It Ain't Always Easy, but It's Always Worth It

I got some flak for my blog post on API Speaks yesterday. One of the commenters was taken aback by some of my statements. So I reread my post, and I can certainly see why she might have taken some offense to my opinions.

To someone who had mellow kids, or maybe one child, or perhaps a ton of outside support, or even a group of like-minded moms to vent to, I can see how my words would rankle. She said of my post, "Perhaps it was intended to connect with an audience who finds attachment parenting to be difficult, even painful- but it also encourages the belief that it is normal, and okay, for it to be that way, rather than to find ways that are not painful or uncomfortable."

Well, the truth is, it is normal for it to be that way - at least for some of us, at least sometimes. Some of us have extraordinarily high-needs children who completely tap their reserves, day in and day out. Some of us have several closely spaced children or twins or triplets - and by the end of the day, we're completely "touched out" but still need to be accessible and welcoming to our children. Some of us have ill children, and we have to give and give and give. Some of us work and come home exhausted and still have to provide nurturing touch, when what we want is to have someone touch us in a nurturing way. Some of us are single and have no relief from being "on" all day - and night - long.

And yes, sometimes we pretend - to be patient, because the alternative is to be impatient; to be sensitive, because what we really want is to be left alone at that moment; and to be to be something we're not, especially if what we're feeling is not particularly "attached" at that second. Do we do this all the time? Most of the time? Much of the time? Obviously not, or we couldn't begin to call ourselves attachment parents, and we wouldn't be committed to this type of parenting.

For some of us, being attached is hard at times. Certainly not all the time, and probably not even most of the time.

But here's the deal. I've talked to countless parents who are following AP principles, and doing so with commitment and passion. Virtually every one of those parents finds it difficult at times. And many, many of those think they're the only one.

I can't tell you how many moms have thanked me profusely for letting it all hang out and admitting that I've struggled. They tell me that it actually makes staying committed to their beliefs easier, because they realize that they're not the oddball that they thought they were, that they're not doing it "wrong."

Almost everything we read about attachment parenting is about the positive aspects, the rewards, and the health benefits. And all those things are true. But it can be disheartening - at times - to those of us who are committed to this path but find it to be bumpier than the books let on, especially when we think that we're the only one struggling.

Of course, being attached to your kids is worth it, in so many ways that I can't even begin to express. More and more studies are backing up what AP parents have felt in their hearts all along - that our children are healthier, stronger, happier, and more confident over the long haul. Whether the path is sometimes difficult, sometimes rocky, sometimes steep ... it's the path with the most dazzling view, with the most brilliant sky, with the sweetest fresh air, and with the biggest rewards at the end, and strewn liberally all along the way as well.

So I am thrilled that there are parents out there for whom being an AP parent is easy. I'm elated that, for some, the few difficulties they encounter are easily remedied. For those who struggle occasionally (or even frequently) I just want to be that voice that says, "It's okay. You're human. We all struggle, and we all survive. And it's all worth it."

I must admit that I'm not a touchy-feely writer. In fact, when I first posted to API Speaks I wrote to the volunteer who handles the blog, and I asked her if my style was appropriate. I'm not apologizing; that's just me.

And just for the record, even though the early years were peppered with difficult times (and sometimes the pepper was a bit heavy), I never once was resentful. Never.

_____________

If you liked this post, you might enjoy The 8 Principles with Older Kids ... Still Valid?

The Creativity of Children

My post today is today's blog post on API Speaks, Attachment Parenting International's blog.

I’m always amazed at the creativity of children ... which happens, frequently, in spite of my best efforts. Let me explain.

Sometimes I’m just too helpful for everyone’s own good. On those occasions when we have small day-to-day hurdles, my first inclination is to make everything better. Over the years, however, I’ve learned that the best solutions to these little life strifes is to let the kids work things out for themselves, with as much guidance as is needed, but only as much.

Like everyone else, I work to maintain family harmony. But when we have these little obstacles--and yes, we do have them (shocker!)--I try to remember that these opportunities allow my children’s stunning ingenuity to shine through. They remind me that if I just close my mouth and listen to what my children have to say, they’ll frequently astound me with their creativity.

Their ideas are fresh and honest and not shackled by memories of failures and expectations of future success. I find that I, by contrast, am hampered by constraints in my adult thinking, and if I simply let them brainstorm--and get the heck out of their way--the results are frequently startling and spectacular.

Case in point ...

Here in Texas we have a tax-free shopping weekend just before public school starts. I try to save up my shopping for the year and do it all in this weekend to take advantage of the sales that go along with it. Like many other people this year, we’ve been watching our pennies and stretching them as far as they’ll go without snapping.

This year’s shopping trip was pretty slim, since I was buying only essentials. Unfortunately, the hand-me-downs my 11-year-old daughter has thrived on in the past have run out, and she’s been inconsiderate enough to grow quickly, so she needed just about every item of clothing possible. We ended up buying just enough to get by, expecting that she’ll soon have outgrown these clothes too. Every choice she and I made was chosen with care and an eye to function and cost.

