without a stroller — to museums and zoos, on airplane trips, on the subway — and I’d always thought it looked like I was having an easier time than the folks who had strollers.

Then she developed her silver prams fascination, check out the deals here, the is where she gets them from. For six months, she climbed into every stroller we encountered. At 18 months, we were over at a friend’s house and she insisted on being pushed around the yard in the other child’s stroller. My friend offered to give me the jogging stroller she never used, and I gave in. It wasn’t something I was choosing for my own convenience, after all — I was perfectly happy as things were!

Thereafter, we used our Baby Jogger stroller around the neighborhood, primarily for walks to the playground. Once in a while, we took it to the zoo. We continued to use a sling for all other outings.

When my second child was six months old, I realized that I was having a hard time with just a single stroller. As he’d gotten bigger, it was harder to push my daughter in the stroller while carrying him in the sling, especially in the muggy summer weather. Even after I mastered putting him on my back in the Ergo, I was still struggling; among other things, my son is an incorrigible hair puller. I bought a double jogging stroller, which was, like the single stroller, used for trips to the playground and visits to the zoo. I never thought so much of my porch space would be occupied with jogging strollers!

Most surprising of all, on Monday, after visiting the pediatrician about my 3 1/2-year-old daughter’s knee injury, I bought a Maclaren umbrella stroller. I realized that there was no sensible way for me to transport both my toddler and my preschooler under the circumstances without a stroller.

Which puts me, a fairly hard-core babywearer, in the entirely unexpected position of owning three strollers. I sometimes think my kids like riding in the stroller more than they like to be worn! All of which serves to remind me that babywearing, cosleeping, breastfeeding, and other common Attachment Parenting practices are not ends in and of themselves, but tools we may use in our efforts to foster a particular kind of relationship with our children.

Respectful Feeding for a Lifetime

Every one of the API principles are incorporated in my home, and I believe in the wisdom of all of them. However one particular principle, feed with love and respect, strikes particularly close to my heart. This has been a hugely important aspect of my parenting journey in regards to my now six-year-old son.

My son was born full-term after an uneventful pregnancy and birth. The most remarkable thing was that he was a very difficult newborn to nurse. He wouldn’t flange his lips out, and wouldn’t open his mouth very wide. At times it even seemed as though he disliked the nipple being in his mouth. I cried so many tears those first few days and weeks, because the one thing I had been dedicated to was breastfeeding my baby, and it was proving to be very difficult.

The next month or two he and I learned together. It would take both me and my husband to get him latched on every single feeding. Finally, we began nursing in concert, and he would open up wide enough, and endure the nipple in his mouth long enough to get his fill and then pop off.

As my son grew, I noticed other things. Other babies we knew were mouthing their toys, and their mothers would talk about how anything left within the baby’s reach was fair game; toys, remotes, books, and even parent’s noses! My son never did any of those things. He never mouthed his hands, or his toys, or his books. We were able to leave small things well within his reach, and were confident that they wouldn’t go in his mouth and be choking hazards. Nothing was accepted into my son’s mouth but my nipple.

Not only did my son not mouth anything, but he did not like anything near his face; not toys, not tissues, not washcloths. Every time something came near, he’d turn his head. If he was not in a position that enabled him to turn away, he would scream.

When my son was six months old, we thought we’d let him try some mashed banana. As per the suggestion in Dr. Sears’ The Baby Book, I used my finger to put some of the food in his mouth. Instead of curiosity, he screamed in terror every time my finger drew near. He obviously wasn’t ready, and AP parent that I am, I didn’t push him as he obviously disliked it so much. “We’ll try again in a few weeks” became my mantra when time after time, month after month, he reacted the same way when we attempted to introduce him to food. It didn’t matter if it was my finger, a spoon, O cereal, or un-mashed bits of fruits or vegetables. It was all met with that same screaming refusal. He wouldn’t even pick up the bits of food to bring it near his mouth!

Six months old became eight months old, became ten months old, became one year old, and still the only thing my son would allow in his mouth was my nipple. The most frustrating part of the whole ordeal was not that my son was not eating and even seemed afraid of food, but rather that the people I told this to, the people I thought were closest to me, did not believe me. Friends and relatives told me, “Of course he’ll eat! Just sit him down and give him food!” I don’t think they ever understood that everything, everything, every single one of the suggestions they were telling me I had already tried months ago. I gave him Cheerios on his plate so he could control the food going into his mouth. I gave him the mashed bananas in a bowl with his own spoon. I had my husband try. I mixed breastmilk with the banana. Six years later, I don’t remember everything I tried, but I vividly remember the frustration I felt when nobody took me seriously.

