Attachment Parenting Versus Natural Family Living

Those two ways of life are not the same thing.

They are used interchangeably in the natural parenting community because you cannot practice NFL without AP. However, you can practice AP without practicing NFL.

The proof is in the source. The phrase "Attachment Parenting" was coined by none other than Dr. William Sears, who was inspired by the ideas he found in The Continuum Concept. And Dr. Sears is not "crunchy," as being who practice NFL are sometimes called.

Observe.

Attachment Parenting encompasses those things that specifically refer to your relationship with your children, most frequently infants and babies. It includes the following key ideas, adapted to your specific situation when warranted (Dr. Sears calls them the Seven B's):

1. Birth bonding (doing those things that help create a connection as soon as possible after the birth)

2. Breastfeeding

3. Babywearing

4. Bedding close to baby

5. Belief in the language value of your baby's cries (no cry-it-out)

6. Beware of baby trainers (no rigid scheduling or other "convenience" techniques)

7. Balance

Attachment Parenting does carry on to the later years of childhood, as you find in Dr. Sears' Discipline Book, where he discusses the importance of never spanking your children or using other harsh methods that may get immediate results but create a distance between you and your children that will show up later, especially during the teenaged years.

It embraces that idea of child as person to teach and guide instead of control.

Natural Family Living includes this kind of parenting, but is geared toward those parents who are also interest in harmonious living with the earth, holistic medicine, alternative schooling, open-ended toys (toys that inspire creativity and can be used many different ways, such as blocks), gentle discipline, natural birth, and whole foods.

Some of the things you find in Natural Family Living that you don't necessarily find with Attachment Parenting (or given much attention in a Dr. Sears book) are homebirth and/or midwife-attended births, cloth diapering, no vaccinations or selective vaccinations (Dr. Sears' son, Dr. Bob Sears, does have a vaccine book out that offers an alternative schedule), no circumcision, eating organic or locally grown foods, homeschool or alternative schools such as Montessori or Waldorf, natural toys, limited or no television, homesteading, chemical free skin care and cleaning products, no spanking, no yelling or other forms of coercive parenting, organic gardening - I can go on.

I have heard some mamas say they never feel natural enough or "AP" enough. I think there are some things, such as spanking or cry-it-out sleep scheduling or sitting your 2 month old in front of a television for hours, that damage your children and definitely disqualify you from the NFL label, if fitting a label is what you are looking for.

Overall, however, both AP and NFL represent ideals, and ideals are rarely ever 100% achievable. They are guidelines and philosophies that embrace the ideas of living more peacefully with each other, the first with our babies and children, the second with our communities and our environment. They give our children value and freedom - we trust their cries, we want them close, we give them flexible educations that let them work with their strengths, we give them bodily integrity, we contribute to their emotional and physical health.

Not everyone can homeschool. Not everyone can give birth naturally (as I discovered twice). Not everyone can breastfeed. Not everyone has access to organic food. This isn't a club with membership rules. You do what you can.

Fun on Twitter

I love following Martha Stewart on Twitter"

MarthaStewart
on plane from paris to nice yet another reason not to eat factory farmed meat i know how they feel
about 9 hours ago from mobile web


Another favorite is Jim Gaffigan, who is our favorite comedien:

jimgaffigan
Chocolate chip cookies must make oatmeal raisin cookies feel so insecure.
9:31 AM Jun 27th from TwitterFon

jimgaffigan
The nastiest part of fish is the entire part
9:42 AM Jun 27th from TwitterFon

jimgaffigan
Just showed my kids The Lincoln Memorial. Is it wrong that I told them that was Abe's actual size?
22 minutes ago from TwitterFon

Gone too far in supporting breastfeeding?

Gone too far?

by Lauredhel on June 25, 2009 · 22 comments
in food/drink, health, reproductive justice

Those who think that society has “gone too far” in supporting breastfeeding, that mothers who formula feed are demonised and breastfeeding mothers aren’t:

Show me the women who are losing their jobs for formula feeding.

Show me the women who are being kicked out of restaurants, swimming pools, gyms, childcare centres, and airplanes for formula feeding.

Show me the immigrant women whose babies are removed because, among other things, they planned to formula feed.

Show me the women who have been ordered to cease or interrupt formula feeding by family courts.

Show me the women who have been inappropriately ordered to stop formula feeding by doctors and child health care nurses because of concerns that the formula feeding is causing the baby to be too big, too small, too loud, too anything. Show me the Child Protection reports that ensue when mothers are sceptical and non-compliant with this uninformed “advice”.

Show me the people who, on seeing a bottle pulled out in a public place, will wrinkle their nose and say in disgust, “Are you going to do that here?”

