Natalie is a beautiful little girl with long dark hair and huge brown eyes. She is three years old, is an only child, and doesn’t go to preschool. Natalie, her mother and I were sharing a waiting room with Paula, whose favorite thing is reading; Diane, who is a special ed teacher; and Scott, who mostly kept to himself but was very friendly when spoken to. The reason I know more details than normal about my fellow strangers-in-waiting is that little Natalie was serving as the social director, introducing herself to everyone, asking questions, and just generally being a friendly and vivacious three year old.

Natalie’s mom was tired; I could see that just by looking at her. Tired and most likely stressed, and possibly feeling beat down by life in general. I say that with sincere empathy, because I don’t know what kind of hand she’s been dealt. I don’t know her life story, and I don’t know where she’s coming from.

All I know is that she was treating her daughter very unkindly, and her daughter didn’t deserve it (not that any child ever does)

She was short and impatient as she spoke to her, and the first time she actually yelled – when Natalie stood up on her chair – she yelled so sharply and abruptly that everyone in the room looked up from what they were doing.

“Sit DOWN! And leave that poor lady alone!!”

Undeterred, Natalie sat down, and picked up a book.

“Can I read this to you?” she asked her mother.

“You don’t know how to read,” her mother snapped. “Just sit there. And sit there quietly.”

That was when my heart truly broke for her, for this innocent little girl who I’d never seen before and would never see again.

I was called to see the dentist then, but she didn’t leave my mind. Later, when I was at the checkout desk scheduling my next appointment, I felt a tiny presence beside me. A little hand suddenly appeared on the desk next to me, holding a pink ball covered in suction cups. I turned to see Natalie looking up at me. I said hello and told her what a cool ball she had. She smiled at me, stuck her ball on the desk, and plucked it off again.

As I was finishing up with the receptionist, one of the dentists came by and showed her how to throw it against the wall in the hallway. They were playing, and laughing, when her mother came around the corner.

There you are!
Stop throwing that!
I don’t care what he said!
Give me that ball!

The last image I had of little Natalie was of her crying because her mother had taken her ball, and was demanding that she say “please” and ask nicely before she would consider giving it back.

I don’t remember getting reprimanded a lot as a child, but I do remember how it made me feel. Some incidents, as many as 30 years ago, are as fresh in my memory as if they happened yesterday. I still remember when once as a kid I really needed to tell my mother something when she was on the phone. I knew she was talking on the phone, but I also knew that I just. couldn’t. wait. So I “Mom. Mom. Mom”‘d her until she put her hand over the phone, looked me in the eye, and yelled, “Shut UP!” I still remember how ashamed I felt, how devastated. I still remember that sick, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

My husband tells of a time when he was helping his mother change the sheets on the bed. He was holding the edge of the mattress up, and slipped and dropped it on his mother. She yelled at him for the mistake, called him a “little sh*t,” and he was so crushed he ran off to cry. He’d learned not to cry in front of her, because that would lead to his being called a crybaby.

If we can remember these isolated incidents with such clarity, what must a girl like Natalie grow up feeling? How indelibly those negative words must be marked on her soul.

I can’t do anything about Natalie. And I can’t do anything to change my past mistakes with my own kids. What I can do – what we all can do – is to remember that feeling we had as kids, to remember that with each time we yell or belittle or cut them down in any way, we take away a piece of not just their happiness, but of their soul. That each time we’re less than kind to our kids that we risk damaging not only who they are right now, but who they’re going to be. That just because we’re the ADULTS, we have the responsibility to love, nurture, and protect not just our own children, but all children. If we as adults can’t treat them with kindness and respect, how will they treat each other? How will they treat their own kids? When does the cycle stop?

As I was finishing up this blog, I received a comment on Facebook telling me that I needed to stop judging Natalie’s mother. And I’m not. This really has nothing to do with her, and everything to do with an innocent and defenseless baby who did not deserve to be treated that way. We need to stop letting political correctness stop us from saying the things that need to be said.

We need to be adults. We need to start treating our kids better.

Yes, even when we’re sleep-deprived.  Even when we’re sick, when we’re fighting with our spouses, or when we’re stressed about finances.  Even when we’re having a really crappy day, and the last thing we want to do is be patient and kind to anyone.  Because we are the grownups.  Because if we don’t do it, no one else will.  Because somewhere along the way, someone decided that it was okay to treat kids with less respect than we’d treat fellow adults.

It’s not okay.  

Think of the last time someone hurt your feelings.  The last time someone said something truly unkind, or unnecessary, or mean.  The last time someone really insulted you, or belittled you, or was even just less than supportive.  Think of the last time someone said something to you in anger, something that was so cutting that even if you knew they regretted it and they instantly apologized, you will carry the scar the rest of your life.  Have the feeling?  Now imagine that you’ve gotten that hurtful treatment and you’re 3 years old.  Or 5.  Or 12.  You’re still figuring out the way the world works.  You’re still figuring out who you can really trust.   You’re still figuring out how to treat people.  You’re still figuring out emotions, and self-worth, and social nuances.  You’re still figuring out where you fit in.  You’re still figuring out your own sense of YOU.   How do you feel now?

Let’s break the cycle today.  For ourselves, for our kids, and for Natalie.

This is in response to an article by Erica Jong, entitled Mother Madness, in which she attacks attachment parenting. You can read the entire article here. Or, you can skip reading the article, and just read my blog, because 1) I’m going to share all the high points (or low points as it were), and 2) my blog has a picture of a really cute breastfeeding toddler and hers doesn’t.