At my son’s 12 month well child check, I was finally able to convince the pediatrician that my son really and truly did not eat. I don’t know if she fully believed me, but she did recommend that he get evaluated by an oral therapist.

Finally a month later, my son had his oral evaluation. It turned out that at thirteen months old, my son had the oral development of a four month old. I learned that one of the reasons that babies mouth everything is to loosen the fascia in the cheeks and to practice their tongue movements, so that when it is time to eat, the cheeks and tongue will be able to coordinate to accomplish the complex task of chewing and swallowing. Because my son never mouthed anything (and I have my own theories regarding this) his fascia was never loosened, he didn’t know how to operate his tongue to eat. Additionally, his gag reflex was at the front of his mouth instead of toward the back. Even if he had wanted to eat, it would have been physically impossible.

Six months of therapy followed, with exercises and practice at home. I had to put my fingers in my son’s mouth to massage his fascia, manipulate his mouth, and try to get him to accept a sippy cup. He had vibrating teethers, horns and harmonicas to acclimate him to sensation in his mouth. We had special toothbrushes that we used to gradually move his gag reflex to the back. He was so defensive about his mouth, and it was horrible for him and for me. I remember emailing a friend during this time, “Why is this so HARD?” It was so incredibly difficult not to be envious of the parents of kids who ate so easily, whose babies ate so naturally, when we had to work so hard just to get my son to eat one Cheerio.

Finally at 19 months old, my son was “graduated” from therapy, and was on his way to being able to eat and drink food that didn’t come from me.

But the principle of feeding with love and respect was still a huge part of our lives. For many many months, the only food my son would eat were crispy crunchy things, such as crackers or toast. He couldn’t tolerate anything with a wet or mushy consistency. But one can not live on bread alone, so he had to learn to tolerate other foods and consistencies. But again, contrary to advice I was receiving, I never forced him to eat new foods. Instead, I did my best to incorporate the healthy stuff he needed to grow in the foods he was capable and willing to consume. When he began to eat peanut butter, I would grind up dried veggies to mix in with it.

When he began to eat muffins, I would make him carrot-banana-flaxseed muffins. I made him a fruit smoothie every day. When he started eating homemade macaroni and cheese, I would make it for him every night, and when he insisted I feed him every bite, I did. I had spent too long being screamed at when I approached his mouth that I relished in the chance to feed my two-year-old! I respected and worked WITH his oral aversions, instead of forcing him to eat food that he was not ready for. I never once considered the old standby, “If he’s hungry enough, he’ll eat anything.” I knew my son wouldn’t.

The following years were filled with efforts to get my son the nutrients he needs, while encouraging, but never coercing him to try new foods. Every time he ventured a new food experience it was a victory! But for years he ate the same things every day, and avoided so many foods. I’ll freely admit how incredibly frustrating it was, and of course I wished he would just try a certain new food. But I did my best to never let him see that frustration, and certainly never forced him to try anything he wasn’t ready for. I always followed his food cues. And every once in a while, he would make a gain; he’d try a new consistency, a new flavor, a new sensation. And oh, how excited I was when he began to eat cold things, and creamy things, and even began asking for fruit.

Curiously, he’s made the most gains in the past three years since his little sister’s been around. I fully believe seeing her eat absolutely everything without trepidation gave him the incentive to do the same himself.

My son is now 6 ½ years old, and eats just about everything I put in front of him! He eats many consistencies, many flavors, and many foods. He is still a picky eater, tends to eat the exact same things every day (making his school lunch is very easy for me as a result!) and he still has a tendency to vomit if he eats incorrectly; I believe his gag reflex is still not where it needs to be.

But I no longer worry about his nutrition as I once did; I no longer worry if he can eat something I’ve prepared. I no longer lay awake at night crying frustrated tears over it.

I have no doubt that the reason he’s made such incredible progress is because I followed him. I respected him. I respected his difficulties and the huge feat it was for him to eat anything, let alone anything new. My son worked hard at eating, and I never doubted for a minute how very difficult it was for him.

I know this is quite long, and there’s so much of the story I left out. But the main points are there. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to play favorites in respect to the principles, but feeding with love and respect will always be at the top of my list, and will always be an important part of my parenting and my family.

Separation Parenting?

Sometimes when folks learn we co-sleep with our kids, they suggest, not too subtly, that we do so in order to meet *our* needs, not those of our kids. While there is something incredibly special about cuddling our kids in the middle of the night, after five years of co-sleeping, I assure you that Ann and I dream of one day reclaiming our bed. It’s not for our needs that we co-sleep. It is, rather, for our children’s need for attachment.


