I have to sing the praises of letting your kids get dirty. I mean really filthy, covered from head to toe with muddy, wet, slippery glop. I, like many parents I know have a house too full of every cool, interesting, and trendy toy available. And yesterday my five year old said, “I’m bored.” Hmm, I thought I could get angry and tell her she’s ungrateful for all her toys or I could listen to her and think: what playtime do I remember the most? What did I spend hour after hour doing with great concentration and glee? Hose, dirt, bucket: endless joy.
So this afternoon we headed to the back yard. There were fresh piles of soil dumped around the yard from a landscaping project in progress. My girls ran to the piles and sunk their hands into the soft fresh dirt. No directions, no right way to play, do predetermined story line. They were so excited. One grabbed a leaf and started burying her treasure. The other made pile after pile and then pushed them down patting the dirt with hard satisfying slaps. And then they asked for the hose . . . we got a bucket and started making the most slathery gooey “soup” in the world. They mixed and molded the mud plunging their hands into the muck with abandon. Then my five year old started rubbing her body with mud singing a made up song. She was covered, arms, legs and most of her clothes. Such freedom, such a tactile experience.
I noticed it was going to be time to go inside in about twenty minutes and thought about how to maybe get some of the caked on mud off in a fun way. Onto the swings! They swung and I sprayed their feet as they passed. Then legs and arms were offered. They were soaking, soaring and shrieking with each spray of the hose.
We peeled off muddy clothes in the laundry room and trooped upstairs for a bath. As we lay in bed saying goodnight my five year old said, “I’m going to play in the mud tomorrow!” “Yea!” said her little sister and they drifted off to sleep.
We are thrilled to feature a guest post by Peggy O’Mara, mother, author, editor and owner of Mothering magazine. Here, she explores the foundations and history of Attachment Parenting, showing how AP became what it is today.
What is Attachment Parenting?
by Peggy O’Mara
flickr/happykatie
The recent furor in the press over attachment parenting stems from an inherent misunderstanding. Attachment parenting is not permissive parenting. It is not about abdicating authority as a parent, but about responding to the legitimate biological needs of a baby. It is firmly based in the sciences of anthropology and psychology and specifically on the theory of attachment.
THE THEORY OF ATTACHMENT
The theory of attachment originated with psychoanalyst John Bowlby (1907-1990) whose influential 1951 report to the World Health Organization set the first standard for infant and child care:
“The infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate and continuous relationship with his mother (or permanent mother substitute) in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment.”
Bowlby and others identified the first three years of life as a critical period during which the foundation is set for attachment to self and others. Qualities secured during this period include: trust, empathy, dependency, affection, conscience and optimism. According to Maggie Scharf in Unfinished Business (Ballantine: 1981)
“The ancients well knew that the experience of being in love recapitulates the mother-child relationship in its intimate physical attachment, trust and dependency. It has been shown even in the animal realm that adequate sexual functioning in adulthood depends on satisfactory relations with the mother in infancy.”
LOOKING FOR SCIENTIFIC SUPPORT
When breastfeeding rates doubled between 1972 and 1982, mothers were looking for ways to reconcile the needs of their babies with the popular wisdom of the day. Breastfeeding moms were finding, for example, that their babies wanted to be held a lot while popular wisdom warned that holding was spoiling. Attachment theory reassured these early breastfeeding pioneers that touching and holding were good for babies.
John Bowlby, for example, observed during WWI that babies in orphanages died if they were neither touched or talked to.
Eric Ericksen identified the first year of life as a stage during which we learn to have faith in other people and in the environment. During this time of total dependency, if we receive adequate physical care that is warm, loving and demonstrative, we will learn to trust. On the other hand, if our care is cold, indifferent and rejecting we will learn to mistrust.
Margaret Mead, whose seminal book Coming of Age in Samoa (1928) informed the sexual revolution, observed in her field studies as an anthropologist that the most violent tribes were those that withheld touch in infancy.
Bowlby’s colleague, Mary Ainsworth, was a medical researcher who observed that the indulgence of early dependency needs leads to independence and self-reliance. According to Ainsworth, it is the sensitive responsiveness of the mother that enables the child to explore the environment.
