I’ve been following a conversation about parenting styles on Our Life Upstate. As people commented on a post, the discussion turned to a discussion of attachment parenting v. non-attachment parenting. As a result, Upstatemomof3 wrote a second post in which she articulated her parenting style and declared herself semi-attached. When I read this I initially really liked the term because it allows for grey area.
After further conversation in the comments on that post, another commenter told me that I shouldn’t be offended if people call me anti-attachment parenting since I have openly said that we don’t practice everything associated with attachment parenting. I did say that, but they key there was that we don’t practice everything associated with AP. This made we start to think about how many things you have to do before you are considered a full member of a certain parenting style.
Adding “semi” on the surface says, you can’t criticize me as not following the rules because I didn’t claim to be 100% on board. But that goes against what Attachment Parenting is really about. Dr. Sears notes that:
It’s actually the style that many parents use instinctively. Parenting is too individual and baby too complex for there to be only one way.
But so many attachment parents forget that and make it about rules. And that means that Upstatemomof3, myself , and others add semi to the label. It becomes about checkmarks and not about being responsive to what is best for your own family and child. Does not co-sleeping automatically mean that the baby is made to CIO alone in another room? No. Does it mean that a baby in daycare can’t be parented in this way? No. Does it mean someone who uses bottles can’t be considered attachment parenting? No.
My resistance to label myself as an attachment parent is that like lots of other labels, AP comes with a ton of tangential ideologies that people lump in. When I say attachment parenting to parents on other message boards, they assume that I mean that we don’t vaccinate Capone, I am a stay at home mom, we are planning on homeschooling, etc. In reality none of these things are rules of attachment parenting. That doesn’t mean that they are wrong or that they aren’t good parenting choices, but they aren’t the rules.
Likewise, when I talk about daycare with other AP families, many instantly assume that Capone is left by himself, is not held, is not breastfed, is held to a schedule, etc. We’re labeled as at best part-time AP and at worst anti-AP. Either way we can’t win.
This is the problem with labels. As soon as a label is applied, it becomes about rules. How many checkmarks does one have to have to be considered an AP? What can you skip and still be considered to fit the parenting style? If we co-slept and I worked would we be AP? If I didn’t work, but Capone still slept in a crib, would we be AP?
I chose to use the label AP because it most closely describes the philosophy we believe in: responsive parenting. I need that label because it helps me identify other similar parents. I don’t think that people who have more checkmarks are more evolved or are better (attachment) parents. That’s not the goal. The goal is to think about your choices and know why you are making those choices. I can defend my choice to work and I can defend our healthcare choices and both fall in line with AP as defined by Dr. Sears.
But labels on the internet get used by activists and people who pretend that there is only one correct way. Maybe they live in a more clear cut world, but we exist in the grey. As much as I love the choices that we’ve made, we didn’t make them because we thought they were the only way to do something or because we’re operating from a checklist. We researched and we decided what is best for us. What we ended up with looked a lot like AP and when I see Upstatemomof3 say she’s semi-AP, I see that explanation as responsive to her family and her families needs, which makes her a responsive and responsible parent. That is the spirit of Attachment Parenting.
Well said and very true! I guess I'm semi too, but i always assumed that it was about a style rather than components so I've always just said I believe in AP. It's not a competition after all! I am not capable of homeschooling right now, but agree with homeschooling completely. Am i a failure because my poor health leaves me too dependant on those few hours with one or two less children? no. We can go over the individual choices one by one, but your point is still correct. It's about meeting your child(ren)'s needs, based on what is best for them and their development first. It's not the AP Olympics where we get to decide if other parents are Gold Silver or Bronze.
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Great post!
I also don't believe being AP means you have checked enough things off of a list that are AP, and it makes you AP.
I do believe that it can take as little as one thing to make you not AP. Cry It Out comes to mind. I do believe that some one who would use CIO to get their child to sleep is not AP. They can do 10 other AP things, but if they do that, they are not AP. Another example would be spanking. If some one spanks their child they are not AP. Again, I don't care if they have a list a mile long of "AP" things they do, if they spank they are not AP. They are not even semi-AP.
So really I feel that when it comes to defining AP, some times it's more about what you don't do, than what you do do.
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@Cassundra I like your Olympics comparison because when we go that route parenting is judged some arbitrary ideal not the ideal outcome for the child. It shouldn't matter if you choose not to home school because of your health, or because you work outside the home (by need and/or choice), or because you have a very social child who you think would thrive in a school setting. That choice doesn't make you a better or worse AP.
@pearly1979. I don't know that I entirely agree that there are deal breakers. CIO for example means a lot of different things. Is someone who leaves a 6 weeks old to CIO until they vomit, AP? Probably not. Are parents of 10 month old who use sleep training automatically "out of the club"? I'm not so sure. I even put probably in from the of the 6 weeks old example because personally, I don't feel like I have the right to judge someone else's reasons. I don't agree with CIO (especially in it's extreme forms), but I'm not comfortable saying that automatically disqualifies you. What if that mom had PPD and CIO was also her recognizing that for the safety of the baby she needed to shut the door and walk away. What if it's a single parent who turned to that out of exhaustion? Or a parent who gave into pressure from friends and family members? I'm not saying that it's justified, but a blanket CIO disqualification makes me uncomfortable because it assumes that I *know* that a parents is not responding to his/her child's needs and I don't know what got the family to that point. Attachment parenting is also about balance in the family. CIO is term that is thrown around (I'm guilty of it myself), but means a lot of different things to different people. I'm sure there are those that would have accused me of using CIO last night when I stood at my son's door for a minute or two to see if his fussing was going to escalate to full blown crying or was him just trying to settle down.
Once again, I would not advocate CIO and I personally don't use it, but I think that there's a lot of grey area here. Also, everyone's deal breakers for AP are going to be different. For you it might be spanking and CIO, for someone else it might be formula feeding or working outside the home. As soon as I start judging someone's AP status by a list of checkmarks, we get back to the problem with labels.
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