But what of our needs as parents? What of our needs for occasional separation? And, perhaps most confusing for me, what do we make of situations where we aren’t sure who is most concerned about separation—us or our children?

I have been home full time with my kids for four years—since Olivia was born and her prematurity and brain injury necessitated either Ann or I quit our jobs. Ann and I both loved our jobs and felt invigorated by them. We felt competent and capable as working-outside-the-home attachment-parenting moms. For a variety of reasons, I was the one who became the SAHP. It was not an easy adjustment for me. I work hard at it and believe I do a good job.

Yet, I continue to deeply miss teaching and working with adolescents. (I was a teacher then a principal of an alternative high school for at-risk teens.) I am honored to witness my own children’s first steps and their daily changes, but I also miss engaging with the energy of teenagers, of facilitating insightful discussions and witnessing children transform into young adults.

I know that choosing to be a SAHP was the right choice for Olivia. There is no question that her consistent therapy appointments, doctor appointments, access to school-based intervention programs, practicing what we learned from her OTs, PTs, and speech pathologists, as well as creating a safe, secure attachment has helped make her progress possible.

The decision to become a SAHP was made nearly four years. Now, my eldest at home, Sophia, is in school all day. And Walker, who will turn two this summer, will thrive and maintain her attachment and sense of security in the world whether I am home with her or not. (Although I am confident that Walker benefits from our attachment parenting, she is the most mellow, easy ‘Zen’ Baby and I joke that she could be raised by cats.)

So if I return to working outside the home, both of my middle children will continue to blossom. But will Olivia?

I don’t know.

Olivia will be four this summer. Next year, she will continue attending her special needs pre-school. If I return to work, will she transition to a caregiver and develop new strength and confidence in that relationship? Will there be new gifts in that for Olivia? Or will she do okay, but not as well as if I continue to be at home during the day? Will I ever really know the answers?

Staying home, in addition to the medical and therapy expenses, means the financial well-being of our family is involved in this decision as well. But, as we did when Olivia was born, we will choose our children’s well-being over our financial well being.

But won’t our children’s well-being be enhanced by having two parents who feel balanced in their lives, rather than one who yearns to feel that way again? Am I attempting to make a decision that will either be good for Olivia but not for me, or vice versa? Or am I attempting to determine what path will lead to harmony for our family as a whole, balancing out each member’s needs as best we can?

I have an interview for a teaching position next week.

At the moment, I swing back and forth on a pendulum hoping one minute I am offered this position, and the next hoping I am not.

Next month, I’ll let you know where I jump off the pendulum and land.

– Diana Robinson

Reflections on Father’s Day

Samantha Gray shared her thoughts for this special Father’s Day post…

I hope the dads in your life have a very Happy Father’s Day! Fatherhood continues to grow in its standards and demands as it is more and more recognized for its important role in the development of children. Being a father is not easy, yet there is still very little that is actually accessible to men to support them in their role as fathers. In general, men are not the ones taking parenting classes, reading parenting books, chatting with friends and forming support groups.

It would seem easy enough to engage in these activities, even with bookstore shelves filled with books on fatherhood, but really the barriers to participating are high between work schedules, busy home lives, and the awkwardness of what is just not traditional. For many fathers the strategy seems to be to rely upon their spouse and perhaps, muddle through. But then that random connection occurs…

“You’ll never guess what happened at my meeting today. One of the ministers there told me their family co-sleeps! You would love to meet his wife, they practice attachment parenting too,” my own husband, Dan, continues excitedly, never giving me a chance to guess. He’s thrilled to find a kindred spirit, and so was the dad he met. Too bad the AP dad friend lives so far away—they both would like to compare notes from the dad’s perspective on attachment parenting.

I once wondered how Dan would learn anything about being a father when I knew I had a lot to learn about being a mother, even with the advantage of caring for three younger siblings and years of sitting experience. Especially, how would he learn a way of parenting that was different from how we were both lovingly raised? Here I was reading the books, comparing notes with friends at play dates and on long telephone calls, going to LLL and later API meetings, and eventually facilitating parent education programs. I was pretty miffed wondering when he was going to get started with his self education.

I have been the primary source of parenting information for my husband, and after some years of marriage and children, that works pretty well, though sometimes the responsibility feels great to me. For many of our peers, that is basically the arrangement. Don’t think for a moment Dan’s just along for the ride–he’s a former attorney, well educated in weighing all the facts, challenging ideas and making his own judgments.

