Breaking the Silence: Attachment Parenting Is Hard

You don’t have to be a martyr to be a good mom.

I just had a long conversation with a fellow AP friend of mine. She is feeling burnt out… even as she LOVES what she does and spending time with her bubbling, smart, energetic two-year old. In the conversation, this came up: we don’t have to be martyrs to be good parents.

Parenting is hard. Attachment Parenting mamas and papas are, arguably, even more likely to make choices that put the child first, sometimes at some personal sacrifice. Everybody reminds us not to do it. It is about finding ‘whole family solutions’ that meet everyone’s needs – that is something I myself am fond of saying, for example. Even the Sears, who coined the term Attachment Parenting, emphasise balance and remind us that ‘if you resent it, change it’ and that you need to take care of yourself as well as your baby. Metaphors of putting the oxygen mask on your own face before you place them on your kids abound.

Still, I find those of us in the natural, attachment parenting movement are sometimes particularly guilty of setting crazy high standards for ourselves. Breastfeeding ‘on demand’ until they are four? – sure! Cloth diapers? Absolutely. Co-sleeping and waking several times a night, every night, until they are three? No problem. We will even argue publicly that these are, for us, the easier choices. Breastfeeding and co-sleeping are easier in many ways than bottle-feeding, for example, especially in those first 6 to 12 months. This is true.

And again, let me be clear that I know all parents make sacrifices and put their kids first often… but I am talking here to AP parents who know some of those extra lengths many of us will go to in the name of creating secure attachments and staying ‘crunchy’: ALL food has to be home-cooked; baby must be carried not pushed; we don’t take breaks, ever! I know I am talking of the extremes here… and still I bet this is something many of us can relate to, choosing the ‘higher’ rather than the easier path.

We do not regret it. We probably would do most if not all of it again – AND it is bloody hard.

People don’t like to talk about this. There is a conspiracy of silence surrounding how hard Attachment Parenting can be, especially for those of us who do not live in any kind of ‘village’. We don’t want to talk about how hard it is because it seems like  it would be giving in to our critics, who accuse us of competing to be ‘mom enough’ by being self-sacrificing to a fault. We don’t want to talk about it because, hey we chose this and nobody wants to be a whinger. And still, sometimes it has to be said, too. Attachment Parenting is NOT the easy path, most of the time. It is fulfilling. It yields wonderful outcomes and, in any case, most of us deeply enjoy the actual process, the doing of it, most of the time, anyway. We do it out of love. And, yes, it can be done in a more or less balanced way (especially if you have family or a strong support network near by) but I feel as a movement that is trying to re-define or re-purpose these old ways for a modern world, this is our challenge: to meet all of baby’s needs without neglecting our own.

Maybe some of you do this wonderfully already. Many of us, including me, are still learning.

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[Yes, I know you could and many probably have written similar posts speaking specifically to single parents or working parents or parents of kids with disabilities or those really struggling financially or… all those  challenges are REAL and incredibly hard. I bow to all working parents. I have deep respect for the work all single parents put in. And I cannot begin to do justice to my admiration for those who parent kids with physical or cognitive impairments who somehow do it with joy and grace and positivity. You amaze me!… and still, even knowing many parents have it way worse, I still want to take a moment to talk about some AP challenges in particular.

Of course if you are a single, working AP parent with a disabled child and on a low-income (or any combination of the above) – well then, F*CK, you rock! And please PM me as I’d happily host a blog post on how you do it!]

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For the APers:

Share here, if nowhere else, aspects of Attachment Parenting which (though you would chose them again) you find extra-specially challenging and draining?

What do you do to take care of your own needs? How do you keep yourself from burning out while being the very best AP parent you can be?

What areas have you willingly compromised on? What standards did you let drop (despite your original dream to do them) because they proved to be unrealistic for your individual family? (cloth diapering being one of mine – I totally wanted to do it… but I just did not have the extra energy in me at the time so it was when that fell by the wayside)

And tell me areas you are really proud that you stuck with despite how very exhausting it was to do and despite the fact that you were, perhaps, one of the only people you know that went that extra mile?

I am hoping (and will work to ensure) this will be a safe, AP-supportive place to confess among friends and those who won’t judge some of the things we find hard even though we chose them and would chose them again.

Thanks,
Gauri