There is an incredibly thoughtful article currently up at Times Higher Education at the moment, “Women and Children First” and it positions parenting styles and particularly, the re-emergence of ‘attachment parenting’ within the framework of our patriarchal work and living arrangements. It is really worth the read. Every now and then I come across a piece of writing that connects up a series of thoughts I have been having and I never quite see the world the same way again. This is one of those articles; it isn’t talking about anything new for me, but it is making those links in a more concrete, more overarching way for me. This is where feminism meets economics meets parenting:
In turn, what Hrdy finds is that a supportive network of caregivers is an evolutionarily stable strategy, ensuring children have many attachment figures. Patriarchal society isolated mothers by creating an environment that immured them from the social support that has long been the hallmark of our species. The image of the mother as “an all-giving, totally dedicated creature who turns herself over to her children”, says Hrdy, is not one that “takes into account the woman’s perspective”.
If you’re interested in the kind of stuff in this article about ‘attachment theory’ then I can’t recommend On Becoming Attached: First Relationships and How They Shape Our Capacity to Love by Robert Karen enough.
Thanks to Veronica Rojas for sending me a link to the article.
Reblogged this on emmageraln.
Sarah Blaffer Hrdy is AMAZING. I highly recommend her book “Mother Nature.”
Yes! I’m reading it now and enjoying it immensely. Hrdy provides a wealth of wonderful, well-thought out and scientifically supported retorts to people who argue that working mothers aren’t “natural” and other such things.
Although I’m coming at these issues from another angle really, I found the article such an interesting read.Thank you!
I second Megan’s recommendation and also recommend Hrdy’s more recent book, Mothers and Others.
I feel very fortunate to have come across Hrdy’s work, which I read not long after my first little one was born. Because of her, I can see how attachment parenting can fit within a feminist framework. Thanks for sharing this article!
*Mother Nature* and also *Mothers and Others*! I love Hrdy’s work. Thanks for posting this.
Thanks for this thought-provoking post. “A supportive network of caregivers… ensuring children have many attachment figures.” As a mother and a feminist and a believer in attachment parenting, I want and need all of this, and I’ve been trying to patch together my own social support network since I had my first child nearly 4 years ago. It’s reassuring to hear Hrdy argue that our species is not meant to mother in isolation, because in spite of everything there’s a part of me that thinks I ‘ought’ to be able to care for two small children, keep on top of the housework, and stay employable, presentable and sane *all by myself*; and self-sufficiency myths like these are so entrenched that we need them to be attacked repeatedly from all quarters, including evolutionary biology. We need to stop being afraid to say that raising children is too big a job for one person, or even for a nuclear family.
And I like that Hrdy is not narrowing in on the question of ‘how can mothers and fathers share child rearing equitably?’ (important as it is), but on the wider question of who, in the whole of society, is responsible for supporting parents (I suppose Hrdy would say ‘mothers’).
But having read the TES article I am left feeling frustrated. Because we are not living as hunter-gatherers, and so, given that we have patriarchy and capitalism and small families, etc, where and how do feminist attachment parents find the support we need in real life? I really struggle with this. I could do with a blueprint or an ideal. Obviously, we don’t have hunter-gatherer kinship networks to call on. My mother, father and brother are employed full-time in distant cities and I have no sisters (and if I did, they would probably be employed elsewhere and/or busy with their own families). My partner’s family also live far away and are not in good health. And even if we want wider kinship networks in the future, wouldn’t we need to have more children per family? I’m not sure I’d be willing to have extra children just to give my future grandchildren a better chance of growing up in a supportive kinship network, even if it would make evolutionary sense!
So, since most of us don’t have enough family members available to give regular help and support, where do we turn? We can employ people to care for our children, but it’s expensive to find responsive carers, especially for babies. Personally, I resisted institutional childcare for as long as I could, and I still don’t like it that even the best childcare I can afford is not as sensitive or responsive as I would want. Maybe I’d feel better about it if I could find childcare providers fluent in attachment theory, who paid their workers better, and there were higher government subsidies available for fees (as in Scandinavia). The arrangement I’ve felt most comfortable with for my children is informal reciprocal childcare between friends. This way, my children are looked after by people I know, like, trust, and expect to have a lasting friendship with. But inevitably, these are peers who have small children too, and who are also parenting with not enough support, meaning I can’t ask from them as much as I need or give to them as much as they need.
