The Lessons of Okinawa

I remember reading this article shortly after the birth of my now 5 year old. It has lingered with me since (a rarity for me), flitting in and out of my thoughts often when they turn to child rearin'.

When I saw it in my inbox this afternoon, tucked in my new AP newsletter, I took it as a sign to pass it on. Some afternoon food for thought!

The Lessons of Okinawa

Layout giveaway!

Looks like Ruby & Roja are giving away a free blog design. Check here for details.

They've got their dirty fingerprints all over one of my favorite mama blogs (Adventures in Babywearing), so I thought I'd pass it on.

Telling It Like It Is: Being Honest About Body Parts

A few days ago, while sitting with a group of mothers at the beach, we were all captivated by one of the babies. He was naked, tumbling around in the sand. He was dancing, rolling, laughing, and then, he grabbed his penis. He was just so at home with his nakedness. He knew nothing of shame, and he did not know that some of the other mothers looked away when he grabbed his penis. He was not embarrassed. Another little boy pointed and said to his mama, “Wee-wee.” I absolutely loved it when the first little baby’s mama said out loud “OH, you are grabbing your penis!” It was a joyful statement. It was an honest statement.

I am a strong believer in calling body parts by their proper names. My 4 year old daughter knows she has a vulva, a vagina, breasts. We have openly and honestly called her body parts by their proper names since the day she was born. She has always been an asker, and I have been an answerer. She has seen me menstruate and she has asked. I have always answered her questions about her body and about my body. She once asked for a mirror to look at her vulva. I handed her a mirror and answered her questions.

I want my daughter to OWN her body. I feel she can best own her body when she has words to name her body parts. If something hurts, she needs to know the proper names to tell me or her doctor what is hurting. If there was ever an abusive situation I want her to have words to use to explain what happened. I want her to be empowered. I feel that giving her the proper names to her body parts empowers her.

World Breastfeeding weeks brings the word ‘breasts' to mind. I don’t often hear women and mothers using the word 'breasts.' I hear a lot about 'boobs.' I remember when I learned that a boob was an ignorant and foolish person. My breasts are not foolish, nor are they ignorant. They are beautiful, very intelligent, life sustaining breasts. I no longer call my breasts 'boobs.' I want my daughter to have a healthy relationship with the word 'breast.' I want her to love and respect her breasts so that one day her breasts will be life sustaining as well.

As for the second little boy at the beach who called a penis a "wee-wee”: why not teach him the word penis? He is still at the age where he is one with his body. I like to see honesty. I want my son to know he has a penis and a scrotum. I feel that what is not said becomes a secret. Secrets often lead to shame. Babies and kids have no shame with their bodies. But they are like sponges and they can easily soak up ours. We as parents should be proud of our bodies, our kids are learning from us. I want both my daughter and my son to be proud of their bodies.

[Guest Post] Success or Failure: A Mom Who Couldn't Breastfeed Honors World Breastfeeding Week

Attachment Living wishes to celebrate World Breastfeeding Week by welcoming guest bloggers to talk about their breastfeeding experiences. Today's post comes to you by way of E:

August 1 began World Breastfeeding Week. We all know breast is best, and we recognize the value of the breastfeeding relationship. Even formula cans remind us that breast milk is best. But what about when it doesn't work?

I wanted to breastfeed. I planned for it. I looked forward to it. I bought the books, went to La Leche League, and met with a wonderful lactation consultant before my daughter was born all in hopes of circumventing the issues that can come from PCOS and hypothyroidism. I took the appropriate medications and learned about the ways to increase supply. I went in with an attitude focused on success.

And then my daughter was born. She was put to the breast quickly. She had a beautiful latch without much work. We had great support once we were out of the hospital. We were doing all the right things. And we worked so hard. But there wasn't milk. Not enough. We battled with the low supply, doing all the right things, staying skin to skin, breastfeeding as often as possible, pumping after, using the SNS, taking the herbs and the drugs. It still wasn't enough. We had to supplement...and we're so very lucky to have wonderful milk donors, but it just isn't the same. When feeding my daughter became more of a battle than a joy, I had to make some tough decisions. When one or both of us ended up in tears every time, when she started to refuse to latch, we switched to pumping and bottles.

And all the breastfeeding advocacy around me is so hard to deal with. Well meaning people who provide their suggestions for increasing milk supply..."have you tried?" Yes. All of it. And probably some things you haven't thought of. I want to embrace this week, celebrate it, honor it and it hurts too much. I've cried more tears than I want to count over the World Breastfeeding Week stuff I've seen.