Read the rest here

I'd Rather You Die Than Me Pay Higher Taxes

National Fairy Day, June 24

"Fairy Day is a holiday sprung from the imagination of a fairy artist and believer, and brought to life with the help of many of her talented friends and fellow fairy lovers. With the world enjoying a surge of interest in all things fairy, we feel that now is the perfect time to introduce a yearly holiday to celebrate the fae. This holiday is for everyone who believes in the magic of fairytales. It is for those imaginative souls who dare to dream impossible dreams. It is for the children of the world, wide eyed and open to the magic that surrounds them. It is for adults too, who long to capture a bit of that magic they remember from thier own childhood. Please join us in supporting this wonderful holiday. We have filled the pages of this web site with ideas on how you can support and celebrate Fairy Day."

- Jessica Galbreth, fairy artist, founder of Fairy Day

The party was basically playgroup with a theme.

Connor shows off his clothespin fairy. Notice that Daddy added a beard and chest hair.

I learned some important lessons about using a hot glue gun - once you set your pieces together, they are set that way for life. No sliding pieces into a better position. A crooked hat and or lopsided wing are forever crooked and lopsided.

Our fun, fenced-in back yard was supposed to be the location of many fun summer adventures. Instead it is blanketed in fallen mulberries. This is what happens when you walk around in the back yard.

Barack Obama's Healthcare Reform, Including an Intimate Story

It's only a few sentences about his mother in the middle of the clip - but he says while his mother was dying of ovarian cancer, her last weeks were spent fretting over whether her insurance was going to cover her bills.

I had the exact thing going through my head while I was suffering at home trying not to go to the hospital - how will I pay for this? My family is going to suffer for this. And we are. I am getting lots of angry collection notices from the various doctors and technicians who bill separately from the hospital, which means their fees don't get waived. I wish I hadn't gone. I regret every day going to the hospital and approving that surgery.

Newborn Weights Affected By Environmental Contaminants

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090615144211.htm

ScienceDaily (June 16, 2009) — Recent epidemiological studies have revealed an increase in the frequency of genital malformations in male newborns (e.g., un-descended testes) and a decrease in male fertility.

The role played by the growing presence in our environment of contaminants that reduce male hormone action could explain this phenomenon.

It is known that the birth weight of males is higher than that of females due to the action of male hormones on the male fetus.If the exposure of pregnant women to environmental contaminants that diminish the action of male hormones has increased over the years, one would expect to see a decrease in the sex difference in birth weight.

This is exactly what a new study published in the July 2009 issue of Epidemiology shows. Investigators analyzed the Public Health Agency of Canada's database on the birth weights of more than five million children born in Canada between 1981 and 2003.

Using statistical methods that control for changes over time of mother's age and parity, the investigators effectively show a sustained decrease in birth weight differences between boys and girls, which supports the hypothesis of growing endocrine disruption related to environmental contaminants. Contaminants found in plastic materials represent plausible candidates, since they are known to diminish the action of male hormones.

"Our study underlines the importance of probing the impact of environmental contaminants on the health of mothers and fetuses and on the reproductive potential of future generations," says lead researcher Dr. Guy Van Vliet, a pediatric endocrinologist and investigator at the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Center and a professor at the Department of Pediatrics of the Université de Montréal.

The study was carried out under the auspices of the Canadian Perinatal Surveillance System (CPSS).

Journal reference:
Van Vliet et al. Decreasing Sex Difference in Birth Weight. Epidemiology, 2009; 20 (4): 622 DOI: 10.1097/EDE.0b013e3181a82806
Adapted from materials provided by University of Montreal, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

My Recent Letter To My Representatives About Healthcare

I recently has emergency gallbladder surgery. The bill has reached over $20,000. I am lucky because I am also on disability so I have Medicare A, which covered a lot of that bill. However, there is still a lot that needs to be paid, and since we are on food stamps, you can imagine we don't have anything left over each month to be paying a high medical bill.

I am uninsured because, thanks to prior health problems, I am considered uninsurable.

PLEASE consider the spending needed for Universal Healthcare to be a worthwhile expenditure. We prioritize education, police protection, firefighters, street repair - how can lifesaving surgery and critical medical care be considered less important than these?

We have budgets set aside for zoos and parks, but not for making sure everyone gets important medications or medical procedures. We make sure that all children can go to public school but not that all children can go to a dentist. People who decry socialized medicine are the people who already have access to medical care. This is a travesty.

I beg you to turn around and support these plans. It is a truly worthy investment. We already spend so much on healthcare because of lost work days and emergency room visits resulting from lack of regular care. Let's turn that around. People deserve relief from illness and injury.

Thank you,
Alisa Terry

Nature Monday: A Walk To The Bridge

Gnocchi grazes in the backyard

By sheer luck, I stumbled upon a blog called Handbook of Nature Study with a weekly Outdoor Hour Challenge. This family set aside about 20 minutes a week to do a nature study based on the handbook, and then posted about their experience.

The handbook itself is available to read online for free, or as a free PDF download.

