I practiced “Attachment Parenting” when my son was younger, and I still consider myself an AP mom.  (Attachment Parenting is a style of parenting that develops and meets an infant or child's need for trust, empathy, and affection in order to create a secure, peaceful, and enduring relationship). 

Much as I believe my parents raised me well, our society, especially those closest to us, hands down a set of beliefs and values that aren’t always wanted.

Parents who practice AP often have to first reject certain assumptions and beliefs that are commonly held by their parents and peers, and that they may have inherited—the list is different for each parent, but some of my rejected beliefs include, “children need to cry to strengthen their lungs”, “picking up your child whenever he cries will spoil him”, “attached children will not develop independence”, etc. 

Instead, I replaced these with other beliefs. For example, I believe that babies cry not to manipulate, but to communicate a physical and/or emotional need. AP parents trust their children to grow out of developmental stages naturally, when they are ready.  We also believe you cannot spoil a baby by attachment.

Along with AP comes a set of fairly obvious, easily defined tools for supporting our beliefs and values—breastfeeding, maintaining close physical contact, sleep sharing, etc.  This list is different for each AP parent— as with all tools, each person picks the ones that best supports his or her beliefs.  However, with a little searching it was easy to find a comprehensive list to to choose from, all based on the idea of meeting a baby’s needs.

The value of responding to my baby’s needs seemed fairly obvious to me; after all, he was wholly dependent on me.  However, as he grew older, I found myself floundering for appropriate ways to “discipline” him.  I was fairly clear on some of what I didn’t want to do, for example, spanking, but I found that the tools I was using were inherited—I didn’t consciously choose them.  These tools, for me, included threatening, raising my voice, rescuing, and pleading, among others.

I found myself falling into patterns of behavior and thoughts that I wasn’t consciously aware of.  Once, a good friend of mine said, “What is your goal?  Are you trying to make him feel bad?”  I said “No, of course not, I want him to learn.”  But upon further examination, I realized a part of me did want him to feel badly.  Because, first, I felt that when he misbehaved, and I didn’t “do something about it”, I was an inadequate parent, and second, I had an inherited belief that children needed to feel badly in order to learn to behave better.

The other inherited belief I found in myself was the idea that my child’s misbehavior was more about me than about him.  This was characterized by thoughts such as, “Why are you making me so mad?”, “What will others think of me as a parent when he misbehaves?”, and “He’s testing me.”

I realized that the reason I was uncomfortable with my inherited tools was that I had also inherited a set of beliefs, which upon further inspection, I didn’t actually agree with.  I also learned I needed to own my own emotions, instead of placing them in my child’s hands. 

It’s almost impossible to throw out a set of beliefs and tools without something with which to replace them. An supportive email group helped me define the beliefs and tools I needed to use instead of what I had inherited, and still helps me apply them.  The conclusion I came to is that my AP values have not gone away—I still believe in meeting the needs of my child; however, as those needs have gotten more complex, so have the possible solutions, and they aren’t so obvious anymore.

Once you solidify your own beliefs, you have something you can use to evaluate your tools and those tools that others pressure you to use.  If you have different values and beliefs than I do, that’s OK—you’ll have to evaluate whether my tools support your values and beliefs.

 

Lisa Stroyan