Politics & Current Events
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Re: This is definitely a mommy-war book
My baby weaned on her own to cow's milk, however I cut out the middle of the night nursings before that. (I would have nursed during the day to at least age 2 if she wanted). When I let her demand nurse at night, she would and did wake hourly. Neither of us got any sleep and she was miserable as a result. When I started to limit the night waking to rocking instead of nursing, she was finally able to sleep through the night and wake happy. I've heard the same from a number of other people.)
ETA: "but it's so easy" is one of my hot button issues for AP adherents. So many people I know say that as if having scoliosis and nerve damage from delivery (the reason I can't baby wear) or a baby who wouldn't sleep unless alone were choices I made. At best it is easier for them, but often the most intense AP is only easy because they've arranged their entire lives around it.
As far as I can tell, AP is about doing the things that work for your family. If you can't extended BF, or BF at all, or babywear, that's not the big thing. Assuming those things are the essence of AP is sort of like assuming that somebody is well-off because they drive a nice car.
At its heart, AP is about creating strong attachments in infancy so that the kids as they age know that they have this strong comfortable place to return to... so they'll venture out on their own with confidence.
IME, all the AP-style extended BF'ing parents I know IRL are also really really "free range". The two aren't inconsistent with each other, and, as a matter of fact, many AP people will tell you that free range is the natural extension of what they're doing.
As I said in a previous post, I don't know anybody who nurses "on demand" through toddler-hood. There may be people who do, but I don't know them. Everybody I know is comfortable setting limits and is comfortable with extending those limits in an age-appropriate way.
I am the 99%.
(shortened quote)
And I would argue that "families adopting practices that both promote attachment but that also strike the best balance for the entire family" is what everyone does. I mean, what kind of parent (barring the negligent kind) strives to NOT be connected to their child and to NOT have family balance?
I don't get the entire application of attachment to modern, general parenting.
See this is always what AP people say when someone posts about not being able to breastfeed or something. "it's not about rules Mama!" "It's not about following a perfect guide. It's about balance and love and loving your children and doing what is best for you Mama."
And yet the language of attachment parenting is very anti woman. It's guru is patronizing and dismissive. there are rules, and women monitor each other heavily.
The very term "attachment" parenting implies an opposite. Implies a cold detached warrior woman who leaves her baby in the snow, or works or something.
I argue that it isn't about working at home, or staying at home, or bottle feeding or breastfeeding or slings at all but about setting an impossible standard for motherhood so that we're too buried in self doubt and terror to relax, be present, and be confident mothers raising confident children.
"AP' isn't new. After each of the world wars, parenting literature discussed the dangers of being unattached (literally) to your child. This was basically because women had to leave their jobs when the men came home and all the literature during those war years that implied that jr was going to grow up to be a pedophile if you mothered him too much, so you should surely work and leave him be, was null and void again.
Except that isn't true. Sure, in the Baby Book, Dr. Sears says "if you resent it, change it." But he also goes on to say, "but oh oh oh, keep in mind while you're changing it that letting a baby cry it out will give her brain damage and RAD." Seriously, if that doesn't bring on the mommy guilt, I don't know what does. I totally bought into the AP thing when DS was born. And I ended up so tired and depressed that I thought of hurting myself. And it was then that I realized that this AP crap had turned into neurosis. When he was screaming at me for hours, I would finally put him in his crib and go into my bedroom saying, "fine, just cry it out because whatever I'm doing isn't working for you." And then, while I was lying there, listening to his crying, I would think, "omg, how can I just let him cry? How can I not respond? Does this make me a bad parent? What if he pukes? What if he gets brain damage from too much stress hormones?" Seriously, those are not rational thoughts. Those are irrational thoughts, really irrational thoughts. But Dr. Sears convinced me somehow that if I didn't respond to every little sound, I was not an attached mother who loved her baby. And all his talk of "if you resent it change it" is crap when he tells you in the next sentence that changing it could cause damage. I was on my own. My husband was deployed. And I wanted to hurt myself because I was so exhausted and worn down emotionally and mentally and physically from lack of sleep. And it was at that point, 10 months into my baby's life, that I woke up and realized that Dr. Sears was completely off his freaking rocker. My son cried it out the next day and he's been a fabulous sleeper ever since and he doesn't hate me. In fact, I'm pretty much his favorite person on earth. I'm much more balanced now not doing AP. I'm a happier mom. My kids are happier too. And my daughter has been a better sleeper from the very start because I finally let go of the neurosis that is hardcore AP.