I actually read the article all the way through a couple of times, both because I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anything, and because I sort of enjoy reading things that make me shake my head and go “huh?”  Her arguments make absolutely no sense to me, and I’m still not sure what it is exactly that has her so bent out of shape.    She comes across as sarcastic (and not in a funny way) and angry, and blames it on everything from societal pressures to Angelina Jolie.  She lambasts Dr William Sears and his Baby Book, and complains that the very idea of attachment parenting is an unrealistic and harmful “trend” that just sets women up for failure.


The first thing that had me scratching my head was when she called The Baby Book “today’s bible of child rearing.”  Now, I think Dr Sears is great, and have read several of his books.  My well-worn copy of The Baby Book is still on my shelf somewhere, dog-eared and dusty.  It’s been years since I’ve picked it up, as I’ve been busy living and parenting and doing the very things that Ms Jong finds so distasteful.  I was a brand-new mom 13 years ago, and yes, I was thrilled to discover Dr Sears and to learn that what I was already instinctually doing actually had a name.   I never looked at it as a baby-rearing manual, and even if I did… this is a book that was first published in 1993.   Nearly twenty years old, it could hardly be considered the bible of a current trend.


And let’s just be real for a minute.  While it may be gaining visibility, attachment parenting is still far from the pop-culture, trend-setting, hip thing to do that the author makes it out to be.   I am exceedingly thankful for the like-minded friends that I’ve made throughout the years that I’ve been a parent, but I am (and believe I will remain) in the minority on this.  And that’s ok!  


This article seems to assume that attachment parenting is something that is done as a means to an end, a painful prescription for raising perfect children.  Towards the beginning of the article she says,


“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. It’s a highly competitive race.”


To say she is entirely missing the point is putting it kindly.  I don’t feel as though parenting is a competition.  I’m not at all interested in raising or molding perfect children.  I don’t feel any pressure to live up to someone else’s ideal, or to meet someone else’s certain set of parenting standards.  I, along with lots of other mothers, do what I do simply because it’s what feels right.  I am attuned to my children, and I am sensitive to their needs.  And yes:  For my babies, and my house, that has meant breastfeeding them, wearing them, sleeping with them, and allowing them to follow their own internal schedule for weaning and sleeping on their own, among other things.  My goal is not to “produce” perfect or exceptional children, but to love and nurture and appreciate them RIGHT NOW, in the manner that my God-given instincts (not William Sears or Angelina Jolie) tell me to.    


I am happy, and my children are happy.  Our life isn’t a perfect life, but it’s a joyful life.  Living a lifestyle in which needs are being met, in which everyone acts according to their own authentic truth, and in which people are being respected is to live a life of freedom, not – as the article would have you believe – one of imprisonment.


“Attachment parenting, especially when combined with environmental correctness, has encouraged female victimization. Women feel not only that they must be ever-present for their children but also that they must breast-feed, make their own baby food and eschew disposable diapers.  It’s a prison for mothers, and it represents as much of a backlash against women’s freedom as the right-to-life movement.”


I’m not entirely sure why being a “green” parent must be lumped in with attachment parenting, or why making your own baby food or using cloth diapers would be akin to prison, but I’ll bite.  Women should be present for their children.  They chose to have those children, not the other way around.  Breastfeeding has many many benefits over formula.  The fact that it is the healthier choice has been shown again and again, evidenced by the little “breast is best” disclaimer even on all the formula ads.  And cloth diapers and homemade babyfood?  Of course they’re great choices, for many reasons.   But you don’t want to make them?  Don’t.  Easy.  You have your reasons.  But don’t assume that those of us who do are doing so for any reason than our own personal convictions.  Don’t assume that we’re mindless drones bowing to some invisible societal pressures, or imprisoned by some perfect ideal, in the quest to somehow one-up everyone else.  


And why all the guilt?  Since when do women feel the need to measure themselves against anyone else’s ideals but their own?  I have friends who grow all their own vegetables and have handmade Christmases.  Cool!  I’m lucky I can keep silk flowers alive, and our Christmases tend towards video games.  Cool!  


“Giving up your life for your child creates expectations that are likely to be thwarted as the child, inevitably, attempts to detach”


I believe this sentence is the one, on my second or third reading, that made me the most sad.  It’s as if she’s cautioning mothers against caring too much, and giving too much, with the fear that they’ll be let down;  with the fear that they’ll grow to crave children who never grow up, and never leave their side.  


The opposite is true.  


I did give up a certain amount of freedoms when I had children in order to be the parent that I wanted to be.  It was something I gladly did, and continue to do, for the people who I chose to bring into the world, and into my life.  It was not a sacrifice, or a big act of martyrdom, but a gift.  The only expectations I carry with it are those I would carry with any other gift:  none.  To truly give, you release all expectations.  You give because you want to give, because you love the person you’re giving to, and because it’s what we were made to do.  Yes, as parents we were designed to give of ourselves to our children.  And when their needs are met, parent and child are confident, happy, and fulfilled… and ready to move onto the next stage of their lives.  Children who know that their parents are there for them  (and haven’t been forced to detach before they were ready) gain independence easily, and naturally.  In their own time, and in their own way.  They’re the ones who still have good relationship with their parents when they’re teenagers.  They’re the ones who go off to college (or the Air Force or the work force) with ease, as secure and confident young adults who know who they are and know where they’re going.  


When something – or someone – is nurtured, it grows.


Finally, attachment parenting is not a new concept.  Nor is it a conspiracy whose mission it is to heap guilt upon the masses who parent differently.  You don’t have to agree with it, and you certainly don’t have to aspire to be any other parent than the one that you, in your own heart, want to be.  But if you’re angry and defensive, feeling guilty and pressured by mothers who make different choices, maybe that’s just the way you feel.  Maybe it’s not the fault of those other mothers, or of Dr Sears, or of society at large. 


Maybe, just maybe, you’re not quite as happy with your own choices as you claim to be.