Adult social behavior is related to early experiences in significant ways, according to neurologist Richard Restak. Restak says:
“Physical holding and carrying of the infant turns out to be the most important factor responsible for the infant’s normal mental and social development”
THE CONTINUUM CONCEPT
Further evidence that touch is good for babies came in 1975, from Jean Leidloff’s book The Continuum Concept. In the international best seller, Leidloff describes her expedition to the South American jungle, where she observed the way of life of indigenous natives.
She noticed, for example, that the mothers maintain nearly 24-hour-a-day bodily contact with their young infants, as they go about their daily tasks. Leidloff also observed that the native children are unusually self-possessed and secure and concluded that close physical contact in infancy is beneficial.
DR. BILL SEARS
While doing research for his book The Fussy Baby, Bill Sears, MD, discovered that the more babies were carried, the less they cried. He also found that carrying babies eases breastfeeding and high-need situations.
Sears tells the story of how his wife, Martha, instinctively tried to fashion a baby carrier from a piece of cloth in order to soothe one of their babies. Sears went on to design a baby carrier of his own, The Original Baby Sling.
In response to concerns that holding your baby can lead to an overly dependent child, Sears says that it’s the opposite:
“On the contrary, in our experience and that of others, carried babies actually turn out to be more secure and more independent. Because they have grown through early infancy with a secure home base, these children learn to separate more easily than others and with little separation anxiety.”
ATTACHMENT PARENTING, INTERNATIONAL
Sears published his book, The Fussy Baby, with La Leche League (LLL) in 1985, at a time when he was the most well known of LLL’s physician supporters. He is widely credited with coining the term attachment parenting and wrote a book on the subject in 2001. But, Dr. Sears did not invent attachment parenting.
Two young La Leche League Leaders, Barbara Nicholson and Lysa Parker, were influenced by Dr. Sears and fascinated with attachment theory. In 1987, they heard psychiatrist Elliott T. Barker give a keynote address on “The Critical Importance of Mothering” in which he linked adult psychopathic behavior to extreme disruptions in attachment.
As Nicholson and Parker became increasingly steeped in research on the critical attachment period, they wanted to educate others, and, in 1995 they formed Attachment Parenting International (API).
API’s “principal goal is to heighten global awareness of the profound significance of secure attachment” through education, support and advocacy.
Breastfeeding, co-sleeping, and baby wearing all foster secure attachment because they respond to the baby’s need to be touched and held.
But these are not the practices of attachment parenting and attachment parenting itself is not a practice. It is a philosophy.
There are no rules to Attachment Parenting. It’s simply about acknowledging the legitimate needs of the human baby and trying to meet them as best one can.
JUST INFORMATION
While the roots of attachment parenting are in ancient tribal society and modern science, attachment parenting has no script. It’s about trusting the baby and being responsive. It’s practical and personal. It’s not a contest. It’s just information.
Peggy O’Mara founded Mothering.com in 1995 and is currently its editor-in chief. She was the editor and publisher of Mothering Magazine from 1980 to 2011. The author of Having a Baby Naturally; Natural Family Living; The Way Back Home; and A Quiet Place, Peggy has lectured and conducted workshops at Omega Institute, Esalen, La Leche League International, and Bioneers. She is the mother of four.
If you survey mainstream Western baby-care advice from the past two centuries, you’ll see a common theme: the perception that babies are wild beings who need to be tamed in order to be incorporated into family life.
The concept of “otherness” is familiar in the history of humankind – it’s a driving force behind the identification of the great family of people into distinct races, nationalities, religions, etc. While what makes us different is cause for learning and celebration, fear often prevails, and what’s different can be seen as a threat.
What happens when we see the baby as the “other”? Practices like seeking to tame the baby’s needs by delaying physical contact, feedings, and sleep. An effort to distance oneself from the child so as not to identify with him and be manipulated by him. Sadly, these practices, which begin at a time when the need for bonding (not just the baby’s, but equally important – the caretaker’s) is so crucial, can set up a family for a lifetime of “otherness” whether in subtle or more obvious ways.
On the flip side, what happens when we begin to view our babies as our teachers? After all, our babies are most in touch with their individual needs and temperaments, and know how best to meet their physical and emotional needs.
