(no subject)

[rivka]

I left this comment about Attachment Parenting in someone else's journal, and then decided that I wanted to hold onto it in mine. The italicized bit is the quote I was responding to.

(Ironically, it's the Way It Was Always Done if you go even further back, before industrialisation, probably).

It is and it isn't. Yes, breastfeeding, co-sleeping, and (probably) babywearing were how people raised their children in preindustrial societies. But attachment parenting's intensive focus on one-to-one interaction with babies, child-led parenting, and being "wholly in tune" with children's needs and emotions, is solely the product of wealthy postindustrial societies. No one else in the history of humanity has ever been able to afford to have one person in each family occupied with parenting and practically nothing else. (Okay, some wealthy preindustrial families were rich enough - but they typically had that "one person" be a wet nurse, not the children's mother.)

If you wanted to practice historically accurate preindustrial mothering, in addition to breastfeeding and co-sleeping you'd also probably do things like swaddling your baby to a board and leaving her propped against the wall while you did your work, until it was time to nurse. You'd probably leave the one-year-old and the three-year-old under the supervision of the six-year-old. As seen in The Continuum Concept, you might constantly wear your baby on your back while you did manual labor but rarely speak to her or have face-to-face interaction.

I think attachment parenting is great, and good for babies. But it's definitely a product of modern times and circumstances. It's a combination of the most labor-intensive features of preindustrial parenting, plus the most labor-intensive features of modern parenting. Historically speaking, it's a luxury for women with amounts of leisure and resources which were practically unheard-of in previous centuries.

Comments

Thanks

[ailbhe]

I was most grateful for your comment. Everything I'd tried to say on that topic so far contained some rude remarks about natural childbirth and the Golden Age.

Re: Thanks

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Oh, good. I was a bit concerned that you'd mind me spouting off in your journal like that.

This is just Part I of my rant about Attachment Parenting as a cultural construct. Part II, which is much longer, involves the way that they've co-opted the well-established developmental psychology field of attachment theory, and argue as though the only way to achieve a secure attachment relationship is through AP.

[minnaleigh.livejournal.com]

I like you so much!

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I smiled when I read your description of the one year old and the three year old and the six year old. It brought back memories of being four, with a three year old brother and a two year old sister both to look after while my grandmother did the housework and looked after the baby. Mom was teaching and dad was fixing trucks. Ah, the fifties... amazing how so many people think they were a better era.

Attachment parenting is a wonderful thing. But as you say, it's also a very recent thing.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Your childhood memories also highlight the fact that attention-intensive Attachment Parenting generally implies small families with generous spacing between babies. Which is also not so historically typical, unless you factor in the spacing provided by having several of your babies die.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Too true. My poor great-grandmother had that happen, losing three children in a matter of one week. It left her oldest daughter in an odd situation, somewhere between her mother and her younger surviving siblings.

I think that the loss of the three children did result in my great-aunt Agnes getting a lot more attention from her mother and her older sister than she would have otherwise, since she was born after the three sisters died. She certainly held both her mother and her oldest sister in very high regard.

[boxofdelights]

I've heard that co-sleeping and at-will breastfeeding supresses fertility for quite a long time.

There is also the fact that many attachment-parenting mothers have almost no interest in sex, at least not sex that involves being touched by another human being. (Been there, done that, burned the t-shirt.)

[elusis.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. My grandmother will still say to this day what a "good baby" my mother was, because she could be left alone in her crib for hours without needing anyone to come interact with her.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

And you will have had young women leaving their illegitimate babies in foundling hospitals so that they could go out and earn a living wet-nursing. See Valerie Fildes's books on the history of infant feeding and wet-nursing.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I'll keep that one in mind for the next time someone tells me how much better it would be if we went back to a system of having wet nurses, instead of feeding some babies infant formula.

Wet nurses

[ailbhe]

Less civilised societies just had someone with a baby and plenty milk feed the two babies. No baby-abandoning necessary. But morals always get in the way, here in civilisation...

[orangemike.livejournal.com]

Given the arrogant egotism and cluelessness of some wealthy moms (see whimpering about Nannygate by "liberal" rich Democrats), and the desperation of some poor moms, I wouldn't be surprised if it were going on surreptitiously right now.

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

Wow. What was the reaction?

One thing, though -- and to be a bit challenging, because it's What I Do ;-) -- isn't it more accurate to say that you think many *aspects* of attachment parenting are "great, and good for babies"?

-J

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Maybe it would be most accurate to say "attachment parenting, when done well and by people who aren't loony zealots, is great, and good for babies."

[journeywoman.livejournal.com]

You rock.

I agree

[ailbhe]

"parenting, when done well and by people who aren't loony zealots, is great, and good for babies."