As someone who did not practice any of the traditionally AP principles (I never BFed, I never bedshared, I never wore my DS), I find this to be extremely condescending:
At its heart, AP is about creating strong attachments in infancy so that the kids as they age know that they have this strong comfortable place to return to... so they'll venture out on their own with confidence.
Isn't that what all mothers are striving for even those who don't label themselves AP?
DD #1 passed away in January 2011 at 14 days old due to congenital heart disease
DD#2 lost in January 2012 at 23 weeks due to anhydramnios caused by a placental abruption
This to me is really fascinating. And completely logical given the political attitudes toward women right now.
And also a giant ditto to everything else lanie and iris have said.
Exactly. I could have written this post myself. I was miserable from lack of sleep for most of my daughter's first year, and it made it hard for me to bond with her and have the energy to be a good parent. AP is huge where I live and I know SO many moms who are unhappy with their sleep situation but afraid to change something that is not working because they have basically been told it is selfish and damaging to their child to consider their own sleep needs. One of my Dr. Sears books actually implies that if you don't do AP, your child may end up on drugs or joining a cult. AP preys on mothers' fears and uses pseudo-science to create a facade of legitimacy.
Iris Victoria {9.13.08} Augusto Morgan {4.30.11}
Yeah. The rise of the child centered family model including but not limited to helicopter parenting and a breakdown in the primary relationship (ie: the marriage) is doing nobody any good, least of all the mother.
What if he gets brain damage from too much stress hormones?
OMG. the stress hormones! THE STRESS HORMONES!
If I saw one more homeopathic "dr momma" post about the stress hormones posted on the 0-6 month board when I was there. OMG! OMG! OMG! STRESS HORMONES!
What about MY stress hormones. What about ME? I'm shaking, walking around looking like someone punched me in the face, jittery, unattached, leaking bloody milk from nipples turned hamburger, and I'm supposed to feel badly because I finish a hot shower or put the baby down so I can eat a hot meal in case my sweet baby feels stress hormones? Or, and this is where I admit my horror show as a mother, making up a bottle of formula so my husband can take a night shift and I can get an hour or two of uninterrupted sleep.
I'm supposed to turn my marital bed into "the family bed" despite being terrified I'd roll over on the baby and unable to sleep through her whimpers and whines and hating sleeping with my boob in her mouth. Because if I am perpetually in sync with my infant, she'll never need to know stress. Because that is best for baby mama!
I can't imagine reading his book and not feeling so totally defeated as a parent and patronized as a woman. Talk about stress hormones.
..
Yeah. I can tell you all about stress hormones. But my baby doesn't remember a thing. She's a jolly sweet adorable tot who is very well adjusted, funny, and engaging. I truly hope that one day Josephine just gets to relax as a mom and enjoy her baby. I didn't get to do that. I hope that she puts herself first at least 50% of the time because she knows that a healthy, strong mother means a happier one.
I have to say the level of hostility in some of these posts is kind of freaking me out.
Some questions...
Who's the "guru" of AP? Dr. Sears? Dr. Karp? Dr. Newman? The editorial staff of Mothering magazine? If all you did was read one book, or hear about one person's stuff from a website, you might have one sense of what it is. I see a lot of people practicing all different flavors of AP every day, IRL, and it strikes me that none are as cray-cray as you guys are making it out to be.