When we view our babies as our teachers, we allow ourselves to experience the world as students, whether having our first baby or our tenth. We can be fully in the moment, not judging our babies but flowing with them. We open our eyes and hearts to subtle cues we might otherwise miss. We lay a solid foundation for our relationship with our children, which allows for deeper levels of connection and intuition.
For me, attachment parenting was the path that allowed me to see my baby as my teacher, and not the other way around. Every day I gain greater insight about my own limitations, and use my reverence for my daughter to stretch myself, so that I can be the mother she deserves.
As adults, we’ve all experienced a language barrier at some point or another. You try and try to understand each other, but for some reason, your wires keep crossing. Depending on what the goal was, you may have just given up, politely disappointed, or angrily thrown your hands up in frustration.
Now, consider preverbal babies and toddlers. Imagine having a language barrier when you can’t do much for yourself.
It takes a while for babies to learn how to express that they’re tired, hungry, dirty, wanting a hug, or upset because big brother took away a toy. Until they can do that, we have to expect the occasional emotional outburst.
I embedded a video that I think shows exactly what’s happening when children are having a hard time communicating. I was recording my daughter, hoping to catch her new word and baby sign for “more.” I also happened to catch her doing something pretty remarkable. Watch the change from frustration from being unable to get her idea across, to complete calm and control.
She starts getting frustrated, she screams and is about to cry, until I remind her how to ask for more grapes. The moment she realizes she can effectively communicate what she wants, the panic goes away and she calmly asks for “more.”
I didn’t catch the part where I gave her the grapes she asked for – she giggled at her success!
It’s easy for us to get frustrated and short when our children throw tantrums. It takes effort to quiet those negative feelings, and instead try to figure out what the child needs. But it’s our job as parents to try as best as we can to understand them, especially when they don’t yet have much language to work with.
In my experience, Attachment Parenting has helped us in the communication department. Our kids’ father and I use the earliest weeks to really get to know the baby, so that we can start to understand cries and cues that will help our baby tell us what she needs. Throughout the early years we use plenty of interaction and play to keep those nonverbal lines of communication wide open. (We’re still in the early years, so I can’t comment much beyond right now!)
We may miss the mark from time to time, but nobody’s perfect. We’re all doing our best.
I cannot underscore the importance of a supportive spouse, partner, or mother’s helper when you’re a work-from-home parent of a mobile baby or preverbal toddler.
Just this week, my seven-month-old son has learned to climb the few steps between the family room, where my office is located, and the kitchen. I had hoped the steps would serve as a barrier between the two rooms for a little while longer, since the gap is too wide for a baby gate. After all, he wasn’t even rolling over consistently only a month ago. In just the last four weeks, he not only learned how to roll over but also how to scoot, sit up, and pull himself to a standing position. I’m envisioning him leaping off the couch in a couple months. I hope I’m not right.
As such, I’m finding it a little difficult to do certain types of projects without a second person keeping track of the baby – projects that require deep thought for more than the couple minutes it takes for my baby to cross the room and scale the steps before I need to get up to fetch him. Understandably, his five- and four-year-old sisters do not want this responsibility – and they shouldn’t have to, anyway – although I am grateful when they play in the family room, as the baby stays put when his sisters are near.
So, these projects have been relegated to mostly overnight hours, when baby is asleep, or when my husband is home. Certainly, my husband can’t be on danger watch every moment he’s home, as he needs to do things like mow the yard and work on the cars, so I try to work it out with him a couple days in advance so he can adjust his to-do list for the week. But as a parent, he does share the responsibility.
It doesn’t mean your spouse or partner isn’t being reasonable if he or she doesn’t want to watch the kids while you work every night. It’s one of those things you have to work out. For some families, it works out better to hire a mother’s helper than to rely on a spouse or partner, just because they’re so tired after a long day’s work themselves. But that might make you feel resentful. Both of you need to voice your expectations and concerns regarding your work-home situation, and find a solution that works for both of you.