We love the idea and have decided to take up the challenge.

Today was our first nature day, and the challenge was to simply take a short walk or visit to your own backyard and let the children explore.

This bridge is just a house and a small field away from our house.

Whenever the kids come across a body of water, they want to throw rocks in it.

Deirdre figured out that if she puts her hand through the fence, she can throw her rock far enough to make it into the .... creek? River? Canal? Whatever it is, now that they know it's just a few yards away, I imagine we'll be visiting it more often.

From Dr. Sears: Government and CDC Finally Agree to do Extensive Research into Vaccine Safety

This is from the Dr Sears Vaccine Book website:

Government and CDC Finally Agree to do Extensive Research into Vaccine Safety . . . Maybe
Wednesday, June 10, 2009

For over a decade now most doctors, researchers, and government officials have denied that there could be any link between vaccines and autism. They’ve denied it so vehemently that they’ve refused to adequately study the very idea. Until now.

The federal government’s vaccine advisory panel (the National Vaccine Advisory Committee or NVAC) just voted to recommend to the US Dept of Health and Human Services that they and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conduct large-scale prospective research trials in groups of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children to determine various theoretical risk factors and possible severe reactions to vaccines, including autism.

For those of you who are saying, “Wait – they HAVE researched it extensively and have proven there is NO link between vaccines and autism.” Well, that’s not exactly accurate. To date, no study has “proven” there is no link.

Many studies have “failed to demonstrate a causative relationship between vaccines and autism” – in essence, showing there probably is no link, or even there is almost definitely no link. But that is a very far cry from “proving for sure that there is no link.” What they HAVE done so far is use population-based statistical analyses (epidemiological studies) to determine that vaccines probably don’t cause autism. But no large prospective study has yet to be done using unvaccinated children as a large control group to have something to compare the vaccinated children to. This is really the gold standard for coming as close as we can to proving something is safe. And that’s the type of research the government had, up until now, refused to do. And we are not just talking about autism. There are so many other theoretical reactions to vaccines that have never been adequately studied. We’ve just written them off as so rare we won’t worry about them. Finally, after years of public pressure, the government has agreed to do the research.Maybe.

What they FIRST have to do is do a study to determine if such research is even feasible and figure out how exactly to go about doing it.

The government is going to select a neutral third-party research organization (The Institute of Medicine, possibly) to study how to do the study. Such an organization may or may not find such research feasible. If they determine it is feasible, then the research will begin. If not, then we’re back to square . . . whatever square we are on right now, which is “vaccines probably don’t cause problems, but we haven’t really proven it for sure.”

This is also going to take time – a couple years to study the feasibility of the study, then a few more years before results start to roll in. But at least the ball is now (probably) rolling. The only thing that could stop it is a roll of red tape. That’s no obstacle at all, right?

Here are a few highlights of what the NVAC recommended the CDC begin doing research on (if it is found to be feasible):

Identifying subsets of our population that may be at higher risk of suffering a severe vaccine reaction, such as those with mitochondrial dysfunction, autoimmune diseases, autoimmune family histories, and genetic predispositions

Accurately determine the statistical incidences of various reported severe reactions like encephalitis, encephalopathy, seizures, autoimmune reactions, demyelinating disorders, and autism

The risks of reactions for babies with a prior reaction or with a family history of reactions in the parents

Study various alternative vaccine schedules, including comparing reactions with multiple vaccinations to fewer vaccinations

Study specific and individual vaccine chemical ingredients, including animal toxicology research (hey, I thought they would have already studied each and every vaccine ingredient in animals before they started giving them to us?)

These issues have always sat in the back of my mind as unanswered questions. And the absence of unvaccinated control groups in vaccine research has probably been the one single factor that has always weighed heavily in my mind regarding vaccines. To date, such control groups have always been infants receiving the current vaccine schedule minus the new vaccine that is being studied. But now there are just way too many vaccines to consider such a group as a placebo control.

FINALLY, the government is paying attention to what parents really want to know regarding vaccines. Let’s just hope they pull through with these plans so we can all feel safer about vaccines.A more extensive discussion regarding this development can be found here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/top-us-panel-some-vaccine_b_211843.html , David Kirby’s analysis of the NVAC’s findings. David also provides a link to the NVAC’s 90-page document at the bottom of his blog so you can read the document yourself.

Dr. Bob

Diaper Cake Photo Theft

Cloth diaper cake by ENCHANTED DANDELIONS, not Chic to Cheek

Something stinky has been going on over at Facebook. A work-at-home mama who sells beautiful diaper cakes (diapers folded and decorated to look like elaborate cakes) has had her pictures stolen and posted on another site by a mama trying to pass the work off as her own.

The original Etsy shop is here:

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5153692&section_id=5770788

She puts a great deal of thought into those designs.