Most of my IRL friends bedshare, but they all give it up at some point (my kids are out of my bed
at ages 2 and 5). Many, but not all, nurse into toddlerhood, but all wean (my 5 year old is, but my two year old still nurses down to sleep and for naps, and that's pretty much it, although he woke up at 2 am screaming and it was nice to have something in my quiver to calm him down and get him back to sleep). Most eschew strollers for carriers, but I think that's more because we live in a fairly urban environment. Almost all practice some form of "gentle discipline", though how each handles particular issues varies widely. Homeschoolers and public schoolers. Vaxers and anti-vaxers and delayed schedulers. I only know one mom I'd categorize as a "helocopter" parent, and her son has a list of allergies as long as your arm, some life-threatening, as well as being on the spectrum, so I'm thinking she's entitled.
They'd pretty much all claim to be AP, though.
It's not some monolithic thing, though, that you have to check off seven of the 10 boxes in order to claim. It's a mindset, nothing more.
If you read up on AP and claim to be AP, then fine. If you don't want to claim it as your own, also fine.
...but don't go claiming it's some anti-feminist war on women thing. I'm choosing to do these things, for my own reasons. Yes, I sometimes am uncomfortable relying on my husband for money. But that doesn't mean that I'm not going to continue to do what I do. Financial independence isn't the only thing in the world.
You know, before I quit my job to be a SAHP, I used to be one of those people who would meet strangers and the first conversation - and oftentimes the only conversation - was about work. "What do you do?" had a very different meaning than it does now, and I appreciate the perspective.
We all have our moments where we hate what we're doing, and I'm not going to pretend that I don't. But I think in the big picture, I'm doing what's right for my kids, what's right for my family and (here's the shocker) what's right for me.
I am the 99%.
Yeah, the constant freaking out is one of the reasons I avoid the Bump now that I actually have a kid of my own. It was much less stress-inducing to read about everybody's problems before I had any reason to worry about them myself.
I'm not sure how you can read any of the AP books and then claim that it's about natural choices for the mother. Those books are schlock. Great if you were able to read them and keep the important parts. Great if you naturally meander towards AP tendencies without having read any of the books. None of that takes away from the fact that the people who write books and push for AP are guilty of the attitude derided in the article and what people have been posting about here.
Click me, click me!
AP, that particular movement is absolutely a war on women. Without a doubt.
It has nothing to do with SAH or not staying at home. It has everything to do with boiling down a mothers role to that of a monkey and I find it disturbing on a level I can't quite find words for.
You keep saying bizarre things like "sorry if I'm a SAHM! AND BRINGING DOWN THE MOVEMENT!" What? What are you even talking about? I was raised by a SAHM/feminist. That has nothing to do with the AP movement. Being a stay at home parent has NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING. You were privileged to have a choice and you chose. That's amazing but that has nothing to do with AP.
I have read a lot of AP literature. Mothering.com dr. sears. drmomma, phd in parenting and all of its bizaaroo nonsense is not feminist. I've never read a solid woman centred argument in the lot. I did my thesis on the history of post partum depression and the movement of motherhood literature as a catalyst for more mood disorder. It is veryyyyy interesting to see how we have been manipulated through history.
Personal anecdoates aside, AP is not feminist. Sorry.
I think what bothers me most about all the AP things I've read is the way they dress it up as mom-centric. "You are the mother, you have all the power, no one can soothe, calm, raise, etc your baby better than you can." It all sounds very empowering. But the reality is that it's very limiting, imo. If you're the one responsible for everything going well, then you're the one failing when it doesn't. I'm not sure how that's equal or feminist.
But what do I know? I have mixed feelings whenever feminism is discussed so I'm not a good candidate for determining whether something is feminist or not.
Click me, click me!
Exactly. You can dress it up as empowering. That doesn't make it so.
Being patronizing to men "men don't have instincts like you do mama! You're the best equipped with the breasties mama!" does not make it feminist.