When my girls were young, being only a year apart, I hired a mother’s helper during the day, as working with two babies at home is a bigger deal than with one baby. Or maybe, I think it’s easier now because I’ve finally got the hang of it? Either way, I found a mother’s helper to be critical when I was working on tough projects. I requested a mother’s helper – usually my mom, although I have a grandmotherly neighbor and a teen from church who also like the job – as needed, and basically she served the purpose of an extra pair of eyes. I still cuddled with my kids, fed them, and changed their diapers, but when I needed an extra minute to finish my thought, my mother’s helper would fill in the gap. She would also prepare meals, throw in the laundry, pick up the toys, and do other odds-and-ends so that when I took a break from the project, I could spend it giving undivided attention to my kids rather than on some chore. While she was here, my babies were always in the same room with me.
I know some work-from-home parents who do use a nanny or babysitter or put their children in daycare while they work, and that’s OK. I also know of some single parents who are able to work from home without hiring help. That’s amazing! But, it doesn’t mean you’re any less of a parent if you do need an extra pair of eyes, or hands. A mother’s helper, or at least help from your parenting partner, may be just what you need to balance work with home while keeping your attachment bond as a priority.
My older son was 2 years and 8 months old when his little brother was born. I’d agonized for a long time about child spacing, and was worried about how Sol (my first born) would handle the addition to the family. We’re 3 months into being a family of 4 and I’ve learned a lot that has made the transition much smoother than I expected. So I’d like to share a little list of things I wish I’d known before baby Ezra was born. (With some pictures of the new brothers thrown in for good measure.) A lot of these might be obvious, but they weren’t to me, and have helped maintain peace in our house!
1. Talk about the new baby a lot before they are born! Around the time I really started showing and going to midwife appointments more often (probably around 28 weeks) we started reading a book that lined up with what our little guy was going to experience. We planned to deliver in the hospital and to breastfeed. There are lots of great books out there for families planning to homebirth, too! We also made sure to choose an age appropriate book. We changed the name of the baby in the book to Ezra and read that thing Every. Single. Day. We talked about family members and friends who had recently had babies, pointed out little babies in the grocery store, and watched videos online of babies cooing and nursing and sleeping. When the day came for Ezra to be born I had labored most of the night and knew we’d be going to the hospital sometime that day. We told Sol it was time for Ezra to be born and he got to pack his bag for his Aunt’s house. He remembered that we were going to the hospital and that we would call him when Ezra was born. He knew he would get to play with his cousins and eat cookies and have a sleepover. And he knew that we’d ‘Be right back. Sol hold baby Ezra.’
2. Let the older sibling help with the baby. At first I didn’t really want Sol to help hold Ezra, or help change his diaper, or help give him a bath. I was worried he would hurt him on accident. I also wanted him to just enjoy his brother, not do the ‘work’ part of having a baby in the house. Then I realized that ‘helping’ with the baby was very meaningful for Sol. It made him feel proud of himself and more connected to Ezra. It also helped him do something WITH mommy, instead of mommy doing even more without him. So I made it work. It took a little extra effort and patience, but it was worth it. I taught Sol where our cloth diaper stash is and let him bring me one every time he wanted to. I moved from a rocking chair to the couch for nursing the baby, so that Sol could sit right there with us. We practiced bouncing Ezra together in his bouncy seat and talked about how babies only like to be bounced gently and not too fast. I let Sol get in the tub with me and the baby and wash him gently with a cloth. And now he is such a great big brother. He tells people who come up to see the new baby to ‘Only touch him gently!” And as soon as Ezra so much as makes a fussy sounding peep Sol runs to find my nursing pillow. I don’t require him to do anything, but his natural expression of love and interest in the new baby is to help.
3. Put your older child higher on your ‘to do’ list. My first thoughts when Ezra would go down for a nap went a little something like this: “Okay, I need to get the laundry switched or we are going to run out of diaper inserts in the middle of the night. I’ve got to get online for a few minutes and pay that bill. And then I need to make a grocery list so hubby can go to the store for me tonight. And then I need to sit down and drink a big glass of water. Oh! I should probably call my mom, too, she needs an update on the baby.” Sol would have been occupying himself so beautifully and using his words all day instead of melting down and I would totally skip over him when I had a baby-free minute! He was being so great, that it was easy to just let him keep doing his thing. But I found that this ended in disaster for Sol in the end. He would run out of patience, get angry at Ezra for monopolizing mom, and act out to get the attention he really needed. So now whenever Ezra goes down for a nap the first thing I do is something with Sol. We sit and read some books. We wrestle for awhile. We get out the paint and get messy. We make banana bread together to surprise Dad when he gets home from work. Sometimes we just sit together on the porch and watch the cars go by. I am never going to look back on these years with two young children and say “Man, I wish I had kept up with the laundry better.”