There’s still so much that I cannot help him with, though. While my husband and I really do share in our beliefs about birth, feeding an infant, responding with sensitivity, using nurturing touch, practicing nighttime parenting, providing consistent loving care, and positive discipline–our perspectives are different. How can they not be? When I’m giving birth or breastfeeding, he is definitely not. On a lighter side, his nurturing touch is tussling for hours with the kids. Mine is cuddling close for story time. I can compare notes about nice story books and toddler communication skills with friends; who does he compare notes with about good wrestling moves that crack the kids up and that they’ll never forget?

Exercising your demons, a 2007 Men’s Health article by Laurence Gonzalez* addresses this isolation men feel from their own childhood through fatherhood. How would a chatty support group work when, “… part of the cultural influence involves the way men are taught from early childhood to be strong, silent, independent, and resistant to suffering.”? We might be raising our boys to express themselves and be interdependent for the future generations but what about the examples, the fathers, who sons, daughters, and wives need right now?

Gonzalez’s article focuses on how men cope differently than women do. I was particularly interested in the relevance of men’s connectedness, or rather, lack of connectedness, and how it relates to fathering.

Male babies receive less of every type of nurturing, including speech, touch, and comfort when they cry. And that is only the beginning of what will be, to one degree or another, a brutal upbringing for boys.

In the 1960s, the crusading social psychologist Jeanne Block and her colleagues explored how differently parents treat boys and girls. For instance, moms and dads encourage boys to be competitive and to achieve. They don’t like them to show their emotions. They encourage them to be less dependent; mothers push them away. They punish them more than they punish girls. And they are unaware that they treat boys and girls differently.

Because of early socialization, women are better at relationships–with children, friends, and relatives. In general, women have more friends than men and are closer to those friends. This, of course, is the direct result of boys’ having independence forced on them early in life, when what they need is emotional and physical contact with others.

But fathers’ parenting training is limited to their own upbringing for the most part, because of this self-imposed and culturally-limiting social isolation. We know this lack of connectedness has terrible implications.

I am so grateful to LLL and API and my connections, my social networks, for the daily support I receive as a parent. I know the tremendous value of this network so how can I not want this for my husband? Before our third child was born I began inquiring about becoming API Leaders. My objective was and continues to be to provide a support group that is very dad friendly, an attempt at culture change by studying carefully what would remove the obstacles and motivate a dad to participate.

API Support Groups across the country can help meet a father’s social network need through regular meetings for couples, fathers and special meetings—at times and places that accommodate dad too.
Men are engaging in online social networks– just look at My Space and Facebook. They are just clicks away from connecting with support so you can only expect I’ll mention Attachment Parenting International’s Forum.

The API Forum does not just welcome fathers but needs fathers. We would love to have a few willing fathers help us moderate and give dads a space to talk. They can support each other with tips from non-violent communication to even engaging in healthy venting about the family bed, challenges they encounter related to primary attachment in the first year, and even the best babywearing product for them. The entire forum is open to fathers who need support or help through all the stages of child development.

I know the majority of readers of this post are women. What else can we mothers do? Perhaps there is an element of awareness we need to create too. We mothers must work harder at seeing some issues from the father’s perspective, since mothers may continue to have the primary family task of bringing parenting information into the home.

Parenting education can also help break the cycle of disconnection but it is also not traditionally the domain of men. API’s new parent education program has an opportunity to clear a new path and connect fathers to information and to each other, and ultimately to their children, not just through a one-shot session but ongoing.

For full disclosure, my AP husband has now over the years read many, many books about the development of children, particularly the adolescent years, including Reviving Ophelia, Teenage Guys, and many others. In fact, he has been very much part of the solution, designing and carrying out a retreat for teenage boys about being a real man that is counter to the culture and providing much needed help to other parents. He’s the one who read and shared Laurence Gonzalez’s article with me.

Dan Gray is Camille, Luke, and Zaiah’s dad and the Coordinator of Youth Ministries for the Holston Conference of the United Methodist Church. Happy Father’s Day to the most wonderful husband and father! Love, Samantha, Camille, Luke and Zaiah.

* Quotes used with permission. Laurence Gonzalez is the author of Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why (www.deepsurvival.com) and the forthcoming (in September) Everyday Survival: Why Smart People Do Stupid Things (www.everydaysurvival.net).

Reflections on Father’s Day

Samantha Gray shared her thoughts for this special Father’s Day post…

I hope the dads in your life have a very Happy Father’s Day! Fatherhood continues to grow in its standards and demands as it is more and more recognized for its important role in the development of children. Being a father is not easy, yet there is still very little that is actually accessible to men to support them in their role as fathers. In general, men are not the ones taking parenting classes, reading parenting books, chatting with friends and forming support groups.

