The first book I've read in my parenting research is Katie Allison Granju's Attachment Parenting: Instinctive Care For You Baby and Young Child. Attachment Parenting is firmly in the Dr. Sears camp. Dr. Sears wrote the book's introduction. The words "attachment parenting" are keywords for identifying proponents of Dr. Sears.
The book was challenging for me. A few weeks before I read the book, Tina described the parenting plans of a friend of hers. Using cloth diapers, sleeping with the baby, and several other ideas that just seemed very primitive to me. I'm an engineer by profession, so I have a tendancy to dismiss ideas that don't use the latest technologies. After having read Attachment Parenting, I have a far better understanding of the supporting arguments for this style of parenting and I feel much more comfortable with those ideas that Tina's friend was espousing.
It turns out that the basis of the attachment parenting ideas is primitive. But, the argument is that babies have not evolved significantly since the gatherer days. So, primitive is not bad, it's the condition in which babies have evolutioned. Attachment Parenting encourages several practices that are no longer main stream in America. The book argues that they are mainstream in most of the non-industrialized nations of the world. The practices are: breastfeeding, sleeping in the same bed with your children, and maintaining as much contact with your baby as possible.
Breastfeeding is the centerpiece of practicing attachment parenthood. It strongly recommends that mothers breastfeed their babies. Eschewing bottles entirely is the prefered practice. If bottles are a requirement because the mothers works, then they prefer that the bottles contain breast milk over formula. They recommend buying a good breast pump to ease the task of collecting milk. Granju recommends breastfeeding well into toddlerhood.
The second recommendation is to sleep very near your child. The nearer the better. Granju's preference would be to sleep in the same bed with the baby. She explains how you can install rails on the side of your bed to prevent the baby from rolling out. If that's not feasible, she recommends attaching a three sided crib to the parent's bed. The fourth side opens into the parent's bed. The next best is to have the crib in the same room. Granju recommends letting the child sleep with you in your bed until they naturally want a room of their own.
The final practice is carrying your baby. Granju cites the use of car seat/baby carrier/stroller systems as allowing babies to go through most of their days without human contact. She uses the term "baby bucket" to refer to the pluggable plastic enclosure that goes from car to stroller to shopping cart. Instead she advocates the use of carriers that are attached closely to your body. Her favorite is the sling.
Attachment Parenting seems to be a very lovingingly written book, but it has, underneath, a tone of fanaticism that I associate with philosophies that must be accepted without proof. Attachment Parenting takes several direct shots at it's philosophical enemies. There seems to be great hostility between the attachment camp and some of its competing philosophies. It's the sort of tension that I associate with religions whose beliefs include the belief that other beliefs are wrong. Instead of presenting it's message for what it's worth and letting the reader decide, in places the book devolves into implying that it's philosophy is the only right and correct one. I'd like to left as the judge of whether Attachment Parenthood is or is not the one true way, instead of being told that it is. In the book's defense, I'm sure the competition take shots at attachment parenting as well, but perhaps we should behave like adults instead of children.
What did I take away from the book?
Breastfeeding is going to be difficult for us. At the moment, I think we're committed to doing it for the first six months at least. So far, my understanding is that there are very good statistics that indicate six months of breastfeeding has significant health benefits. Our largest difficulties will be Tina's schedule. We'll have to use bottles because Tina will be a working mom. It will also be difficult for Tina to find time during the day to pump, so we'll have to invest in a good pump. It's important to use the pump consistently so that the milk supplies continues.
I'm far less uncomfortable with the idea of having the baby in the same bed or in a sidecar arrangement than I was before reading the book. I think further research is warranted before I come to any conclusions.
I very much like the idea of keeping the baby in close proximity using a baby carrier. The use of the pejoritive "baby bucket" was quite effective. I see the appeal of using the sling and the backpack as the primary modes of transportation. Better exercise too.
Sunday, May 30, 2004
Parenthood
The 1989 movie Parenthood contains what I think is a great comment on parenthood. The character Tod, played by Keanu Reeves, describes having his dad flick lit cigarettes at his head and says, "...you need a license to buy a dog, to drive a car - hell, you even need a license to catch a fish. But they'll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father."
The movie never introduces us to Tod's father except through this one speech. The audience is left to fill in the details on their own. When I fill in those details, I see a parent to whom parenthood has happened. This is a man who has a son, but I can imagine that having a son is really just a consequence of his attempt to have something else that he wanted. I can imagine him being bitter about having to support a child that he did not really want. When he flicks a lit cigarette at Tod's head and tells him to go fetch him a beer, he's really just trying to get something for himself out this whole parenthood thing he's stuck with.
Few of us do anything with our lives as profound as create a new life. It would seem to be something that we should choose to do not something that happens to us. Once chosen, it would seem to be something that we should choose to do well.
Tina and I have decided we'd like to have children in the near future. That the human race has survived as long as it has seems to indicate that it is possible to raise a child with the instincts that we were born with, but I also suspect that a large amount of child rearing is cultural. So, I feel like it's our responsibility to figure out how to be the best parents we can be. Toward this goal, I've begun a survey of the child-rearing literature.
It would appear that today's baby care philosophies are polarized around two camps. On one hand, there's Dr. Spock, Dr. Ferber, and Gary Ezzo. On the other hand, there's Dr. James Sears and Martha Sears. Both camps have devoted followers and extreme critics. My life experience is that in most cases the truth lies somewhere in between.
The movie never introduces us to Tod's father except through this one speech. The audience is left to fill in the details on their own. When I fill in those details, I see a parent to whom parenthood has happened. This is a man who has a son, but I can imagine that having a son is really just a consequence of his attempt to have something else that he wanted. I can imagine him being bitter about having to support a child that he did not really want. When he flicks a lit cigarette at Tod's head and tells him to go fetch him a beer, he's really just trying to get something for himself out this whole parenthood thing he's stuck with.
Few of us do anything with our lives as profound as create a new life. It would seem to be something that we should choose to do not something that happens to us. Once chosen, it would seem to be something that we should choose to do well.
Tina and I have decided we'd like to have children in the near future. That the human race has survived as long as it has seems to indicate that it is possible to raise a child with the instincts that we were born with, but I also suspect that a large amount of child rearing is cultural. So, I feel like it's our responsibility to figure out how to be the best parents we can be. Toward this goal, I've begun a survey of the child-rearing literature.
It would appear that today's baby care philosophies are polarized around two camps. On one hand, there's Dr. Spock, Dr. Ferber, and Gary Ezzo. On the other hand, there's Dr. James Sears and Martha Sears. Both camps have devoted followers and extreme critics. My life experience is that in most cases the truth lies somewhere in between.
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