4. Get out of the house! When Ezra was born I had pretty much everything I needed. I had kept Sol’s baby clothes and diapers, my sister in law had handed down her bassinet, etc. So instead of buying me more baby stuff I didn’t really need, my mom bought us a big sandbox and sand toys. She set it up when she came to visit after Ezra was born. That thing has been such a life saver! After Sol’s nap we go out there and he plays with his trucks and buckets in the sand and I put Ezra in the bouncy seat in the shade right by us. Sometimes I pretend to make a sand pizza and gobble it up with Solomon, sometimes I sit quietly and guzzle an ice water, and sometimes I even (gasp!) make a phone call. Some days we walk over to a little park by our house. I put Ezra in the sling and let Sol go wild with the other kids. We have a snack and look at bugs and Ezra sleeps through the whole thing. Getting out of the house makes the day go faster, preserving my patience and sanity, and it also gets us fresh air and a little exercise.
5. Date your older kid. Solomon and I have started doing swim lessons twice a week. It’s just a little half-hour parent-toddler class at our local rec center, nothing expensive or intense. Basically just play time in the pool while teaching basic swimming skills like blowing bubbles. I leave Dad and Ezra at home, and sometimes Sol and I even grab an ice cream cone after. I nurse Ezra right before we go and he usually sleeps for a couple hours. So Sol and I get some giggly one-on-one time, Dad gets some much needed time alone to check football recruiting news, and Ezra doesn’t even notice. My husband, Levi has been taking Sol out to his favorite park for an hour or two on Sunday mornings. They dig in the sand and get nice a tuckered out for a good long nap. Sol loves the time with just Dad and no baby. I love the leisure of reading a book 30 minutes IN A ROW! And everyone is much happier for it.
6. Find time for yourself. This is linked to #5 somewhat. You are filling up the love-cups of two little people now. You need time to recharge. You need time to stare at Pinterest mindlessly. You need to meet up with a friend sans kids for a smoothie. I was totally amazed at what a half an hour trip to the coffee shop with a good book did for my energy and outlook on life. Even if your partner or a friend can just take the kids to play in the back yard for half an hour. It is necessary for your sanity!
I know all you parents out there of more than one kiddo have some stellar advice and ideas, too! Enlighten me! How did you make the transition from 1 to 2 or from 2 to 3 easier? How do you make time for a special one-on-one with your older kids? Will it get easier or harder as “baby Ezra” turns into “walker Ezra” turns into “3 year old Ezra”?
Everyone loves babies. We’re programmed to. It’s biological: A 2008 research study at Baylor showed that the happiness centers in our brains light up when we see a baby smiling at us.
Conversely, a 2012 study at Aarhus University showed that a baby’s cry elicits a unique, lightning-fast response in his parents to soothe the baby. We want that crying to stop. We’re wired that way.
So, it’s puzzling why there seems to be a surge of entertainment centered on crying children, particularly infants. The quiver of the lip, the shaking of the chin, the miniature pout, the glistening tears. Apparently, it’s quite adorable. And as the child grows and those crying sessions become tantrums, these big reactions can seem downright hilarious to a lot of people. “You’re having a fit about what?!”
Making sport of crying babies – from Parenting.com’s “They’re mad, they’re sad, they’re so darn cute!” crying baby pictures to YouTube’s swarms of “cute baby crying” videos to talk show host Jimmy Kimmel’s challenge to parents to feign eating all their child’s Halloween candy to Japan’s crying babies festival (what!?) – seems to be taking this fixation with baby cuteness one step too far.
What ever happened to adoring a baby’s tiny toes or fingernails or curls? Or, celebrating a baby’s first steps or raucous laughter at a mom blowing her nose? And why are we oohing and ahhing and laughing at a baby crying rather than grimacing and imagining how we can soothe her? Why don’t these videos and photos make us more uncomfortable than they do, ringing our psychological bells to come to her rescue?
