How is this for a quote?
Indeed, although attachment parenting comes with an exquisite progressive pedigree, it is a perfect tool for the political right.
The quote is from a seriously thought-provoking article by Erica Jong in The Wall Street Journal. I share the majority of sentiments Jong expresses in this article questioning attachment parenting – concerns about unidentified privilege in the movement; the use of ‘the noble savage’ in half-baked theories; the collision between trends in parenting intensification and workplace and institutional resistance; the invisible gender implications of the workload; and the tendency to manifest itself as ‘mother guilt’ – with one notable exception. Unlike Jong I do ‘attachment parent’ my children, and I like it, and it hasn’t particularly trapped me. So how to reconcile my experiences, and other mothers like me, with the very real problems Jong and some other feminists are identifying in the movement?
And anyway, why is everyone picking on attachment parenting? Well, certainly things like this don’t help. In reality all parenting philosophies have their share of zealots promoting ideas as doctrine, attachment parenting is not alone. The Baby Whisperer anyone? And because all parenting philosophies, by their very nature, say something about the way in which women should be leading their lives they all deserve close feminist scrutiny. However I suspect attachment parenting is copping an extra dose of censure. Why? I have a hunch that attachment parenting, with its attempts to better value ‘mothering work’ and also elevate the needs of a disempowered group of people (ie. babies and children) has accidentally tripped some kind of misogynistic alarm system.
Finally, Jong’s article should probably be read together with this interesting companion piece from Jong’s daughter, reflecting on Jong’s mothering.
I am a mother myself, so I am loath to judge another’s parenting. If there is one thing my three children have taught me, it is that parenting is an imperfect science. The road to dysfunction is paved with good intentions, and effort doesn’t necessarily equal results. That said, I think my mother’s essay begs the question: What kind of mother was Erica Jong?
I think one of the most valuable things about attachment parenting is stripping the parent-child relationship of unnecessary regimentation.
Consider romantic relationships between women and men. It turns out that men do not have to handle the finances and initiate all the sex, and women do not have to do all the housework. There are a much broader range of relationships.
Likewise, attachment parenting theories say that children do not have to sleep alone, do not have to be put down to cry, do not have to be subject to physical discipline and so on. The idea of making love between carer and baby very central is pretty radical in some ways.
But feminist critiques of woman-man relationships and feminist/attachment critiques of carer-child relationships run into trouble when they fail to take into account the full story and the intersections. The Feminist Choice[TM] is to Keep Your Name (and Get Back To Work After Birth). The Attachment Choice[TM] is to Stay At Home.
On Jong’s article: to the extent that it talks about the lawyer who became a SAHM, children as accessories, helicopter parenting and so on, I feel it plays right into standard journalistic parenting criticism: It’s All About the Middle Class. (Rather like journalistic treatment of 20-somethings: we apparently all flit about in search for the perfect use for our BA degree[1] living off our parent’s reluctant but loving largesse[2].) These articles always make me want quantitative data: parents! What are they doing? And not just the writer’s friends either!
[1] Disclaimer: I have a BA. It’s a long story.
[2] Not hardly.
Just realised that the last para sounds like a critique of this blog. It isn’t meant to be! I love parenting blogs and their specificity. But when people want to make broad statements about things from important pulpits, I want to see their work.
Thank you Mary for pointing out class in Jong’s (and other writers like her) parenting critiques! It is a tired mistake of journalists and scholars alike to speak from the lens of middle and upper middle class and blanket it as though it speaks for everyone. Frankly, it’s sort of un-feminist to do so, at least the feminism I am familiar with.
And cheers to Blue Milk for calling out purists in any parenting philosophy, likewise I do “attachment parent” my son, but don’t find it stifling (I also make my own baby food too, but mostly because jarred baby food smells like death and it’s easy to just give him bits of what eve we are eating).
“On Jong’s article: to the extent that it talks about the lawyer who became a SAHM, children as accessories, helicopter parenting and so on, I feel it plays right into standard journalistic parenting criticism: It’s All About the Middle Class.”
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I feel like the whole WOHM vs SAHM argument (or feminist v. attachment argument), at least as it is framed in the media, completely ignores that we don’t make these choices in an economic vacuum. I don’t work outside the home because I’m a feminist, I work outside the home because my kid needs a roof over her head and shoes on her feet. I know other women who stay at home with their kids, not because they’re Stepford wives or attachment adherents, but because they can’t afford daycare for two children.
(And thank you to Rosa for pointing me towards this blog.)
attachment parenting theories say that children do not have to sleep alone, do not have to be put down to cry, do not have to be subject to physical discipline and so on
Hmmm… I didn’t do attachment parenting, but I didn’t do any of these things either. I wonder if part of the value of attachment parenting is that it has made some of these ideas much more commonplace.