It would seem easy enough to engage in these activities, even with bookstore shelves filled with books on fatherhood, but really the barriers to participating are high between work schedules, busy home lives, and the awkwardness of what is just not traditional. For many fathers the strategy seems to be to rely upon their spouse and perhaps, muddle through. But then that random connection occurs…

“You’ll never guess what happened at my meeting today. One of the ministers there told me their family co-sleeps! You would love to meet his wife, they practice attachment parenting too,” my own husband, Dan, continues excitedly, never giving me a chance to guess. He’s thrilled to find a kindred spirit, and so was the dad he met. Too bad the AP dad friend lives so far away—they both would like to compare notes from the dad’s perspective on attachment parenting.

I once wondered how Dan would learn anything about being a father when I knew I had a lot to learn about being a mother, even with the advantage of caring for three younger siblings and years of sitting experience. Especially, how would he learn a way of parenting that was different from how we were both lovingly raised? Here I was reading the books, comparing notes with friends at play dates and on long telephone calls, going to LLL and later API meetings, and eventually facilitating parent education programs. I was pretty miffed wondering when he was going to get started with his self education.

I have been the primary source of parenting information for my husband, and after some years of marriage and children, that works pretty well, though sometimes the responsibility feels great to me. For many of our peers, that is basically the arrangement. Don’t think for a moment Dan’s just along for the ride–he’s a former attorney, well educated in weighing all the facts, challenging ideas and making his own judgments.

There’s still so much that I cannot help him with, though. While my husband and I really do share in our beliefs about birth, feeding an infant, responding with sensitivity, using nurturing touch, practicing nighttime parenting, providing consistent loving care, and positive discipline–our perspectives are different. How can they not be? When I’m giving birth or breastfeeding, he is definitely not. On a lighter side, his nurturing touch is tussling for hours with the kids. Mine is cuddling close for story time. I can compare notes about nice story books and toddler communication skills with friends; who does he compare notes with about good wrestling moves that crack the kids up and that they’ll never forget?

Exercising your demons, a 2007 Men’s Health article by Laurence Gonzalez* addresses this isolation men feel from their own childhood through fatherhood. How would a chatty support group work when, “… part of the cultural influence involves the way men are taught from early childhood to be strong, silent, independent, and resistant to suffering.”? We might be raising our boys to express themselves and be interdependent for the future generations but what about the examples, the fathers, who sons, daughters, and wives need right now?

Gonzalez’s article focuses on how men cope differently than women do. I was particularly interested in the relevance of men’s connectedness, or rather, lack of connectedness, and how it relates to fathering.

Male babies receive less of every type of nurturing, including speech, touch, and comfort when they cry. And that is only the beginning of what will be, to one degree or another, a brutal upbringing for boys.

In the 1960s, the crusading social psychologist Jeanne Block and her colleagues explored how differently parents treat boys and girls. For instance, moms and dads encourage boys to be competitive and to achieve. They don’t like them to show their emotions. They encourage them to be less dependent; mothers push them away. They punish them more than they punish girls. And they are unaware that they treat boys and girls differently.

Because of early socialization, women are better at relationships–with children, friends, and relatives. In general, women have more friends than men and are closer to those friends. This, of course, is the direct result of boys’ having independence forced on them early in life, when what they need is emotional and physical contact with others.

But fathers’ parenting training is limited to their own upbringing for the most part, because of this self-imposed and culturally-limiting social isolation. We know this lack of connectedness has terrible implications.

I am so grateful to LLL and API and my connections, my social networks, for the daily support I receive as a parent. I know the tremendous value of this network so how can I not want this for my husband? Before our third child was born I began inquiring about becoming API Leaders. My objective was and continues to be to provide a support group that is very dad friendly, an attempt at culture change by studying carefully what would remove the obstacles and motivate a dad to participate.

API Support Groups across the country can help meet a father’s social network need through regular meetings for couples, fathers and special meetings—at times and places that accommodate dad too.
Men are engaging in online social networks– just look at My Space and Facebook. They are just clicks away from connecting with support so you can only expect I’ll mention Attachment Parenting International’s Forum.

The API Forum does not just welcome fathers but needs fathers. We would love to have a few willing fathers help us moderate and give dads a space to talk. They can support each other with tips from non-violent communication to even engaging in healthy venting about the family bed, challenges they encounter related to primary attachment in the first year, and even the best babywearing product for them. The entire forum is open to fathers who need support or help through all the stages of child development.