Now look at the photographs on Chic to Cheek's Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Chic-to-Cheek/64403205521?ref=mf

How much more obvious can she be? Even if those are her own cakes, she stole the designs!

What's stupid is that Chic to Cheek looks like it already has wonderful products and original artwork. Unless she stole those, too, she has plenty of talent on her own and doesn't need to be pilfering off of others' efforts.

So, to my crunchy mommy community, please do not buy cloth diapers, baby slings, artwork, or diaper cakes from Chic to Cheek. She does not deserve our support.

Mommy Boredom, Part Six: Quotes, Links and Resources

These next quotes, links and other things are not just about battling boredom - they're about immersing ourselves in motherhood, enjoying our children, and finding meaning and accomplishment in what we do as parents. They're meant to inspire, not condemn. Use them as a springboard for transforming your feelings about motherhood and connection with your little ones. - Alisa


"But even without the economic necessity, some women prefer to work for relatovely low wages and pay childcare rather than be home day after day with their children. Why has it become so difficult for many women to be with children?...To expect a thirty-seven-year-old Ph.D. candidate, or a woman who has had an exciting careeer, to be fulfilled spending her days in an apartment with a two-year-old is idyllic but hard to find in reality...after a time many mothers find themselves getting cabin fever. It becomes increasingly difficult, both emotionally and intellectually, to be home day after day with this child because there is a lack of adult stimulation and lack of perceived value.

...Strong economic forces are still working against mothering, just as they did during WWII. At that time society needed women to enter the work force in droves. This goal was supported by the medical community's dictum to replace breastfeeding with the modern, scientific practice of formula feeding, for when women were not as bonded to their babies and not tied to feeding them, they were more willing to enter the factories. Similarly today, bottlefeeding, widespread use of epidural anesthesia, and other obstetrical practices work against maternal-infant attachment, enabling many women to blithely plan during pregnancy to return to work at six weeks postpartum (although some are shocked by the unanticipated strength of their feelings when it comes time to put their infants in daycare).

...Whether a mother finds it the most wonderful thing in the world to stay home with the children, whether she is struggling to make a go of it, or whether she is trying to juggle a work schedule with a child's needs when he is sick, she needs to get more support for her mothering!

...The real difficulty comes when we are doing something that we don't want to be doing. For example, if we must work when we want to be home or if we are staying home when it is driving us crazy, then our parenting will tend to be influenced by guilt, resentment, and a whole range of other emotions. We need to make our best choices at each moment. We can't always have what we feel would be ideal, but we can actively do the best with the options as we see them."

- Excerpts from "You Are Your Child's First Teacher: What Parents Can Do With and For Their Children from birth to Age Six" by Rahima Baldwin Dancy



"First, I wanted to note that on the face of it, judging by the catch phrases alone, this is nothing new. It’s the same ol’ argument that mainstream parenting is the way to raise children, and mothers are the problem. Got to remove the mother from the picture. Think of it, the snide “Oh, she’s an Attachment parent”, the sneering label “helicopter mom”, the term ‘hovering’. The mother is seen as dysfunctional and the child’s relationship to the mother is suspected to be only in the mother’s best interest. Mother is feeding her ego, instead of feeding the baby. The other side is the detached parents, the bad mothers, the ones that admit to spanking, and bemusedly tell us they didn’t want children, and now that they’ve met them, even more. The culture laughs and laughs, it’s funny to see mothers who are so brutally honest. Finally! mothers who are psychologically stable enough to keep their kids at arms length. Sigh. It makes me very sad for the children.


But the truth is that mothers are a lot more nuanced than good or bad, and the labels are more nuanced than we give them credit for too. Attachment parents may be followers of Lenore Skenazy of free-range kids fame and may like to have a beer or two (like me). Helicopter moms might believe in spanking while also using flash cards about multiplication facts and being a teetotaller (like that really bad mother over there, man she’s bad! ;o) I like to find the humor in parenting, but I don’t like to talk smack about my kids..."


- Heather Cushman-Dowdee, creator of Hathor the Cow Goddess (Read the full post here)

"How does the fake mother change her baby into something other than a real baby? By believing that her baby is wrong and by acting on this belief. This belief is supported by her culture and everyone around her, including experts on babies. Her immediate job is to make the baby right. The baby's need to be with his nurturing source, his mother, is perceived as abnormal, wrong, and bad. The mother's need to be separate, away from her baby, not present to it is not wrong or abnormal; the baby's need for her is. The baby must be trained; he must learn that he cannot always be with his mother. This is taught, not only through the living arrangements in which baby sleeps in his separate crib and in his separate room, but by the mother's emotional response to the baby's need to be with her. The demand, if not in keeping with the mother's schedule and life separate from the baby, is met with resistance, anger, and rejection.