I wouldn’t want to go so far as to say, “Hey, whatever works for you is fine” because as it turns out, some parenting styles are abusive. But there is a huge range of parenting styles that are perfectly fine. Sure, there may be particular problems, but by and large, most parents are doing their best.
My younger brother (he and his partner are deeply admirable parents) said something that I found both provocative, and reassuring. “I know that I’m making mistakes as a parent. I just don’t know which things are the mistakes.”
I don’t attach a name to my parenting style. I’m sure that some of my family and friends think of me as very earth mama–we don’t watch TV when the sprout is around, we don’t do electronic toys (except at grandma’s), we co-slept for a long time and I’ve never done cry-it-out. I’m equally sure that other friends think of me as hopelessly conventional and mainstream–I supplemented breast-feeding with formula, the sprout has a ton of plastic toys, I don’t object to sweets or the occasional Happy Meal. In short, we do what works for us as a family.
I think that part of the rancor and frustration with various parenting philosophies has to do with people’s reluctance to acknowledge that every baby and every parent has their own personality, and that different styles work best for different personalities. My kid has always been very snuggly, and I’m very tactile myself–so co-sleeping and breastfeeding never left me feeling especially exhausted or “touched out.” But that’s me and my kid. I don’t presume to know what’s best for you and your kid.
There is a huge range of parenting styles that are perfectly fine. Sure, there may be particular problems, but by and large, most parents are doing their best.
This incredibly wise and humane, but unfortunately, you’ll never sell a ton of books by saying it. ;)
[…] Can attachment parenting be saved? – blue milk […]
I get really frustrated with feminist (or mainstream media) critiques of attachment parenting – we see the same kind of rhetoric in feminist and mainstream critiques of breastfeeding and the natural childbirth movement. I get frustrated because much of the logic is reductive and simplistic, and I completely agree with Mary’s point: “But feminist critiques of woman-man relationships and feminist/attachment critiques of carer-child relationships run into trouble when they fail to take into account the full story and the intersections. The Feminist Choice[TM] is to Keep Your Name (and Get Back To Work After Birth). The Attachment Choice[TM] is to Stay At Home.” Exactly. The reality is that most mothers are not slaves to one system or parenting or another. Most of us are flexible and take what works for us. I’m big into babywearing, but I do not wear my baby 24/7. I co-sleep only when it works for everyone, and I don’t feel any guilty about going to work full time. There is a lot that I like about AP, but I also look at it with a critical feminist eye, and am able to interrogate the parts of it that I find problematic.
I think Jong is completely right that attachment parenting and bf advocacy can all be used as tools of the right. So can being a stay at home mom, which of course HAS been used as a tool of the right for a long time. And yet there are feminist SAHMs and feminist BF moms and feminist AP moms, just as there are feminist moms who don’t do those things. It all reminds me of that furor over Rosin’s (IMO) ridiculous “critique” of BF, which essentially reduced to: BF is bad! Because it makes women work more! Because of the patriarchy! And my response to all this is simple: Standards and expectations for mothering are out of whack, no matter which parenting style one subscribes to because we live in a patriarchal society in which women and their work is undervalued. Period. This is the same whether you are bottle or breast feeding, at home or at work full time. (Because if you think about it, rejecting AP or BF because it is not “feminist” implies that bottle feeding and conventional parenting models – CIO crib sleeping, etc – are “liberating” to women, which we know is just. not. true.) AP does not oppress mothers. If the right tries to use it as a weapon against mothers, the response is not to just give it up and say, oh we can’t use that because the Right wants us to. We say, I’m doing this is in a Feminist way. I’m going to transform what might be objectional about it. If we gave up everything the right used as a weapon, women would never be in heterosexual marriages with children or homemakers. We need to refashion what parenting *means* and how it is valued, not throw the baby out with the sling.
My data point is that I consider myself a modified AP extended BF full-time working feminist mother with a feminist (male) partner who actually does almost 50% of the childcare and at least 50% of the housework. (And I really love this blog – long time lurker, first time poster.)
PS Just wanted to add how much I loved & agreed w/ your earlier post on “why AP needs feminism”. I feel like you offer a vital alternative in feminist thought to the Jong/Rosins.
Haven’t read the Jong piece yet. Not sure if I can stomach it, basically because I can’t stand to see women’s needs pitted against babies’ needs. We must be a pretty impoverished and unimaginative society if we really have to choose one or the other. Though it’s my understanding from your post and one by Laura at 11D that Jong’s article isn’t what I think it is, and so I guess I do have to read it. *sigh*
Question: I’m not sure I understand what you mean by this: “I have a hunch that attachment parenting, with its attempts to better value ‘mothering work’ and also elevate the needs of a disempowered group of people (ie. babies and children) has accidentally tripped some kind of misogynistic alarm system.” Could you elaborate? I’m intrigued.
