Late to the Party...

So, did ya see the Time magazine cover that was such a big, fat hairy deal last week? Yeah, me too. If the internet is to believed, you were either appalled and shocked by the nudity, worried about the child, saying 'right on, Jamie Lynne,' or like me, you were too busy actually parenting a toddler to have a knee-jerk reaction to the thing. (See here for a pretty good summary of people's reactions. They also reproduce the image if you live under a rock (but have wifi or 4G) and haven't seen it.)

I do take issue with the article and the cover, but for a very focused set of reasons, and here they are:

1. The 3-year-old on the cover will be 13 one day. While I actually do think that it is his mom's absolute right to breastfeed him as long as they are both comfortable with it, I imagine his future friends (and classmates and bullies) will google him someday and find this picture. He may not be as confident as his mom in defending the practice of 'extended breastfeeding.'
2. Now, keep in mind that the Bug weaned herself at 17 months, so it might be different with an older toddler, but that cover image has very little to do with what I think is the actual experience of nursing a toddler. Thing the first: what stay-at-home mom of two toddlers looks that put together? I mean good for her, but I'm lucky my shoes match today. Thing the second: When the Bug was still nursing after breast milk was her primary food source, it was largely about cuddling and comfort and not so much about her nutrition; she had waffles and pasta and cow milk for calories, she had mama for feeling safe and loved... so our nursing sessions were generally quiet, darker affairs, and not the sort of drive-thru nursing depicted in this image. If anything, that is more like what nursing was like when she was in the 6-9 months-old range, when she nursed because she was hungry, but couldn't be bothered to lay down for it. And I will fight anyone who says 6-9 months is too old. 
3. The article (and surrounding and related content both in the print and online editions) characterizes a battle between parenting styles that has not seemed to exist for me. I was confident enough our parenting choices to ignore criticism as a general rule, and if another family picks a different path, I'm not sure how that hurts me.* Maybe I'm still a Gamma Girl at heart, but I really don't care what people think of me enough for this to hurt me.
4. The cover, through this intentionally inflammatory image, places the focus on its discussion of 'extended' breast feeding, which is one of the eight (although Time only named three) principles of Attachment Parenting, and it really isn't the most important one. In fact, Attachment Parenting International names this principle 'Feed with Love and Respect,' which sounds pretty acceptable. Because while Grumet, the cover model, was able to breast feed her adopted son, many women aren't in the advantageous situation she was for this, many adoptive parents can't or don't but still practice the other AP principles. By making such a strong statement about the breast feeding issue, the discussion largely sidesteps issues such as gentle discipline and preparation for parenting and birth. It instead focuses on the other hot button issue of AP, sleep sharing, which is one of those sorts of issues I was taught not to bring up at a cocktail party. 

If we are going to discuss how we parent as a society, I suspect that the discussion is one that we will have over coffee and at our water-coolers. It is one in which we will learn surprising things about our family and friends, and things that perhaps won't surprise us that much. It is not one we pick up at our supermarket between the celebrity gossip and the latest 1001 uses for cake mix. In a way, reality TV has done more for how we consider the issues around AP than this sort of media coverage does. Kourtney Kardashian slept with her son into his toddlerhood (I haven't seen any of the new season of Keeping Up with the Kardashians yet, nor do I make any effort to follow this beyond following all three Kardashian sisters on Twitter), Rosie Pope often talks about breastfeeding on her show on Bravo. More and more dramas and comedies assume that mothers will breast feed their children and deal with the issues of infant sleep and bed sharing. This type of presence in the media seems to do more for these issues than does a single problematic picture on a magazine cover. 

[If the prose here-- for that matter, my use of the word prose-- seems a bit 'academic-y' compared to my usual tone, I'm writing my comprehensive exams for my doctoral program at the moment. This is infecting every area of my life. When next I come up for air, I'll tell you all about it.]

*Incidentally, this is also the place where I really tick people off on the marriage equality thing: how does who you marry have any effect on my marriage? It isn't like when I moved to Canada and found out I could marry a woman there I immediately divorced my husband and went a-huntin'. (The other argument I make is about religious equity... half or more of the marriages performed by my minister aren't recognized by our state. How is that equal protection? But that's a discussion for another day on another blog.)

Babies Just Do Stuff

So I have this friend who's daughter is about 6 weeks younger than MK. (A year ago, this seemed like a huge difference. Now, less so. In 20 years, we won't even think about it.)

She did everything different from the way we did it. She formula fed, she did CIO, she worked from the time her daughter was 6 weeks old. (I get how totally lucky I am to have been able to take a 10 month maternity leave, I really do.) Every Attachment-Parenting, hippy granola thing I did, she didn't. Every conventional thing that she did, I didn't.

