I have delayed my posting on this overblown topic that has been stemmed from the recent Time magazine article on attachment parenting, but I have had enough. First and foremost I am offended by the photo used in the cover of the magazine, especially as a mother who supports breastfeeding. The picture is not of a nurturing mother/child nursing session, but one of a child that looks way older than three disinterestedly clinging on to his mother's breast. This picture conjures up all those stigmas about breastfeeding that us Americans fear, just making it harder for those of us who struggle to find comfort in nursing in public, hiding in fear that someone may get 'offended'. I can confidently say that there were many, many times that I either hid in the blazing heat in the back of a parking lot in my car or didn't leave my house at all or so that I didn't have to find somewhere to nurse my infant in a public venue. Why should I have to hide in the corner at a party so that no one sees my breastfeeding? Thanks Time magazine for reminding the public that breastfeeding is "gross" so that I will once again have to hide with my newborn come fall.
The shock of the picture was designed to draw you inside to read the borderline lunatic rants of a one Dr. Sears' ('The man who remade motherhood'--Time) theories on attachment parenting. Being a young parent of today, I can say that many of you out there support these ideals, and some of which I can agree make sense when it comes to learning to parent, but they are no help to you when your child is 9. Will your tween still be in bed with you? Can you wear your 5 year old to his first day of kindergarten? I return to my failed attempts at finding a book on parenting that will help me in these tender formative years, and how frustrating it has been for me to find one that is a fit with my family's ideals. Becoming a parent is one of the most difficult trades to learn, yet I think that we are forgetting that centuries of parents have done it without extreme guides and maps of how to nurture an infant, and relied on our COMMON SENSE. Sure authors such as Dr. Sears, Dr. Karp, Dr. Ferber, etc. all have books out there for sleep deprived, frustrated, and clueless new parents out there, designed for us to adopt these methods of preparing our babies for that tough world out there. I have not gotten to the books for older children yet, so I do not see how the methods of not letting or letting your child 'cry it out' will have much impact on their dodgy middle school years. In my opinion, these books are too short sighted and try to take the big picture into mind, and neglect that a happy family is what ultimately creates a cohesive, supportive unit that nurtures the growth of children. In many ways a family bed is worse for a family in that it can destroy the husband/wife union, therefore causing a fission in a marriage, which has way more of a determining factor in how safe a child feels in a house that is full of that kind of marital tension. Coming from a background in social work, psychology, and family studies I meticulously studied the stages that we go through via Piaget, Erikson, and Freud and I definitely saw how one is raised truly effects how you will turn out as an adult. Yet, the determining factor of those who suffered in their older years where those babies who were neglected, abused, starved, or ignored in those first stages. Not the babies whose parents used common sense to raise them. Take care of their basic needs, yet foster a sense of independence, and remain within grasp for coaching if they need your help. That is what you want in your child as an adult, right? Or have we forgotten that getting our babies to adulthood is the goal?
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