Rachael – I probably didn’t word that well then. What I was trying to say is that attachment parenting really tries to draw attention to the importance of the work mothers do in attending to their babies, and it mostly does this by talking about how important it is for babies to be responded to.. and this focus means that attachment parenting is elevating the importance of ‘mother work’ (sometimes at the expense of recognising the ‘work’ part which is why it attracts the ire of feminism) and also, the needs of babies and children. And valuing ‘women’s work’ and promoting the needs of otherwise disempowered groups tends to bring out misogynist anxiety in a patriarchy.
Thank you for the explanation! And I finally did read the article. It seemed mostly incoherent to me. For example: “Someday ‘attachment parenting’ may be seen as quaint, but today it’s assumed that we can perfect our babies by the way we nurture them. Few of us question the idea, and American mothers and fathers run themselves ragged trying to mold exceptional children.” Who’s talking about attachment parenting = perfect children? Nobody I know. And only “few” question this idea? Really? But then I agree with her on other points, for example that more cooperative child-rearing would be a good thing. It’s all very confusing.
I struggle to keep up with the definitions and rhetoric. I haven’t been able to figure out why that is – because I’m culturally isolated? Because I’m too busy being a mother and wife and woman to stop and research which type I am? I think I attachment parent, and yet I’m certain I’m not in certain ways, and I’m left wondering – do I bother caring about it?
That said, I think Erica’s critique is dramatic and a bit limited in imagination. Why couldn’t AP serve to change the way society works instead of create all the guilt and impossibility in the face of how society works today? Am I wrong in thinking people writing about these things are just dealing with their own emotions about their own choices or creating a sexy fuss for ratings?
I give up. I can’t hang in these debates. I’m just way too far to the side of each parent needing to do what works best for them and what they do best to parent.
Ali makes a good point. Why can’t AP parents demand societal and community change? And why do children need to be the ones whose needs come last in the meantime?
Also, what’s with the glorification of economic labour. I was a lawyer and quit well before kids to study again because it was a soul destroying job. Kids are way more fun and I’m ok with not being able to afford a house because I don’t currently earn money. Also I find AP far more liberating than being defined as a capitalist economic unit.
As usual the article shows a lack of knowledge about AP. This is most evident in the conflation of AP and ‘helicopter parenting’ and the way the ignores the expectations of AP for fathers. It is these expectations that I think will ultimately force societal change.
Hey Cristy! I’m quitting being a lawyer too! I hope to be poor and part-time – that’s my ideal parenting plan. Lots of involvement but time to reboot my brain.
Interesting post, interesting because I think parenting, can get caught in fashions and trends and get embroiled in politics and not for the greater good of parents nor children.
Every parent has the right to parent their child in the best way they see fit, but how can we do this without influence from media, our own parents and their parenting style and our peers around us.
However you choose to bring up your children there will always be a report on how certain behaviours and certain disciplines can be negative/positive to parent child relationship.
Its hard enough being a confident woman and mother in these times never mind bringing up children to be the same. That is what I try to do. By being positive in my own decisions as a parent I hope to raise my children to be confident positive and caring individuals.
That in itself will be a triumph if I succeed!
I have this problem in my neighborhood where the crunchy granola feminist mamas are absolutely indistinguishable from the crunchy granola spare the rod fundamentalists until you’ve talked to them quite a bit. So I do totally agree that attachment parenting can be a tool of the Right, especially when it goes from “children *can* sleep with you” to “children *must* sleep with you.”
But like Deborah said, the Attachment Parents (or maybe the pre-attachment hippie parents) have put a while bunch of good stuff back on the buffet for the rest of us. I could not believe the crap my friends who live outside the crunch-granola bubble got for things like breastfeeding as long as six months.
p.s. Thank you so much for the link to Molly Jong-Fast’s article. I just read a book prefaced and edited by Rebecca Walker and I was expecting another “Feminism ruined my childhood!” piece, so I was pleasantly surprised.
[…] blue milk: In reality all parenting philosophies have their share of zealots promoting ideas as doctrine, […]
[…] Here is what I thought about Jong’s previous writing on the subject of ‘attachment parenting’; this time I think she is just stirring the pot for clicks for The New York Times. Her theories feel contrived, her conclusions half-baked. For starters, the question of co-sleeping and space for sexual passion is far from unanswered. Secondly, Jong thinks mothers are frightened of sex, but it is motherhood we truly fear. The motherhood movement as a backlash against sex? Oh gawd. For the record, I’m perfectly capable of being obsessed by both sex and motherhood, thank you very much. […]
[…] thoughts on where the resurgence in attachment parenting fits with feminism. I raised a number of challenges but I also higlighted what I see as harmonies between feminism and this style of parenting. There […]
[…] and why they’ve more in common than in conflict, Why attachment parenting needs feminism, Can attachment parenting be saved?, and The accidental attachment parent. Share this:StumbleUponEmailTwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe […]
[…] and why they’ve more in common than in conflict, Why attachment parenting needs feminism, Can attachment parenting be saved?, and The accidental attachment […]