I would love to hear what other parents have done. Can the market economy ever provide the kind of care that ‘attachment parents’ can be satisfied with at a price that’s affordable for the many not the few, and if not (or while we wait/campaign for this), where do we turn?
Sorry, THE article, not TES article. I should add that I haven’t read Hrdy’s books, so if they do offer a vision of how to replace kinship networks in the modern world, I’d be interested to know.
Hrdy is writing as an anthropologist, and whiIe I have found the portion of her work that I have read to be fascinating, and ultimately reassuring because I feel that the science she explains supports my approach to parenting and life- I don’t think she has a blueprint for you. I don’t think I have an answer for you, either, and I hesitate to even post what I have, because it is far too easy for people to get judgey on other people’s parenting, and I have neither the time nor the inclination to defend my choices. I also find that when I write about my life, someone inevitably pops up to tell me (1) that I’m privileged (and yes, I am), (2) that I am lucky (and yes, I am), (3) that I am deluded (no, I am not), (4) I am insulting stay at home moms and other women who choose to drop out of paid labor for awhile (that is not my intent, and I do not think my way is better than anyone else’s), or (5) some combination of all of the above.
But for me, the answer was to stop treating all of these options as all or nothing choices. I am a feminist with a healthy career, who is full of ambition (and I honestly continue to feel and act on that ambition even with two young kids). My husband and I also parent along lines that are most closely matched to the attachment parenting style, although I find some of the main proponents of that style to judgmental and “one size fits all” for my taste, so I have not read widely on that style. We look at all the things we want to accomplish, and what options we had available, and made the best choices available for us. That means that our kids both went into a day care center at 5 months old. The teachers there are fabulous and responsive, but no, it is not a true attachment parenting choice. Still, my kids are extremely attached to their teachers, and I do not worry about them during the day- I know they are cared for and having fun.
At home, we are more responsive than many of our peers- we have, for instance, been very gentle on the sleep front, despite the fact that this has meant a lot of sleep deprivation for the grown ups, particularly me. We have done a lot of co-sleeping. I breastfed longer than any of the other moms in our day care group- I breastfed the first until she was 23 months old, quitting because I was pregnant with the second. I breastfed the second until she was about 27 months old, and we weaned very gently.
I am fully committed to my career- but there are things I want to do that I am choosing not to pursue right now, because I don’t like the trade offs they would entail at home.
My husband is truly in this 50-50 with me. When child care falls more on me for any reason, he picks up more of the housework. There was never any question that both of our careers were equally valuable.
We have some family in our support network, some friends, and some paid help. If the family support weren’t available, we would replace it with support from the other two options. We, in turn, offer support to friends when they need it and we can offer it.
We trade the money we get from having two relatively high powered careers for a lot of time- a cleaning service, spending as little time as possible shopping, even if that costs more, etc. We let A LOT of chores around the house go, and find that they must not be essential, after all, because nothing bad has happened.
So- I don’t know if that helps or not. I don’t think there is a single blueprint, but if I were to offer advice, it would be to not take any of the ideas (feminism, attachment parenting, etc) as absolute. Find your own mix based on what works in your life.
I loved this post – thank you Blue Milk. Since I first read it a few days ago, I’ve been reading up on Hrdy’s work on the net (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsuuPMUIMEE and this: http://discovermagazine.com/2003/mar/feathrdy ). At the same time I’ve been reflecting on the beneficiary bashing which is going on from our government here in New Zealand and the particular focus on recipients of the domestic purposes benefit, the much maligned solo mother in most instances. I think her idea of allo-parenting or allo-mothers and that we have deep links to such practices is very interesting and her logic is certainly plausible to me.
But I do wonder if it is easy to romanticise this. In rich world countries in the past forty years, public safety nets for single parents have been provided by the state. But always these mothers are under intense scrutiny and exist in a greater or lesser state of harassment. Through social workers and the related government department, there is the semblance of support for struggling families, though New Zealand’s horrific stats on child abuse and death means I stress the term ‘semblance’. In societies in the past, the worthy woman who is widowed gets a collection and the community’s respect while the unmarried mother gets dragged before the altar and condemned. The woman unfortunate enough to marry someone sick or a gambler or in any way not a reliable provider has always been begrudged support.
I’ve had a great richness of support as a mother from fellow mothers and family and truly wonderful home based childcare. It has made all the difference in so many ways, not least of which is the ability to work at a job I love and to enjoy good mental health. But I’m educated, married to a man who is financially and emotionally and practically supportive and we bought our house in the next street from our wonderful childminder. It ain’t like that the world over, and I’m most particularly conscious that it ain’t like that for the many solo parents in NZ currently being pressured heavily to find part time work no matter the problems with child care.