The crying of the baby is also viewed as abnormal and wrong unless he is hungry or in pain. The baby's need to be with mother, his need for human presence and contact, is not considered legitimate. It is viewed as a need for attention which diminishes its authenticity and its importance. The focus is not on the mother's unwillingness to be with baby but on the baby's excessive need. The baby must learn to wait for attention, to wait for the proper time when it can be administered, just as he must wait for nourishment when he is fed on a schedule. Because the mother has chosen separateness from her baby and lives separate from him, she cannot understand baby's objection to being separate from her. The baby is accused and convicted of the crime of being excessively demanding. The mother either ignores the crying or responds to it with anger, punishment, or doses of sedatives. Eventually the baby is made right. He seldom cries.

Babies are born virtually helpless and are entirely dependent on other humans for security, satisfaction, and life. They have only one power: the power to elicit the emotion of tenderness in another human. Everything about a baby has been designed by nature to elicit tender feelings and a caring response. The baby's appearance, smallness, helplessness, and cry are supposed to make his mother take care of him, not ignore, abuse, or harm him.

In the natural world in which we evolved, a baby who was unable to elicit a tender and caring response from his mother would perish. In our world babies still do elicit the response of tenderness, but they can live without it. Our substitutes for mother allow a baby to live and develop even if the caretaker is not governed by tender feelings. We have replaced the emotional response with procedures, methods, objects, and ideas of right and wrong. Scheduled bottle feeding, as practiced in hospitals and by most fake mothers, has become a mechanical routine. The use of the bottle prop allows babies to feed themselves. Cribs, carriages, playpens, and other man-made objects minimize the time infants spend in their mothers' arms.

But even more destructive to the development of a tender, nurturing attitude in mothers is the stated prohibition in our world against giving in to a baby's wish for mother's presence. The mother must struggle against her feelings of tenderness, lest she do something wrong like sleep with her baby or pick him up whenever he cries. It is not uncommon in our world for mothers who allow their tender feelings to take charge to keep it a secret. They do not allow others to know they sleep with their babies or that they are still nursing a baby at the age of two or three years, The negative attitude toward biological mothering is so strong in our society that the mother often keeps it a secret that she is a real mother and not a fake one."
-Read the full article here

"Dances with my Daughter

By Heather Grace Stewart

Web Exclusive - March 13, 2009


"Ring around the Rosy. Pocket full a posy" my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter sings happily as she pours a cup of pretend tea for me. Today is going to be a more productive day, I think as I type this. But I know better.


I'm a work-at-home freelance writer, mommy, and wife. Today I have my toddler home with me, and an 800-word magazine article to write, three loads of laundry to do, a new book to try to market, and dozens of emails to answer.


I decide to focus on my looming deadline while the laundry is in the wash. My little one is happily having tea with her teddy bears. Great, I can get some research done at least. Research my topic for 40 minutes or so, then go do a puzzle with my girl, I think.


All is quiet. I'm getting stuff done. Seven minutes goes by. Seven whole quiet minutes, and I'm in heaven! Then I realize: she's too quiet. Too quiet, as most parents know, is not a good thing. Not a good thing at all.


I turn my swivel chair around to find my daughter nearly in tears, screaming, "I am pooping! I am POOOPING!" I quickly scoop her up, offering, "You tried, it's OK—it was an accident," and sprint downstairs to the washroom, praying we'll make it.


We don't make it.


Fifteen minutes later, I'm on my knees, washing the floor, holding my nose as I pick up a putrid trail all the way from my office to the washroom. My newly clean and carefree girl is on the computer—you guessed it—accidentally deleting the only two sentences I'd written for my article.


When I find her there, I almost lose it. This is just one more day in a long line of exhausting days like this. But I compose myself, take a deep breath, and ask her to please not touch Mommy's computer when Mommy isn't there.


A kindness in her eyes and the lull of the music playing on my computer at that moment sparks something deep inside my heart. I pick her up and swing her around, giggling with her as we dance cheek to cheek to "The Riddle": "?the reason for the world is you and me?and we're all we've got on this bouncing ball, and I love you free."


"Mommy?" she asks me while we continue twirling to the music.


"Yes, honey?"


"Mommy, you are my sunshine!" she grins and holds me tighter.


That is the simple answer to how and why I do this. How and why I woke up this morning with a smile on my face and the energy to face another chaotic day all over again.


I know for certain that I'm making a difference in my daughter's life. Nothing else really matters."


The Play Ethic from http://www.enjoyparenting.com/
by Scott Noelle, posted on 2006-06-21
According to the work ethic of our culture, happiness comes from hard work and toil. "No pain, no gain."


This contradicts the play ethic of nature: maximizing pleasure while avoiding pain. Nature always follows the path of least resistance.


Children naturally express the play ethic, and a lot of parent-child conflict reflects the clash between the two value systems.


Joyful parenting begins the moment you abandon the work ethic and start taking play seriously. That doesn't mean never working; play is anything done in joy — including "work"!