I know the majority of readers of this post are women. What else can we mothers do? Perhaps there is an element of awareness we need to create too. We mothers must work harder at seeing some issues from the father’s perspective, since mothers may continue to have the primary family task of bringing parenting information into the home.

Parenting education can also help break the cycle of disconnection but it is also not traditionally the domain of men. API’s new parent education program has an opportunity to clear a new path and connect fathers to information and to each other, and ultimately to their children, not just through a one-shot session but ongoing.

For full disclosure, my AP husband has now over the years read many, many books about the development of children, particularly the adolescent years, including Reviving Ophelia, Teenage Guys, and many others. In fact, he has been very much part of the solution, designing and carrying out a retreat for teenage boys about being a real man that is counter to the culture and providing much needed help to other parents. He’s the one who read and shared Laurence Gonzalez’s article with me.

Dan Gray is Camille, Luke, and Zaiah’s dad and the Coordinator of Youth Ministries for the Holston Conference of the United Methodist Church. Happy Father’s Day to the most wonderful husband and father! Love, Samantha, Camille, Luke and Zaiah.

* Quotes used with permission. Laurence Gonzalez is the author of Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why (www.deepsurvival.com) and the forthcoming (in September) Everyday Survival: Why Smart People Do Stupid Things (www.everydaysurvival.net).

Reflections on Father’s Day

Samantha Gray shared her thoughts for this special Father’s Day post…

I hope the dads in your life have a very Happy Father’s Day! Fatherhood continues to grow in its standards and demands as it is more and more recognized for its important role in the development of children. Being a father is not easy, yet there is still very little that is actually accessible to men to support them in their role as fathers. In general, men are not the ones taking parenting classes, reading parenting books, chatting with friends and forming support groups.

It would seem easy enough to engage in these activities, even with bookstore shelves filled with books on fatherhood, but really the barriers to participating are high between work schedules, busy home lives, and the awkwardness of what is just not traditional. For many fathers the strategy seems to be to rely upon their spouse and perhaps, muddle through. But then that random connection occurs…

“You’ll never guess what happened at my meeting today. One of the ministers there told me their family co-sleeps! You would love to meet his wife, they practice attachment parenting too,” my own husband, Dan, continues excitedly, never giving me a chance to guess. He’s thrilled to find a kindred spirit, and so was the dad he met. Too bad the AP dad friend lives so far away—they both would like to compare notes from the dad’s perspective on attachment parenting.

I once wondered how Dan would learn anything about being a father when I knew I had a lot to learn about being a mother, even with the advantage of caring for three younger siblings and years of sitting experience. Especially, how would he learn a way of parenting that was different from how we were both lovingly raised? Here I was reading the books, comparing notes with friends at play dates and on long telephone calls, going to LLL and later API meetings, and eventually facilitating parent education programs. I was pretty miffed wondering when he was going to get started with his self education.

I have been the primary source of parenting information for my husband, and after some years of marriage and children, that works pretty well, though sometimes the responsibility feels great to me. For many of our peers, that is basically the arrangement. Don’t think for a moment Dan’s just along for the ride–he’s a former attorney, well educated in weighing all the facts, challenging ideas and making his own judgments.

There’s still so much that I cannot help him with, though. While my husband and I really do share in our beliefs about birth, feeding an infant, responding with sensitivity, using nurturing touch, practicing nighttime parenting, providing consistent loving care, and positive discipline–our perspectives are different. How can they not be? When I’m giving birth or breastfeeding, he is definitely not. On a lighter side, his nurturing touch is tussling for hours with the kids. Mine is cuddling close for story time. I can compare notes about nice story books and toddler communication skills with friends; who does he compare notes with about good wrestling moves that crack the kids up and that they’ll never forget?

Exercising your demons, a 2007 Men’s Health article by Laurence Gonzalez* addresses this isolation men feel from their own childhood through fatherhood. How would a chatty support group work when, “… part of the cultural influence involves the way men are taught from early childhood to be strong, silent, independent, and resistant to suffering.”? We might be raising our boys to express themselves and be interdependent for the future generations but what about the examples, the fathers, who sons, daughters, and wives need right now?

Gonzalez’s article focuses on how men cope differently than women do. I was particularly interested in the relevance of men’s connectedness, or rather, lack of connectedness, and how it relates to fathering.

Male babies receive less of every type of nurturing, including speech, touch, and comfort when they cry. And that is only the beginning of what will be, to one degree or another, a brutal upbringing for boys.