So imagine my dismay when, after spending a full day battling the shopping mobs (not something I do with gusto on the best day) and watching our bank account whittle down to token numbers, I found crumpled, discarded, and wadded up items of brand-new clothing scattered across the house.

(As an aside, I totally “get” that. I have fond memories of coming home after a similar shopping trip at a similar age and trying on every single item we’d purchased and leaving them strewn across my bed and floor - and of course, my mom getting mad. Sigh.)

You might think my first reaction was to talk calmly with my daughter about the importance of taking care of her new things, after which she immediately thanked me for my insight and proceeded to hang up her clothing with loving care and a skip in her step.

Um, no.

Instead, I started to fly off the handle--after all, we’d had this conversation a million times before, but it hadn’t stuck yet--and she began to get angry and dig in her heels. Well, I’d been down the Low Road of arguing before, and I didn’t much relish yet another journey. I stepped back, breathed, and asked her if she’d be willing to brainstorm with me. She was willing but a bit wary, since I have to fight my natural inclination to "solve" problems and make things cheery. She’s known me long enough to know that once in a great while I lose that battle and I force everybody to kiss and make up. (Hey, I’m not perfect.)

I laid out the reasons why I was angry--that I felt like my time and our money weren’t valued and thus, by default, that her dad and I weren't being respected--and asked her if those reasons made sense to her. Then I shut up. Really hard for me. Excruciating. I had all sorts of witty quips and clever solutions that I wanted to pronounce, proclaiming my mom-ish mastery of handling all things problematic.

But I shut up. She went away, ostensibly to think about it. Bad Mom figured she was simply avoiding the issue. I grumbled to myself and inwardly fumed, and Good Mom won out and vowed to give her some space. I was Keeping My Cool. Harrumph.

A bit later--not too much later--she came back. "Mom, I was thinking about it, and I have an idea of what I can do about the clothes."

Well, my mind went wild. I gleefully ran through all the ideas that I’d come up with, wondering which one of my clever solutions she’d arrived at on her own. Would it be to earn money in the future to pay for any new clothes herself? Would it be to simply offer a heartfelt apology, with the promise that she’d take better care in the future, and offer to do something for me in return? Could she ... no she couldn’t possibly ... suggest that I return the clothes--though that option had entered my mind too, as in "That’ll teach you!"

No, she was more clever than I.

"I think that what I’d like to do is buy the clothes back from you out of my allowance. That way I’ll appreciate them more."

Uh. Wow. Okay.

"Wow, honey. That sounds like a good idea," I said, pushing my lower jaw up with my hand, silently tallying up the amount she had in her allowance and realizing that she didn’t have anywhere near enough to cover it.

“Maybe I can earn extra money to pay for them over time.”

My thoughts whirled while my tongue twisted. Before she gave me her idea, I had envisioned all the finagling and compromising that would happen for us to come up with some sort of solution that would be agreeable to both of us. I remembered all the times that I’d proposed remarkably excellent strategies for working through problems, which often ... um ... shall we say ... fell flat with a resounding thud.

My daughter, studying.

Then I remembered all the varied solutions that did work with my kids. Invariably, those solutions were ones that the kids came up with themselves. The reason they worked was, for the most part, because the kids were invested in the solution. They weren’t being encouraged (read forced) to go along with something that someone else had instigated.

I’ve learned over the years that this seems to be the case in just about every aspect of our lives. If we have a problem--whether it’s two kids arguing over a book they want to listen to in the car or the whole family deciding if we want to go to visit grandparents over the weekend--the solutions that work the best are the ones that everyone feels that they’ve contributed to. If any of the kids think that they didn’t have a say in the decision, they’re much less inclined to be invested in the success of that decision.

How, you might ask, does this relate to attachment parenting? Think of the underlying theme behind each of the 8 Principles. What is it? Respect. Respect for our children as individuals--people whose opinions matter as much as ours, whose ideas are as clever as ours, and who want to be heard and respected just as much as we do.

When we were kids we didn’t like it when a parent, teacher, or other adult made global decisions that affected us without our input. Heck, we still don’t like it! But when we were young and small it was even harder, because the world around us told us in so many ways that we had no power. By giving our kids power over their environment, letting them come up with their solutions to their problems, seeing if those solutions actually work in the long term, and treating our children as individuals who deserve respect just as much as we do, we not only can alleviate some of the problems that arise but also help them to prepare to be thinking adults that are in charge of their lives.

So on my Good Mom days, I remember my own advice and sit back and zip my lips. As much as possible, I let my kids come up with their own ideas, which are frequently great, and we all reap the rewards.

As I’ve said before, some of my best parenting moments are when I’ve shut my mouth and listened. Not sure what that says about me, but who cares? It works!

So the clothes sit in my drawer waiting to be purchased, and my daughter visits them occasionally. Two of them have been retrieved, and the others are waiting patiently their turn. It’ll happen, and it’ll be without coercion, bribery, or threats. And that’s awfully nice.

The new-clothes drawer

________________

If you enjoyed this post, you might like Does Attachment Parenting Really Work?

Great Expectations

I once knew the perfect mother. She was amazing.