It makes it demeaning.
thanks so much for being uplifting and non-demeaning.
and, with that, I'm done with this thread.
I am the 99%.
I know that many people find the AP mindset to be liberating in a way, particularly people who don't have babies who follow the prescribed trajectory of baby behavior (i.e., those with fussy, colicky babies or those whose babies won't sleep through the night without training). I know that this doesn't address whether AP can be feminist or not, but it does address the posters who questioned how such an invested parenting philosophy could possibly make it easier on moms.
I also find it interesting that the parenting philosophy being lambasted in this thread is quite contrary to the philosophy women prior to the women's movement of the 60s and 70s practiced--the era in which "cold mothers caused autism and overbearing mothers made their sons gay." According that school of thought, male doctors knew how to parent better than mothers did. It just seems like moms can never win, no matter what they do.
AP literature is anti feminist absolutely.
Yeah, just to be clear, I don't find AP parents to be antifeminist. I certainly wouldn't call mominatrix an anti-feminist.
But all the books I've read are and all of the professional advice givers on AP are as well.
Click me, click me!
I'm not sure if I am hostile, but I have a problem with the implications that you are screwing your child up for life if you don't do AP (e.g. Dr. Sears). Or that if you are unhappy from sleep-deprivation, it is your fault and you should just learn to think like a hunter-gatherer because they are raising babies the right way (Our Babies, Ourselves). Or that letting your child cry to sleep train them is selfish and horrible (a columnist from my local parenting magazine). Most of the AP literature I have read tells mothers, either implicitly or explicitly, that if they don't follow its principles, they are selfish and emotionally abandoning their child. And then they misuse science to bolster their ideology. Natural parenting advocates often create a Noble Savage parenting mythology around hunter-gatherers, for example, but take their parenting and birth practices completely out of context and omit anything that does not suit their message. Or they point to studies of children in orphanages as evidence that CIO is harmful, as if there is any comparison between a chronically neglected, institutionalized child and one who has loving parents and cries at bedtime one week out of their life.
And I am a SAHM who has bed-shared and cloth diapered and worn her babies. I breastfed my daughter for over two years and I will probably nurse my son for another year. I had a home VBAC and buried my placenta in the yard. I am not opposed to crunchy stuff by any means. But a parenting belief that essentially tells mothers to sacrifice everything in pursuit of "attachment" strips women of their identity as whole complex beings and reduces them to one role, one defined in relation to others. So yes, I think that is anti-feminist.
Iris Victoria {9.13.08} Augusto Morgan {4.30.11}
And I am a SAHM who has bed-shared and cloth diapered and worn her babies. I breastfed my daughter for over two years and I will probably nurse my son for another year. I had a home VBAC and buried my placenta in the yard. I am not opposed to crunchy stuff by any means. But a parenting belief that essentially tells mothers to sacrifice everything in pursuit of "attachment" strips women of their identity as whole complex beings and reduces them to one role, one defined in relation to others. So yes, I think that is anti-feminist.
Yes to all this. I'm pretty crunchy, super liberal etc... but am horrified by the literature of AP.
then say it's the literature that p!sses you off, not that "AP is anti-feminist", which you said over and over again.
there's some total bullschitte in the literature, but that doesn't mean that the practice of it is some crazy reactionary anti-woman crap, as you're making it out to be.
I am the 99%.
Funny, no one makes that distinction when it comes to the GOP vs conservatives/republicans.
But seriously, that's where the AP movement began, with the literature. So let's not pretend that the books, articles, and advice columns that are the core of AP are some kind of fringe movement that has little impact on the people who are drawn to AP or are looking for help with parenting.
Click me, click me!
Sadly I think this is not a chicken/egg scenario. Women are drawn to patronizing dribble and believe it. It scares them, manipulates them and causes a reaction. That's why you have boards of women side eyeing women with bjorns.
You can't have one without the other. The literature IS the movement.
::strokes hindsights hair and taps nose::