Alright, I’ll weigh in on this TIME magazine cover story. I usually avoid giving my two cents regarding trending parenting stories because of sheer overkill. Big ones come and go every few months or so and it seems like everyone wants to dissect them and give their own opinion, leaving absolutely no ground uncovered, no facet unexamined. But this one is really bugging me, so I’ll have a go at it.
First of all, the cover photo is very disheartening to me. Regular readers will know I am a really big fan of extended breastfeeding and self weaning. Just a few weeks ago I wrote a post on the subject. I feel like the biggest obstacle for mothers who want to breastfeed into toddlerhood is the notion that nursing an older baby is creepy or gross or weird or whatever else, when in fact nursing a toddler, just like nursing an infant, is natural, sweet, and very personal. The cover photo seems to me to deliberately reinforce the idea that nursing a toddler is creepy by playing up his size and age. Imagine how different the image would make you feel if instad of standing on a chair which clearly exaggerates the boy’s height, he was curled up in his mama’s lap in his pajamas. A cover shot like this could have helped normalize extended breastfeeding, but instead it sets it up like a carnival side show. It is so disappointing.
The story itself isn’t available without a subscription, so I can’t even speak to the meat of the subject yet, but it has certainly already fanned the flames of what commentators like to call “the mommy wars.” This phenomenon baffles me. Who are these mommies that are warring against one another? I’m a mother, but I’ve never seen them. I’ve never encountered them. I interact with all sorts of different mothers, both in the real world and online, and I have never seen anyone trying to push their view on someone else or criticizing any aspect of another mother’s parenting style. I only ever see it in print. I read about the “wars” on blogs and magazines over and over again and constantly see the cries of “Can’t we all just get along?” I don’t know, maybe I’m naive, but it seems to me like we really all are just getting along, and that all of this belligerence and outrage is completely fabricated.
The mom friends I have are so completely different from me in our parenting choices, and yet there has never been even a tiny hint of judgement from either side. My friend asked me if Eleanor sleeps well in her crib, I answered, “No, we cosleep.” She went on to tell me about how they used cry-it-out to get their daughter to sleep on her own. We both feel that the other’s way of doing things isn’t the way we would do it, but guess what? We are mature adults and can handle the fact that some people have different opinions and different lifestyles. We take it even further, because we actually enjoy hearing about our differing philosophies and experiences.
I would hope that all parents realize, regardless of their own ethos, that no matter how children are raised as long as they are loved they turn out remarkably well. I practice the tenets of Attachment Parenting (breastfeeding, cosleeping, baby wearing), but I do not think for even one second that those things will make Eleanor a better person than she would be if she was raise a different way. I do those things because I find them natural and easy. They make sense to me. I would be doing them even if I hadn’t read anything by Dr. Sears, and I continue to do them because they happen to work really well for my family.
In my opinion, Attachment Parenting is just one of the many strategies for getting through the baby and toddler years as easily as possible, yet one of the most common criticisms is that it is difficult, increases a mother’s workload, and in the processes undoes decades of feminist progress and subjugates women once again (Elisabeth Badinter anyone?). If I felt like something like cosleeping was subjugating me instead of making my life easier I wouldn’t be doing it. Who are these supposed mother martyrs who make inordinate sacrifices for their babies? We all sacrifice for our children, and breastfeeding them isn’t any more of a sacrifice than going back to work to put food on the table for them. Aren’t we all just trying to survive and make our lives as easy as possible? What is anti-feminists about that?
Married with the concept of attachment parenting as a modern mother imprisonment is the idea that these issues are really only in the domain of rich, privileged people who can afford to stay home with their children. Let me tell you, while I am lucky that my husband’s salary alone can support us, I am far from rich. In fact, I don’t really have much of a choice about being a stay at home mom because the price of childcare where we live would cancel out my salary. In some cases being a stay at home mom is actually the most frugal thing a mother can decide to do, not a luxury reserved for the upper tiers of socity.
I know this post is all over the place, but I just had to get it off my chest. I am an Attachment Parenting parent, and yet I am not judgmental, I am not self-righteous, and I do not think I am better than any one else. I am not deluded about the effects my parenting style will have on my child, I am not of the opinion that this is an all-or-nothing game, and I am not a breastfeeding Nazi. I am not rich, and for the love of all that is good, I am indeed a feminist.