She absolutely beamed the glory of motherhood. Her children clustered around her, happily playing and singing, simultaneously gleefully independent and decidedly attached.

Her children were balanced, joyful, and inquisitive, and they rarely fought or bickered because she had invested a great deal of time on conflict resolution. Each child, while having different needs and wants, felt that he or she was valued and nurtured, eliminating the need for strife and anger.

With her infants, she intuitively knew what each needed. She eschewed the lowly pacifier, knowing that an infant needs its mother, not a piece of plastic. She was the pacifier. She co-slept peacefully each night, with her infant nuzzling her in his sleep, nursing when hungry without waking her, as nature intended. She woke each morning refreshed, knowing that she was doing the best thing for her children, being as attached as possible outside the womb.

She cooked delicious meals every night from her own garden, and the kids ate only healthy food, virtually all organic, with nothing processed and very little sugar. She sewed her children's clothes, and they took nature walks every day. These children embodied the love of learning, eyes glistening with wonder at butterfly wings and spider webs.

She devoted time each day to playing with her children - crawling and whinnying on hands and knees; kneeling shoulder to shoulder building massive towers that would immediately be knocked down; sitting primly at the tea table, munching homemade vanilla wafers and sipping chocolate milk. She worked out a clever schedule that allowed her to exercise every morning, get the housework done, dedicate one-on-one time to each child, allow for group game time, and in the evening spend couple time with her husband.

She had infinite patience. Not because she was a particularly patient person (although she was more patient than most), but more because she had read all the books on raising children and knew the research. She knew that by being an attached mother, her children would grow to be well balanced, independent people, and she was simply the guide to that endpoint. They would grow that way naturally, as all children would if raised with respect and love.

Then something happened that changed all that.

She had her first baby.

You see, this mother was me, and she existed only my mind. Once my first child was born, reality took hold with a clenched fist and a hiss that whispered in my ear, "It was all a delusion! A delusion! Now we'll show you what parenting is really like! Bwaaaaahahaaaa!"

This first baby was not just any baby, but a high-needs baby like few mothers have ever seen. This child could have been the kid on the picture of Raising Your Spirited Child. He rated a 5+ on every scale in the book.

This was the child that you avoid at the playground, that you glance at over your shoulder when you're grocery shopping, and that you look at with pity and disdain, wondering what the hell that mother was doing to raise such a brat. (Yes, I said it.)

As an infant, his shrieks could be heard from miles around, especially when he was being walked around the neighborhood at 1:00 in the morning because that was the only thing that would console him. His anger was legendary when he wanted to suckle but kept getting milk, so the dreaded pacifier was instituted (thus pacifying the entire family, which resulted in a recurrent phrase being heard, "Oh God, where's the f-ing pacifier?!" and which in turn resulted in the family owning something like 30 pacifiers when that phase was done).

He would lose his voice from screaming - deep, gut-wrenching screams that would leave me in tears right along with him, wondering alternately "What am I doing wrong?" and "What the hell were those books talking about?"

So life started. My wonderful, chaotic, fabulous, real life that I wouldn't change for the world.

Attachment parenting saved my life and certainly my first child's life. Was it hard? Oh yes. Were there lots of times I thought it wasn't working? Absolutely. Were there times I wanted to throw in the towel and Ferberize everybody? Probably, but I was too tired to try anything new, and my kids wouldn't let me.

As I wrote in another post, my kids knew best. They knew what they needed and I just had to give them that. Thank goodness they demanded my time, my energy, and my presence. If I'd had easy babies, I might never have realized just how valuable - no, necessary - being attached is.

You want to know what one of the most surprising things was about having a baby, and then another, and then a third? How far apart my ideal image of myself was from my real self. That was a shocker. Yes, I'd seen my sister go through raising a challenging toddler, but I knew I'd do better. Heck, I even gave her advice (completely welcomed, I'm quite sure).

I simply wasn't prepared for my lack of patience, my first week of each of my babies' lives when I felt completely disconnected, my inability to accomplish the most simple thing sometimes, and my lack of interest in much of the little-kid play that they enjoyed so much. I did a lot of things right, though. I loved them like crazy, I was attached as could be, and I respected them deeply. When I failed them somehow, I always always said, "I'm sorry" and meant it. But I did a lot of things wrong. Really wrong.

I can now look on what I expected to be and bust a gut laughing. Obviously, none of us can possibly live up to the Great Expectations that we, and society, place on us. What we must realize is that our failings make us real to our children, and that's actually better than if we were perfect. Who would want a perfect parent? How could any child live up to that?

Will our kids remember that we weren't perfect? Nah, they wouldn't think we were even if we were. What they'll remember is that their mom is happy, connected, joyful, involved, and loving. And we all do that in myriad ways.

Oh, and that first kid? He truly is amazing, as are his siblings. He's loving, brilliant, funny, happy, well balanced, and laid back (most of the time anyway). Despite my imperfections.

___________________

This post is part of the Attachment Parenting Month blog carnival, hosted by Attachment Parenting International. Learn more about how you can stay “Attached at the Heart Through the Years” by visiting API Speaks, the blog of Attachment Parenting International.