In the 1960s, the crusading social psychologist Jeanne Block and her colleagues explored how differently parents treat boys and girls. For instance, moms and dads encourage boys to be competitive and to achieve. They don’t like them to show their emotions. They encourage them to be less dependent; mothers push them away. They punish them more than they punish girls. And they are unaware that they treat boys and girls differently.

Because of early socialization, women are better at relationships–with children, friends, and relatives. In general, women have more friends than men and are closer to those friends. This, of course, is the direct result of boys’ having independence forced on them early in life, when what they need is emotional and physical contact with others.

But fathers’ parenting training is limited to their own upbringing for the most part, because of this self-imposed and culturally-limiting social isolation. We know this lack of connectedness has terrible implications.

I am so grateful to LLL and API and my connections, my social networks, for the daily support I receive as a parent. I know the tremendous value of this network so how can I not want this for my husband? Before our third child was born I began inquiring about becoming API Leaders. My objective was and continues to be to provide a support group that is very dad friendly, an attempt at culture change by studying carefully what would remove the obstacles and motivate a dad to participate.

API Support Groups across the country can help meet a father’s social network need through regular meetings for couples, fathers and special meetings—at times and places that accommodate dad too.
Men are engaging in online social networks– just look at My Space and Facebook. They are just clicks away from connecting with support so you can only expect I’ll mention Attachment Parenting International’s Forum.

The API Forum does not just welcome fathers but needs fathers. We would love to have a few willing fathers help us moderate and give dads a space to talk. They can support each other with tips from non-violent communication to even engaging in healthy venting about the family bed, challenges they encounter related to primary attachment in the first year, and even the best babywearing product for them. The entire forum is open to fathers who need support or help through all the stages of child development.

I know the majority of readers of this post are women. What else can we mothers do? Perhaps there is an element of awareness we need to create too. We mothers must work harder at seeing some issues from the father’s perspective, since mothers may continue to have the primary family task of bringing parenting information into the home.

Parenting education can also help break the cycle of disconnection but it is also not traditionally the domain of men. API’s new parent education program has an opportunity to clear a new path and connect fathers to information and to each other, and ultimately to their children, not just through a one-shot session but ongoing.

For full disclosure, my AP husband has now over the years read many, many books about the development of children, particularly the adolescent years, including Reviving Ophelia, Teenage Guys, and many others. In fact, he has been very much part of the solution, designing and carrying out a retreat for teenage boys about being a real man that is counter to the culture and providing much needed help to other parents. He’s the one who read and shared Laurence Gonzalez’s article with me.

Dan Gray is Camille, Luke, and Zaiah’s dad and the Coordinator of Youth Ministries for the Holston Conference of the United Methodist Church. Happy Father’s Day to the most wonderful husband and father! Love, Samantha, Camille, Luke and Zaiah.

* Quotes used with permission. Laurence Gonzalez is the author of Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why (www.deepsurvival.com) and the forthcoming (in September) Everyday Survival: Why Smart People Do Stupid Things (www.everydaysurvival.net).

Reflections on Father’s Day

Samantha Gray shared her thoughts for this special Father’s Day post…

I hope the dads in your life have a very Happy Father’s Day! Fatherhood continues to grow in its standards and demands as it is more and more recognized for its important role in the development of children. Being a father is not easy, yet there is still very little that is actually accessible to men to support them in their role as fathers. In general, men are not the ones taking parenting classes, reading parenting books, chatting with friends and forming support groups.

It would seem easy enough to engage in these activities, even with bookstore shelves filled with books on fatherhood, but really the barriers to participating are high between work schedules, busy home lives, and the awkwardness of what is just not traditional. For many fathers the strategy seems to be to rely upon their spouse and perhaps, muddle through. But then that random connection occurs…

“You’ll never guess what happened at my meeting today. One of the ministers there told me their family co-sleeps! You would love to meet his wife, they practice attachment parenting too,” my own husband, Dan, continues excitedly, never giving me a chance to guess. He’s thrilled to find a kindred spirit, and so was the dad he met. Too bad the AP dad friend lives so far away—they both would like to compare notes from the dad’s perspective on attachment parenting.

I once wondered how Dan would learn anything about being a father when I knew I had a lot to learn about being a mother, even with the advantage of caring for three younger siblings and years of sitting experience. Especially, how would he learn a way of parenting that was different from how we were both lovingly raised? Here I was reading the books, comparing notes with friends at play dates and on long telephone calls, going to LLL and later API meetings, and eventually facilitating parent education programs. I was pretty miffed wondering when he was going to get started with his self education.