So if parenting feels like hard work to you, set your sights on a new career of full-time play. But don't change your routine yet. Start with a change in attitude.


Focus on the pleasure potential in every moment and, gradually, a joyful new routine will evolve to match your intentions."


"As a fulltime stay-at-home mom for the past year, Julia Roberts says life outside the Hollywood spotlight has been anything but uneventful – thanks to her kids with husband Danny Moder. "I will never be bored again," the Oscar winner, 41, tells Allure for its March issue. "Danny and I talk about, 'What did we do with all the time we must have had?' " she says. "Because you don't recognize it as such, until you have all these little … time thieves running around your house.""


"Betty Friedan, in The Feminine Mystique (1963), set women on paths to careers and equality, avoiding motherhood - only to be reproached later by disillusioned followers who pointed out that, unlike them, she already had a husband and children when she urged this life pattern. But her recantations in The Second Stage (1981) were ignored, as equality feminists continued to implement her earlier prescriptions. Yet she wrote: "The equality we fought for isn't liveable, isn't workable, isn't comfortable in the terms that structured our battle."

Germaine Greer, too, had a belated and poignant rethink. Having inspired a generation of women not to want motherhood, she now "mourns for her unborn babies", and confessed "I still have pregnancy dreams, waiting with vast joy and confidence for something that will never happen." In The Whole Woman she says: "In The Female Eunuch I argued that motherhood should not be treated as a substitute career: now I would argue that motherhood should be regarded as a genuine career option…". She says the "immense rewardingness of children is the best kept secret in the western world".

Unfortunately, the working mothers/childcare juggernaut, once set in motion, develops a momentum of its own. In buying homes, two incomes outbid one and prices rise accordingly. Something is very wrong when many women in some of the world's most affluent societies cannot afford to breastfeed and mother their own babies. The "economy" is said to require their labour, and the childcare "industry" has many powerful "players", and for some it has become very profitable. But who has a greater claim on a mother's presence than her own baby? We were all babies once. That breastfeeding is of far-reaching health significance, and involves a foundational love relationship, not just a tank-filling exercise, is largely disregarded..." - Read the whole article here


Additional links:


http://stayathomeparents.suite101.com/article.cfm/bored_stayathome_parents

http://www.attachmentparenting.org/parentingtopics/lifewithbabybalance.php

SURVIVORS' STORIES: 18 SURVIVAL TIPS FOR PARENTS OF HIGH NEED CHILDREN

http://www.advancenet.net/jscole/sahm.htm

Mommy Boredom, Part Five: Inspiration

"In order to develop normally, a child requires progressively more complex joint activity with one or more adults who have an irrational emotional relationship with the child. Somebody's got to be crazy about that kid. That's number one. First, last, and always."

- Urie Bronfenbrenner

Mommy Boredom, Part Four: Feeling Bored Versus Being Bored

I'd like to qualify something a little bit: There's a difference between occcasional low-key time and the negative energy that comes from being bored with caring for your children.

No one is saying that watching your child take their shoes on and off is like going to Disneyland. There are fun, silly moments and there are slow, quiet moments. Life has rhythms and I dare say the slow, quiet ones are just as vital as the up, giggly ones.

The danger comes from feeling like, when you are with your children, you would rather be somewhere else.

We all feel that way when they've spread peanut butter all over the toilet seat. I'm talking about the overall feeling that being a stay-at-home mom is boring, that babies are boring, that little kids are boring, that your life is on hold instead of going on right now.

The reason I believe this is dangerous is because children sense it and it can be damaging.

When we tell our spouses about something and, as we are sharing excitedly, realise that they couldn't be any less interested in what we are saying, it hurts. We want them to be excited for us. Nevertheless, as adults, we are mature enough to accept that our partner isn't going to share all of our interests.

Little kids don't have this maturity. They don't interpret our dissinterest as "Mom doesn't like playing with cars," they interpret it as "Mom doesn't like me."

It's like how one should never over-react to a child's dirty diaper, because your child may develop body issues, or how time-outs where the child is sent to a different room can be counterproductive, because the child interprets the move as "I am bad," not "I did something bad."

Now "feeling bored" is something else. The feeling of boredom is a message telling you it's time to do something. A lot of creativity and imagination result from feeling bored.

If you are bored during your baby's 30 minutes of exploring the same spoon, you can do something about that boredom. You can read a book, pick up a hobby, call a friend, write a letter to the editor, make dinner, fold laundry, or homeschool the older child. If your toddler is taking her sweet time on the potty, you can read her a story, sing a song, or clean the sink. If you are done playing cars, you can direct your child to another activity or have the cars "help" set the table.

Or you can simply take a deep breath and enjoy the down time. Doing nothing doesn't have to be boring. We don't have to fill every moment with "doing something."

But if you are bored with staying home with your children, period, then something needs to change, and I don't apologize for feeling that way. Your children's younger years are a long time to spend wishing you were somewhere else.

