Parenting, Unplugged
Attachment Parenting
Sleeping In-Arms and Slung
Feeding "Discipline" and Guidance Tantrums! SIDS | Attachment parenting, or AP, has become a fashion in the Western culture. The oldest style of parenting, and the one still used by a large percentage of the world has hit our shores and at least for now, we kinda dig it. In our culture, “normal” are prams, cots/cribs, bottles and all kinds of contraptions that keep baby at a distance. Now, we are starting to embrace the humble sling, and tentatively bringing our babies to bed with us... even if that is just to grab a couple more precious hours of sleep.
Rarely, we do it simply because we are freethinkers and for no other reason we feel this is instinctively right. Usually, however, this is a learned thing, an adult "de-schooling" of sorts. We take these practices from smaller, largely untouched communities and cultures, such as those found in the Amazon, the hills of India and Africa. We do it because the evidence keeps mounting: they are happier more peaceful people, and their kids are better adjusted and a lot less hassle. We learn that in a lot of these cultures the babies hardly cry at all. This is such shocking information to our ears (ringing from the screams of babes across the nation), that we react in many strange ways. We hear people say that it can't be entirely right, that the reports must be biased, stretched or in some other way false because it simply couldn't be true.
That's our reaction for the most part, we simply cannot believe it. So we decide (without any experience or evidence of our own for doing so) that it is probably sort of true, maybe the babies cry a bit, just not as much as ours. We're happy with that, we rest safely there, it is less threatening.
At the back of our struggling parental mind, however, the truth sits stubbornly, eating our sense of peace away like rust on a tin roof. Each cry of our babe pushing all our guilt buttons, and we can react in tears, anger, and depression.
Then comes further disillusionment. Not only does a well-held, breastfed, co-sleeping baby still cry, but he doesn't seem to cry any less than any other baby. Where's my freakin' warranty? This investment sucks. Or so we think. After arguing with our relatives that our kids were going to be angels cos we treated them biologically right, we now have to sit in a puddle of excuses or embarrassment as we try to figure out how much more we can personally sacrifice to deliver this blissful person we were promised. |
Sometimes we spiral down. It isn't uncommon
to hear of women feeding every hour throughout the first year or
longer of a baby's life. Exhausted, we sling, we give, we go further
than most parents ever have in history because there is a problem in
the equation that is unique to us, unique to this era of time, and unique to our cultural conditions: We are modern women. We have more expectations. We don't live in the jungle.
We are “modern mothers raising Stone Age babies” - Jan Hunt
We don't have the community infrastructure to pull it off without losing and sacrificing incredibly, and parenting was NOT meant to be like that, no matter how many AP gurus tell you it is. If you are privileged to visit an untouched culture (untouched by Western morals and code), you will note that parenting isn't a struggle. Not only are they the Goddesses of AP, but they don't seem to be tired, depressed, resentful or in anyway like the average Western mother.
Let's look at why: 
They get to sleep while friends and relatives take the baby.
They have “shareholders” in the form of children and family who take the baby for long lengths of time and bring her back for feedings.
They have empathic and emotional support, constantly, not just once a week at a playgroup.
They are not isolated in a nuclear household but are instead cooking, chopping, laughing, singing with women in much the same situation as themselves.
Nothing more is expected of them other than to do what they are doing.
They do not have needs or desires that outweigh their current capabilities. They do not suffer with the “want of something more”.
Their partners are almost always available, as they schedule their day as they please.
There is little distinction between work and play.
The parents themselves have no baggage, they were reared in close proximity to their own kin, always held, never sleeping alone – the perfect recipe for self-esteem.
How many of those can you check off? For us, especially these days, mothers work whether they need to or not, we have mass child care at younger and younger ages, we are expected to be all things to all people including a sexy wife, a fun friend, a communicable child, an ambitious employee, a willing student, a compassionate community member and an always available, stress free, loving, cookie baking parent.
So how can we meet our ideal half way, or even further, without going bonkers or moving to the jungle - or both, God help us? I believe it is a complete psychological transformation, personally. I don't think I've ever seen it done in a Western family without that ingredient. This transformation, or overhaul, is largely accepting that you are not the teacher, you are the student. You are both sides of all coins, parent and child, giver and taker, nurturing and nurtured, mature and immature. The minute we try to enforce, rule, assume, dictate - when we insist we have all the answers and the child is simply a receptacle to dump our omnipotent wisdom - the moment we do this is the moment the struggle starts.
Western AP can be categorised but only for ease of... well... categorising things. Instinctual, or natural parenting has no such seams, holding the baby bleeds into sleeping with or near the baby bleeds into breastfeeding bleeds into parent/child bond that leads to heightened awareness of your child's needs. It all goes together, one does not come before the other and one is not more important than another. AP is exactly that - attached, together, WITH. Unplugged from isolating cultural norms. Whether asleep or awake, you are right there, attending to your child's needs - and this means you already realise that the need for you to simply be there is the biggest need of all.