Perhaps it was more beautiful than that in the primal past. It’s tempting to assume a harmonious past of women helping each other across a range of situations, but we lack evidence for this ideal.
I think part of the lack of evidence has much to do with the people who were (and are) observing other cultures filtering what they saw (and see) through their patriarchy. And that even today, when we examine evidences and anecdotes, we’re still viewing them with a western lens. (Even when we look for evidence and anecdotes seeking to confirm/refute our theories, it’s often hard for someone raised within a western patriarchal society to see legitimacy of equality in women’s/ men’s roles.)
Why does modern western society see the gathering aspect of providing food (predominantly done by women; but should be noted that many men were gatherers also) as ‘less’ than the male hunter? Especially when it’s the gathering that tends to be the more reliable sustenance for tribes/nations? Unless of course you view that through a patriarchal lens, ignoring that women did also hunt, they just did it via different methods. And yet, even though they were equal providers of food for their people, the west views that as subservient?
One anecdote I can think of, is around colonisation in Australia. The Indigenous peoples of the Sydney and New South Wales coastal regions, in particular. Many colonials noted that some women were missing part of their little finger. Because of the things that were seen important to the colonisers, they believed it was a rite performed for marriage or to show fertility once a woman has borne a child. Until they started to notice young and very small girls also missing part of their little finger.
It was a rite. These women were considered the tribal/nation’s authority on fishing. A ligature would be tied around the finger and when it fell off, it was cast into the sea in a special ritual. It was thought that the fish would eat the piece of finger and forever be attracted to the hand that it came from. These women were primary fishers for their people. The removal of the finger was both symbolic and practical. (It helped to aid with casting of nets and lines) These women would also ‘call out to’ the fish. Singing and talking to the bodies of water from which they fished played a large role. The gathering/hunting of food had a spiritual aspect to it also. (Spirituality was imbedded into the everyday culture) Men and women would pass on their knowledge to the children who were included in all aspects of life, the telling of Dreamings, the act of example and hands on experience children gained from being an intricate part of tribal/nation life. (Their education)
[Watkin Tench, Sydneyās first four years: being a reprint of āA narrative of the expedition to Botany Bayā and,
āA complete account of the settlement at Port Jacksonā, Library of Australian History in association with the
Royal Australian Historical Society, Sydney, 1979, pp.49ā50
RE Bertrodano, āDescription of an Aboriginal tribeā in Isabel McBryde (ed.), Records of times past:
ethnohistorical essays on the culture and ecology of the New England tribes, Australian Institute of
Aboriginal Studies, Canberra, 1788, p.283
John Turnbull, A voyage round the world in the years 1800, 1801, 1802 and 1804: in which the author visited the
principal islands in the Pacific Ocean, and the English settlements of Port Jackson and Norfolk Island, printed for
Richard Phillips by T Gillet, London, 1805, pp.84ā5]
I don’t think it’s so much a harmonious past of women helping women, but that peoples as a whole who lived in tribal/nation groups relied much more on each other for survival. Whether it was harmonious or not would depend on individual personalities. But societies were once less segregated and relied a lot more on the co operation of all. So I do think the logic conclusion to that would be that women and men alike we’re more supportive of each other. Their survival depended on it.
One other thing.
When it came to observations of Indigenous Australia, in the early years of colonisation, people were very specific with their observances regarding gender. Due to the nature of our culture, women began to pull back from the colonists (particularly the men) and as we come to later years observances and observers are clearly avoiding making gender specific notations. (Not to say women were being less involved in daily life, but as I stated before, the were shying away from colonists. And so weren’t as observable) Also, as the time went on, observers weren’t so enamoured about the daily life on Indigenous peoples and wanted to focus more on our rituals and spirituality. (Which is often very gender specific. Men are not privy to women’s business. And vice versa. So there will be some obvious gaps in what is collated in this area)
I’ve also reflected on Hrdy’s article here: http://lettersfromwetville.blogspot.co.nz/2012/03/attachment-parenting-feminism-speaking.html
[…] begins with the work of Sarah Blaffer Hrdy (whom I’ve mentioned here many times before). As I commented at Blue Milk, “I feel very fortunate to have come across Hrdyās work, which I read not long after my […]
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