Her daughter is having some sleep issues after a string of illnesses and teeth. (I hate teeth. Seriously.) And now she and her husband are trying to get their 'perfect sleeper' back. Since all of my methods are strung together from making crap work because I don't have CIO in me or in my soul, I know I can't really tell her anything she will find useful. Except this:

Babies do stuff. Toddlers even more so. They go through phases, are royal pains in the butt as often as not, and then they're just not anymore. They've moved on to some other way to make their parents crazy. I'm pretty sure that this continues until they're teenagers.

The Bug moved on from being weird about sleep to being defiant... I ask her not to do something, she looks at me, grins, and does it again, as though what I actually said was 'one more time, but with feeling!' Once I figure this one out, she'll try to get her nose pierced or something.

I really think that my only rule of parenting is this: 'kids do stuff. Once you've accommodated your life to that stuff, they start doing other stuff.' My primary task as a parent, I suppose, is to not get to attached to the stuff that worked in that mythical time 'before.'

Damnit. If I'm going to put this parenting plan in action, I'm going to need to spend some more time on that dusty meditation cushion.

Attachment Parenting and the Real World

So recently, feminist Erica Jong published an essay called "The Madness of Motherhood" in the Wall Street Journal. In essence, it decries the form of parenting known as Attachment Parenting (or, in internet-speak, A.P.) as stifling to women, something that families choose out of guilt or a misguided sense that they can make their children more perfect through perfect nurturing.

I've read it. I've also read Ph.D. in Parenting's refutation of it.

Then I read the comments that followed her entry in response to it. When I read the comments in response to things on the internet, this is often where I get into trouble. I don't fully agree with the author of Ph.D. in parenting, but I see her point that Jong made some flawed assumptions based on a limited understanding of attachment parenting. But one of the commenters said this about attachment parenting:

No one I know who practices A.P. to any degree feels like it is stifling. On the contrary, we feel it is freeing because it is easier and creates fewer battles with out [sic.] children

 Here's the thing. A.P. can be stifling.

Wait. Let's back up. I'm going to assume for a few minutes that some of my tens of fans don't know what A.P. is. So, first, a quick and dirty primer on it might be useful. Attachment Parenting is a style of parenting largely advocated by pediatrician William Sears and his wife, RN Martha Sears, that argues that the best way to raise a child is for them to have a secure emotional attachment to his or her parents. The most concise reading material on the subject is the Sears's book The Baby Book. But in a nutshell, they advocate bonding as soon as possible after the child's birth, breastfeeding, baby wearing, sleep sharing, respecting a baby's cry as a communication tool, and finding balance with parenting and oneself. It does put, if one were to aspire to the ideal presented in the books, a large portion of the parenting duties in Mom's lap.

In a lot of ways, this sums up how we're parenting the Bug. She sleeps in our room, sometimes our bed, she's breastfed, we don't let her "cry it out," and the Sleepy Wrap is still one of our favourite things. But I am wary to say that I am an "attachment parent." I am wary of this, because any number of unfortunate things have been perpetrated in its name over the years. Ideally, it is not overly permissive. But in practice, sometimes it is. I've seen how this ends in college students who have never, not even once, been told "no." This isn't how AP should be practised, but sometimes it is. This is certainly a large part of the media portrayal of AP and the "easy" way to interpret it.

My whole goal as a parent is to put myself out of business.  I want to raise the Bug to be an independent woman who knows her own mind and can deal with the pressures of the real world. To do this, DH and I will have to craft our own style that deals with the Bug's unique temperament and communication style. Right now, a lot of our tools come from AP. Later, they may come from elsewhere.

But I read the Sears Parenting Library books as references because they give me useful tools. Because I live in the real world, not fantasy mommy-land where magical faeries provide us with food and shelter, I am not the ideal AP. I fall out of balance. I get frustrated. I use the stroller instead of the carrier. I occasionally fantasize about how, in some ways, bottle feeding would be easier. (No public nudity. No fear that I am the cause of any discomfort she may have.)

I read the AP literature and handbooks for the same reason I buy the special edition Martha Stewart holiday cookie magazine every year. (Dudes, it just hit news stands. That's like my porn.) I can't do everything in there. I'm not going to hand pipe 100 gingerbread reindeer then sprinkle them with disco dust or sparkle sugar so they look perfect. But I will use some of what I learn. I won't do every AP thing 100% of the time. I will use other caregivers, I will start solids "early."

Because I live in the real world. And sometimes you just have to admit that you aren't going to make the cute little cookie mice with the licorice tails and almond sliver ears. Sometimes you can't cope with the baby crying, and let someone else handle it. Sometimes your back hurts and baby wearing is just out for the day. But you need the whole tool box to know what does and doesn't work, what you can and cannot balance with your real life.

I resent the hell out of parenting sometimes. And sometimes, I think if we had chosen a different way to parent the Bug, I'd resent it less. But, in the end, I know the tools we've chosen are the ones that will let her grow up into the kind of adult that we want her to become. Sometimes it isn't freeing.

Because in the real world, everything is a pain in the ass sometimes.