A Twisty Take on Attachment Parenting

“You spoil your babies!” My sister burst out, accusing and laughing at the same time.

She had tried, to no avail, to hold my seven month old. Matilda was having none of it. My baby will let you hold her for about 30 seconds until she erupts into full blown crying, wailing, tears and all. She wants her mama. As soon as she gets back into my arms, she calms down and looks at the offender with contempt and suspicion.

She’ll be your best friend, smiles, giggles, tons of babbling, as long as you don’t try to hold her. As long as she is in her mama’s arms, she adores you.

A friend of ours who speaks Spanish as her first language tried to hold Matilda recently. She thought she could walk away, out of my sight, and that Matilda would forget about me and calm down. No such luck.

“Mamitis severitis.” She said, as she handed her back to me. 

Severe mommy-itis.

Yep. That’s my kid.

My mother (my daughters’ grandmother!) watched Matilda, and her big sister Celaya, for us while Carlos and I went to a Kings of Leon concert. When I got home I asked, “so? How was she?”

My mom smiled a pleasant smile and replied, frankly, “she cried for almost the whole time. She didn’t fall asleep fully until about thirty minutes ago.”

It was midnight. My baby’s bedtime is 8:30PM.

Matilda’s big sister was the same way. It was a running joke in my family and with all my friends. “Oh my god! She’s so spoiled. What a mama’s girl.”

Thinking about it the other day, I said to my mom, “I honestly don’t know how to be any other kind of mother.”

It’s true. I read a lot. So of course I read a lot about babies and mothers, how to raise strong kids, how to raise independent kids, how to raise mentally healthy kids. I want my children to be happy, yes, but more importantly, I want them to feel loved and supported. I want my children to have a strong foundation.

Everything, everything I read to get what I wanted in my children said to love them. The literature says that touch, cuddle, breastfeeding, response to cries all build a strong foundation for strong, mentally healthy, confident children. You cannot spoil a baby under a year old. An infant only understands having her basic needs met. She doesn’t understand manipulation. She’s not testing you or pushing your buttons. She genuinely feels like she needs to be held, hugged, nursed, looked in the eye.

The science says to hug your baby tighter when she comes for a hug, to sit down and play when she asks you to play, to look her in the eyes and listen when she wants your ear.

The sites said that if I did all of this, if I build a trust, love, and confidence so firm under my baby’s feet that she could never go anywhere without feeling it beneath them, then she would in fact travel far and wide. She would always feel capable of risk, never be afraid to fall, because she knew I would always be there to catch her, or kiss and bandage her wounds if she had to fall. Because sometimes she just has to fall, so that one day she can fly.

So I did. I spent five years hugging, kissing, and loving my five year old. Only in the last year as she has approached an age where she clearly understands right from wrong have I had to be more firm, more authoritative, more disciplinarian. She spent the first year of her life in bed with me and my husband. I let her figure out when she was ready to potty train. She figured out when she was ready to climb tall boulders, swing from high bars, and take the elevator down to the ground floor of our building alone. She tells me when she’s ready. And I trust her.

All of this made sense to me, it resonated with me, and my instincts told me the literature I was reading was right. Also, observing my child for the last five years has told me the science is right.

Our Parent and Me Yoga teacher said to me once, when Celaya was only two years old, “kids are so much closer to their instincts than we are. They haven’t been institutionalized not to trust their feelings the way we have. I don’t understand why we don’t trust them to know what they need.”

That rung true to me, and I still think of that conversation to this day, three years later. It has held true. And I have begun the work, sometimes exhausting, of my own brand of attachment parenting with Matilda. She does pretty much everything with me, in my arms, in between my legs, you name it.

Of course I am fortunate that we have built our lives in a way that allows us to be home with our kids. Our schedules line up so that if I am not with our kids, my husband is. I never had to rush Celaya to potty train for preschool. I don’t have to rush her to fall asleep or write her name or add and subtract. I am homeschooling, so Celaya and her sister can learn to do everything in their own time.

This is the “attachment parenting” style that works for me. Most people who practice attachment parenting do it in their own way. Until recently, I had never even read anything by Dr. Sears. I learned about attachment parenting in bits and pieces through a variety of sources. Honestly the most obvious examples that stand out to me now are the singer Pink and the actress and PhD Mayim Balik. I’m obsessed with Pink and I have a lot of respect for Mayim Balik.

I’m not a zealot. I only breastfeed for the first year. Yes my baby sleeps with me for that first year, but I kicked Celaya out and into her own room after that. I plan on doing the same with Matilda. I stay home and I homeschool, but my baby is not always in a sling. Sometimes I need both hands for tasks around the house (or I have to pee!) and I (gasp!) put my baby down. If she cries for a few minutes, she cries. I don’t feel excessive guilt that she has baby tears for a minute because I have to cut beef and get it in the frying pan. I think most parents who say they don’t practice attachment parenting do so because they think only of the extreme examples. I do what works for me and my kids, and I write this here as an encouragement to all parents to do the same. Practice the attachment that works for you and be proud of it.

This works for us. All that not rushing, not pushing, just loving and just guiding, just providing the tools and the resources, just letting Celaya figure out what she wants and needs, she is thus far a good case for this parenting style. I haven’t really “taught” her anything in the strict definition of the word. She can write her letters, she can sound out simple words, she can do simple math, she can dress herself, bathe herself, do simple chores around the house, order her own food in a restaurant, and make friends, young and old, anywhere she goes. She has outgrown her severe mommy-itis.

I still work 25 hours a week, I still have coffee with girlfriends or escape to a movie alone on occasion. I still take time for myself so that I don’t completely empty my motherhood vessel without ever getting a chance to refill it. Self care is not selfish; it does you and your whole family a service.

I am not a unicorn and neither are my children. We are not the exception to the rule. We don’t have it all down. I trust my instincts as a mother and I am teaching my children to do the same. And sometimes we fall. So that one day we can fly.

You may believe my five year old is a special case. Maybe it’s all nature and no nurture. Maybe she would have turned out this way no matter what. But I don’t think so. In fact, I’m betting that’s not the case. I’m betting on the foundation I’ve laid and continue to lay. She is a strong, independent, confident child. And her sister is so far following closely in her footsteps, spoiled tears and all.