Re: I agree

[librarygrrl]

Even better! ;)I think that forming a connection with your child is very important, and so is letting your child have some space to explore the world without having you hover over its every move... Sam and I hear a parent say that their 2 year old child has never been out of their presence, and the alarm bells start going off!

[ratphooey.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for saying that! I tend to get so angry I can only sputter when confronted by AP zealots.

[theodicy.livejournal.com]

What she said. :eyeroll, headshake:

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Bravo. I hate it when people play fast and loose with history to promote their point of view.

I wonder also the extent to which historically high infant mortality rates affected parent-child bonding. My hunch is "quite a lot," but it's been many years since I looked at the issue.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

Most of the evidence from the medieval period is still that parents valued and loved their children, even though they were much more likely to die.

Heh, I like to point out the historical problems with rabid AP'ers arguements as well. :-)

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Certainly the more recent research on parent-child relations suggests that they did love their children and might be devastated by their deaths, but I can't recollect, offhand, if the degree of grief (insofar as one could possibly calculate it) was affected by how old the child was: i.e. had it survived the first year, which remained the most dangerous era of life well into C20th, and had parents had time to develop a relationship with the child as an individual.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

From what I've seen some parents tried to deliberately distance themselves from the children - with, I suspect, various degrees of success - precisely so they would not grieve as badly. Probably also with varying degrees of success.

It seems to be a modern trend to look for signs of personality in children that are only a few weeks old. There's a feeling from both literary sources and diaries etc that in the past, children were - either expected to be, or treated as, I'm not certain which - generic children; mostly (but not always) split into girl-children and boy-children. Rather than celebrating and encouraging individuality as we do now, young children were expected mor strongly to conform.

I remember most strongly a (mostly humorous) children's book I read which referred to a two-year-old as 'the baby' - and it was expected to cry and get dirty and be a nuisance and otherwise completely devoid of personality and distinguishing markings; and I've seen that attitude once or twice since, but I cannot recall exactly _where_.

And, of course, there's traditional parenting, Afghanistan style - give the child some juice of poppy, and it won't bother you much...

Traditional parenting

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Throughout the C19th parents (and nurses) were using Godfrey's Cordial, which contained opium, to 'pacify' crying (colicky, teething, etc) babies. I suspect similar preparations existed at earlier dates, though perhaps not commercially marketed as this was.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Hooray you for fighting emotion with history.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Thanks for explaining, incidently, what "attachment parenting" is.

K.

[roozle.livejournal.com]

I have all kinds of thoughts about attachment parenting. Most people I have seen practicing it put the child relentlessly in the light of their attention. It is hard to find the person behind the mom when this is taken too far. And I am not sure it is good for small children to have all of their interactions editorialized by mom's running commentary. (I could state this more strongly but if I'm going to rant I'll go do it in my own journal...) But there is a minority of people practicing AP that manage to "simply" consistently and thoroughly include their small child, even baby, in their interactions with the outside world, while they converse, garden, cook, whatever. The child gets to approach the world at their own pace (which can be astonishingly rapid) and at the same time, they seem to become both well-socialized and quite independent.

[elynne.livejournal.com]

But there is a minority of people practicing AP that manage to "simply" consistently and thoroughly include their small child, even baby, in their interactions with the outside world, while they converse, garden, cook, whatever.

But... I thought that's what you're supposed to do with kids. Not run after them and coddle them every minute, but lead them, keep an eye on them, show them things. Like kittens - once they're out of the nest, they follow mom around while she practices hunting, and that's how they learn.

... it's probably for the best that I'll sooner have kittens than human babies. :P

[pariyal.livejournal.com]

Er, well, yes. I suppose my kids just grew up around me. I remember going everywhere with the eldest, attached to me somewhere; it was harder with the other two because they're twins, and I had a toddler as well, but as they became more independently mobile it worked again.

[perceval.livejournal.com]

But there is a minority of people practicing AP that manage to "simply" consistently and thoroughly include their small child, even baby, in their interactions with the outside world, while they converse, garden, cook, whatever.

That's what I'm striving for with my daughter, actually. Hence me bouncing on my gym ball to "Lady Madonna" while typing with my girl snoozing in her sling. Except that you're not supposed to cook with your kid in a sling ;)

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

You're absolutely right. Full-on attachment parenting, incorporating a family bed, is impossible for me, even if I wanted to do it, because, simply put, it is not safe to have an infant share a bed with a 35 pound two year old. There is no universe in which my exuberant cherub of a boy could co-sleep with my fifteen pound pixie-girl, and I wouldn't be able to sleep, ever, if it was something I *had* to do. I'd be too terrified.