I have been the primary source of parenting information for my husband, and after some years of marriage and children, that works pretty well, though sometimes the responsibility feels great to me. For many of our peers, that is basically the arrangement. Don’t think for a moment Dan’s just along for the ride–he’s a former attorney, well educated in weighing all the facts, challenging ideas and making his own judgments.

There’s still so much that I cannot help him with, though. While my husband and I really do share in our beliefs about birth, feeding an infant, responding with sensitivity, using nurturing touch, practicing nighttime parenting, providing consistent loving care, and positive discipline–our perspectives are different. How can they not be? When I’m giving birth or breastfeeding, he is definitely not. On a lighter side, his nurturing touch is tussling for hours with the kids. Mine is cuddling close for story time. I can compare notes about nice story books and toddler communication skills with friends; who does he compare notes with about good wrestling moves that crack the kids up and that they’ll never forget?

Exercising your demons, a 2007 Men’s Health article by Laurence Gonzalez* addresses this isolation men feel from their own childhood through fatherhood. How would a chatty support group work when, “… part of the cultural influence involves the way men are taught from early childhood to be strong, silent, independent, and resistant to suffering.”? We might be raising our boys to express themselves and be interdependent for the future generations but what about the examples, the fathers, who sons, daughters, and wives need right now?

Gonzalez’s article focuses on how men cope differently than women do. I was particularly interested in the relevance of men’s connectedness, or rather, lack of connectedness, and how it relates to fathering.

Male babies receive less of every type of nurturing, including speech, touch, and comfort when they cry. And that is only the beginning of what will be, to one degree or another, a brutal upbringing for boys.

In the 1960s, the crusading social psychologist Jeanne Block and her colleagues explored how differently parents treat boys and girls. For instance, moms and dads encourage boys to be competitive and to achieve. They don’t like them to show their emotions. They encourage them to be less dependent; mothers push them away. They punish them more than they punish girls. And they are unaware that they treat boys and girls differently.

Because of early socialization, women are better at relationships–with children, friends, and relatives. In general, women have more friends than men and are closer to those friends. This, of course, is the direct result of boys’ having independence forced on them early in life, when what they need is emotional and physical contact with others.

But fathers’ parenting training is limited to their own upbringing for the most part, because of this self-imposed and culturally-limiting social isolation. We know this lack of connectedness has terrible implications.

I am so grateful to LLL and API and my connections, my social networks, for the daily support I receive as a parent. I know the tremendous value of this network so how can I not want this for my husband? Before our third child was born I began inquiring about becoming API Leaders. My objective was and continues to be to provide a support group that is very dad friendly, an attempt at culture change by studying carefully what would remove the obstacles and motivate a dad to participate.

API Support Groups across the country can help meet a father’s social network need through regular meetings for couples, fathers and special meetings—at times and places that accommodate dad too.
Men are engaging in online social networks– just look at My Space and Facebook. They are just clicks away from connecting with support so you can only expect I’ll mention Attachment Parenting International’s Forum.

The API Forum does not just welcome fathers but needs fathers. We would love to have a few willing fathers help us moderate and give dads a space to talk. They can support each other with tips from non-violent communication to even engaging in healthy venting about the family bed, challenges they encounter related to primary attachment in the first year, and even the best babywearing product for them. The entire forum is open to fathers who need support or help through all the stages of child development.

I know the majority of readers of this post are women. What else can we mothers do? Perhaps there is an element of awareness we need to create too. We mothers must work harder at seeing some issues from the father’s perspective, since mothers may continue to have the primary family task of bringing parenting information into the home.

Parenting education can also help break the cycle of disconnection but it is also not traditionally the domain of men. API’s new parent education program has an opportunity to clear a new path and connect fathers to information and to each other, and ultimately to their children, not just through a one-shot session but ongoing.

For full disclosure, my AP husband has now over the years read many, many books about the development of children, particularly the adolescent years, including Reviving Ophelia, Teenage Guys, and many others. In fact, he has been very much part of the solution, designing and carrying out a retreat for teenage boys about being a real man that is counter to the culture and providing much needed help to other parents. He’s the one who read and shared Laurence Gonzalez’s article with me.

Dan Gray is Camille, Luke, and Zaiah’s dad and the Coordinator of Youth Ministries for the Holston Conference of the United Methodist Church. Happy Father’s Day to the most wonderful husband and father! Love, Samantha, Camille, Luke and Zaiah.

* Quotes used with permission. Laurence Gonzalez is the author of Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why (www.deepsurvival.com) and the forthcoming (in September) Everyday Survival: Why Smart People Do Stupid Things (www.everydaysurvival.net).