Furthermore, your children will know it, and they may appear unaffected now, but it DOES matter, and it WILL affect them negatively, the same as if you suddenly realised your husband or partner doesn't really enjoy being with you, or spends more time being angry with you than not. Think about that. We should not expect our children to spring back from things that we know we would have a difficult time coping with.

And by the way, I DO have a song for when my children do seemingly menial things. It's sung to the tune of "Let's All Go To the Lobby." "Lobby" gets replaced with the "menial" thing, like "potty" or "toothbrush," or sometimes "Let's all pick up the playroom" or "Let's put on our pajamas." Try it. You might like it.

Mommy Boredom, Part Three: Daddies Make A Difference

When Bryan comes home tired from work, he doesn’t do that typical dad thing where he wants a break before greeting the kids – you know the kind. Some women’s books and women’s magazines tell mothers to let dad come home and relax before having to “deal” with the kids or handle other household “stress.”

Bryan’s day is made when the kids come running to him, laughing, happy to see him, glad he’s home. He hugs them and kisses them and asks them about their day. THEN he settles down to relax. And if the kids want to sit next to him, or have him read a book, or talk his ear off, he lets them. He doesn’t expect me to do all the parenting work because he put in his hours and now he’s done. He doesn’t play with them a little bit and then expect his daddy time is over.

That’s a dad who “gets it.” That’s a dad who knows who his children truly are, what they are worth, what his influence on them is worth.

In fact, I specifically talked to him about this kind of thing when we were dating. I didn’t want him to be the kind of dad who gets home 30 minutes before his kids go to bed and that’s all he sees of them 5 days a week. I didn’t want a husband who won’t change diapers or rock a crying baby or works so many hours that he barely sees them. I told Bryan that at Christmas time in my house, the women were in the kitchen and the men were watching TV and I didn’t want any of that.

When I went to visit some women in my church, one of the mothers asked me how I had time to make homemade bread. I said it only took about 15 minutes to mix it and knead it, and Bryan watched the kids while I did it. The women all looked at each other with sarcastic expressions, and then the first mom said, “Oh, that’s how you do it. My husband won’t do that.”

I couldn’t believe it. “He won’t watch the kids for 15 minutes?”

“No,” she answered, and the other mothers laughed knowingly.

Those are dads who don’t get it, and moms who probably used to get it but their husbands have leached it out of them.

Bryan knows a dad who resents his kids, resents how much they cost, how tired they make him, how little time he has alone with his wife now.

A dad who doesn’t get it.

If you’ve “trained” your baby to spend time by herself staring at a mobile, to cry herself to sleep without you, to play in a bouncer or sit in front of the TV instead of with you, then motherhood will be boring. If you spend a lot of time hovering over your child while he plays with his cars, wishing the time would go by faster, motherhood will be boring. If you quantify your own worth in terms of dollars or employees or recognition, motherhood will be boring. If you ever find yourself thinking, “I put my life on hold for…” or “I can’t wait until it’s my time again,” motherhood will be boring. If you have an uninvolved husband who works late hours and can’t wait to pass the kids back to you when you’re done taking a shower, motherhood will not be all it should be.

But if you have a husband who loves being a parent as much as you do, and you both enjoy watching your children spend ten minutes examining a bug, and hearing them try to pronounce a new word, and actually call each other on the phone when one of them does something silly or amazing, and cuddle them when they are hurt instead of brushing them off with an “oh, you’re Okay,” and commiserate with them when they are sad instead of saying, “Oh, stop crying,” and spend time each day with them reading books and dancing to music and cuddling in bed – you will still have moments of frustration and anger, but you will never be resentful, and you will never be bored. You will stop waiting for your life to start up again after this “pause to raise children.” You will love being a stay-at-home mom.

Mommy Boredom, Part Two: Bring Them With You

If you are bored or resentful as a mother, try throwing out the schedules, try saying “yes” all the time instead of “no,” try turning off the television and keeping it off all day, try putting your baby in a sling and bringing her everywhere, even to do the laundry, and giving your toddler something to do while you work, like a bowl of beans to stir around and make a mess while you cook, and your preschooler a pet like a fish or rodent to feed every day and a patch of the garden they can plant and dig up and plant and did up (potatoes are good for this because they’ll still grow after being mishandled all the time).

Try thinking of how you want the world to be different – more liberal? More conservative? More natural areas? Better-managed businesses? Now teach these things to your children, even your little babies – show them pictures of artists you love, or have them sit with you while you listen to political debates. Teach them how to be the change you want to see in the world – that’s the glory (and importance) of children – you can help mold how they see the world, with your teaching and your example.

Do you like motorcycles? Play with toy motorcycles with your children, help them build tracks, take them to races, have them hand you tools while you work on yours, teach them the names of the parts.