I’ve never found my baby’s crying anything different than distressing. I can definitely identify with that lightning-fast response time. Where’s the milk? Need a diaper change? Kiss the boo-boo. No, you can’t play with the scissors but here’s a ball to look at. And of course, my lap and arms are always open to comfort.
But I admit it, there have been a couple times when my six-year-old daughter’s meltdowns bordered on funny or when my four-year-old makes a comment that almost makes me smile. Almost – because in the middle of a little person’s over-the-top outburst, when he’s feeling so misunderstood, so denied, so frustrated, angry, sad, out of control of his world, is when the parent needs to strive to empathize with his child and to stay attuned. Attunement is impossible if we’re not allowing ourselves to get down to her level to understand her emotionality because we’re too busy seeing the situation through adult eyes, which invariably looks silly or completely unreasonable from our level.
And that’s the point: children are not on an adult level, so what we find silly or alternately adorable, they find devastating. And what we adults get upset over – getting our bills paid, taking an afternoon nap, eating broccoli – our children don’t see what the big deal is. Does that mean what adults care about isn’t important? Of course not. But don’t try flipping that around and saying that just because we adults don’t think a toy car is anything to be flailing around on the supermarket floor for, doesn’t mean that it’s not important to a child. And while some of us might find the scene of a complete meltdown somewhat, or totally, hilarious, it certainly isn’t to that child.
Children can’t fathom that their anger and sadness – their emotional pain – is funny or adorable. And expressing this, even privately within our minds, is disrespectful to our children. It comes back to talking the talk and walking the walk. We want to be respected for our needs and wants, so we need to live in a way that is respectful and that teaches our children to be respectful.
So today, was ‘the talk’ with my dearest Larissa, age 7. Not the sex talk – the Santa talk. Never in my life have I experienced something quite like that. This morning we were running around, barely on time for school and Larissa asked me, “Mom, I wondered who hired Santa? Who was the first one?”
The moment struck me, and I sat down to begin the conversation. I had known it was coming but my mind was whirling as responding with sensitivity took on a whole new meaning. I wanted to be honest and truthful but could I do that without crushing her, without being totally honest? Could I lie? No… but it was a passing thought. I stopped beating around the bush and jumped in full throttle into what felt right. The conversation unfolded something like this…
“Well I believe in all kinds magic: the magic of Santa, of your dreams, of fairytales, of God, of Christmas, feeling good when you do the right thing. Santa is just a representation of all that magic. But not in the way that kids usually think about magic. The magic of fairytales coming true is real to me because I married your dad and we live the fairytale every single day. However, in a real-life, fairytales you have to clean toilets, you make mistakes, you are sometimes late for school (like today).
There are 2 groups of people in the world. Both believe in magic but in different ways. The younger group believes in the kid-friendly kind of magic because of the older group. Once you are mature enough and you have this once-in-a-lifetime conversation, YOU become the one responsible for carrying the magic of life, onto the first group, onto your sisters and someday your kids.”
“You mean I get to BE the magic?” she asked.
“YES! “
Larissa lit up, her face turned red, and I thought she was going to cry from disappointment. But after a moment, she looked at me about to bust with happiness. She hugged me and said, “Mom, you are my magic!” I cried of course and said that magic is a giant wheel of belief.
I was scared that Larissa was going to be totally devastated or angry but her reaction shocked and touched me. I have never seen her so full of joy and happiness in all my life. She did say that she was a little disappointed but she was so excited to be given the responsibility of passing the magic around. She was just busting with actual pure euphoria.
You know, when you become a mom, ALL the work you put in gets eventually rewarded. In toddlerhood, the reward comes when your child finally shares a toy that ONE time as a sign of compassion to another crying child. Oh, man that sense of pride is nothing compared to when they get older. The moment when you know you must be doing at least an alright job of mothering because they show such compassion and maturity. This was that moment for me as I have never known.
When I sat down that day I would have I honestly would have preferred the sex talk, at least that I had thought about and prepared for those conversations. I thought I was being a murderer of magic for her, but really I just made it grow.
I cannot underscore the importance of a supportive spouse, partner, or mother’s helper when you’re a work-from-home parent of a mobile baby or preverbal toddler.