Do you miss your corporate job? Teach your children how to type, organize their toys into categories, make spreadsheets and graphs, run their own little businesses (lemonade stand, anyone?), manage money, communicate with their friends and other adults. Tell them about supply and demand and then watch how the price of a certain toy or game changes as supply goes down and demand goes up. Teach them about the stock market. Give them a piece of paper for comparing the price of crayons or cookies at different stores so they can learn about getting quotes and choosing “suppliers.”

Do you like playing music? Children LOVE music. Do you like reading? Children LOVE books. Do you know how to fix the plumbing or electrical wiring? Children are FASCINATED by science and building. Do you have a boring job working at a cash register? There are lots of toy cash registers out there because children LOVE pretending to work at a store and sort products into bags and count change and push shopping carts.

Motherhood, parenthood, NONE of it is boring. Not if you believe in it. Not if you let loose and throw yourself into it.

Mommy Boredom, Part One: Huh?

A little while ago, I heard a mother say that staying home with her son was boring. The words that immediately popped out of my mouth were, “When?? When are you bored??”

Now, this mom had a job she actually looked forward to, so I imagine it was more difficult to make the transition.

I, on the other hand, never graduated from college, try as I did, and went from one insane Dilbert-esque corporate job to another, working under managers that were at best, inefficient, and at worst, total idiots responsible for the loss of major accounts and extremely high employee turnovers.

I couldn’t WAIT to become a mom.

It’s more work. There’s even less appreciation and recognition. There’s more at stake. It requires more customer service and problem solving skills. It rivals any dirty job that Mike Rowe has attempted for our viewing pleasure.

I love it, not only because I know it’s more important than any other job I’ve ever had, but I am also the management. I make the rules, I run the company. I don’t work for morons anymore.

And while it has been frustrating and exhausting, it has never ever been boring. If there was enough time available for it to be boring, I’d be filling that time with sewing, crocheting, writing, gardening, family history (oh my gosh, when was the last time I did family history?) or even going back to school. And yoga! Oh, when was the last time I did yoga without being used as a jungle gym?

What I did fill my time with, when there was just one child, was the same stuff as before, but with a baby in tow. Shopping, restaurants, the library, gardening, picnics in the park, visits with friends, swimming – Connor came with us. He never had a babysitter because it never occurred to us NOT to bring him. He even came with us to movies and slept while we watched.

And Connor wasn’t an easy baby, either. He was colicky for the first 4 months, until we discovered his dairy allergy. Even then, he’s always been high needs and clingy. Still is.

But I never once thought, “I need to get away for a while. I need nights out without Connor. I’d be a better mom if I had some time to myself.” Time with him WAS time to myself, especially when we were napping together, or breastfeeding, or just lying on a blanket in a park.

Playgroup and La Leche League were awesome, too, and filled that part of me that needed connections with other women.

Then the second child came, and it got harder. They didn’t nap at the same time and it was difficult get two children ready to leave the house. Eventually I got the hang of it, and every so often I get lucky and they both simultaneously nap, so that I can nap, too.

Then Deirdre got “interactive” and now the children play together and help me with cooking and doing the housework. We play together and read together and do “preschool” together. We still go shopping and to the library and restaurants.

I do have times now when I really do want a break and need some time to myself.

But, I don’t understand this “boring.”

Now, I’m going to get pretty offensive with my next sentence, but it won’t be the first time. Nevertheless, consider yourself warned.

If you are bored taking care of your children, then you haven’t yet accepted how important motherhood is.

No, really. You know it in your head – motherhood is sacred, raising children is important, the first few years are critical – but part of you believes you’ve put your life on hold for your children, and that “you” time is over until they’re old enough that you can get back to more fulfilling work.

Am I wrong?

If you were being paid to take care of your children, would that make it more fulfilling? What if your child was destined to inherit the throne – would that make their development more interesting or more important? If mothers were actually designated as executives and given VIP treatment, or had rankings where the senior mothers were made supervisors of new mothers, might that make it less boring?

Perhaps.

No one thinks of changing someone’s diapers as significant service – not like running a charity or formally volunteering for a recognized organization. No one considers that making dinner for your family is just as charitable and important as serving dinner at a homeless shelter. There are “levels of giving,” levels of managing, and certainly levels of income, and titles, and awards,

And there are levels of activity, multitasking, and socializing.

Motherhood must be the drudgery in between the fulfillment, the necessary sacrifice in between the years of true reward.

That is, if you haven’t yet truly grasped and accepted that you are raising gods and goddesses, and that each boo boo kissed, each bedtime story read, each dirty body scrubbed clean and empty tummy filled is holy work. You don’t yet understand how much influence you have as a mother, over your home, over little human beings who will one day change the world for either good or evil, who will take what you have taught them and use it to make the world more peaceful, more beautiful, more educated, more loved.

You do not yet see, or you would never, ever be bored being a mother.