I went to a party with my daughter not long ago, and when I was offered a seat someone asked if I would need the chair that was better for nursing. I cried inside as I explained our breastfeeding challenges. I've started to avoid gatherings where the default assumption is that mothers are breastfeeding-the local AP groups, for example. I wanted to be one of those mothers who celebrated the looks they got for nursing in public, and instead, I mourn what I don't have. I have the so called convenience of bottles-I need to pack them in our bag when we go out, find a place to warm the milk she drinks, deal with the extra gas, the uncertainty about whether she's getting the right nutrients for her needs right now. And I know in my heart that I am judged harshly for the way I feed my daughter.

Like many of us, I try and incorporate the eight principles of attachment parenting in my life. I read the page that says "Feed with Love and Respect." How can I feed with love and respect when the act of feeding my daughter causes me to cry over what I can't do for her? How can I honor myself and the nurturing loving role that I am supposed to play in this part of her life when what I feel overwhelmed with failure. And then I look at her, I cuddle her, I watch her sweet face as she dozes off in my arms and I'm reminded deeply of how much I love her, and that in the end that love overwhelms everything.

I know whatever I've given my daughter is good for her. I know that every bit of milk she gets from me is good for her, and I know that the milk she's gotten is far more than some other babies get. But I will forever carry sadness and guilt about not being able to provide the most basic thing that a mother is supposed to provide for her baby.

Celebrate World Breastfeeding Week. Enjoy and cherish the nurturing and loving breastfeeding relationship you have. Share extra breast milk if you can-there are wonderful networks of mothers in need, both through formal and informal means. As a recipient of donated milk, it means more to me than I could ever express, and I honor and celebrate the success and joy and love that you've found in nursing your own children. I wish I could do the same for myself, and for the relationship I have with my daughter.

I hope that in your travels you remember there are mothers like me who would love to have what you do. I hope that someone, somewhere out there remembers to honor and respect the mothers like me who have really and truly done it all, who eye you nursing your children and envy what you have. I will never have the beautiful nursing relationship that I dreamed of with my daughter, the sweet nursing moments that you don't remember but that I wish for. I will work hard to make up for it in other ways. I will work towards a loving and respectful relationship with her, and despite my mother's reminders that "She'll never thank you for that" one day I will tell her that I tried very hard to breastfeed her and I will share the story of her milk Mamas, and make sure she knows how much she is loved.

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In her pre-motherhood days, E worked as a social worker, with a focus on public health topics like sexual health. Now she is learning to navigate the new and crazy world of motherhood as a guide to her daughter, Nacho, born in April 2008. Check out her new blog, Evolution of Mom.

AP and Veganism: Peas in Pod

Today yours truly was a guest blogger over at Crunchy Domestic Goddess. I wrote a little bit about how I feel veganism and attachment parenting go hand in hand. Here's an excerpt:

If I look at the world from the eyes of a child as I often try to do now that I have a babe of my own, I can’t imagine a child saying “I want to eat dead animals,” or “I want baby cows to be taken away from their mamas so I can have their milk,” when given the choice. Children tend to feel a natural fascination and connection with other animals and, I would argue, they intuitively understand on a very basic level that the difference between the family dog and the veal calf in a factory farm is an arbitrary one. After all, anyone who lives with companion animals knows that they are sentient and have feelings, moods, desires.

I figure that’s why a lot of APers are veg*ns, too. Learning to see the world through our children’s eyes lays at our feet the great and terrible potential for a larger sense of compassion and empathy. As a friend on another forum said, “Without embracing compassion for my son, I would never have moved my sphere of compassion beyond our family and beyond the human family.” It’s a fantastic joy, and it comes with its share of responsibility.

Of course, you'll have to read the rest over here.

AP Dads

One of us recently brought up in conversation the fact that her husband was having a hard time embracing attachment parenting the way she had. This comadre really wants to co-parent with her husband and hopes fervently that he will come round.

Like many of us on the road to the AP lifestyle, her husband has these shining moments of tenderness with their baby when it seems like he’s acting intuitively and listening to his innermost voice about how he wants to parent; he also has a lot of other moments when it seems as though he’s fighting a losing battle with the parenting style in which he was brought up and with the loud voices of family and bossy baby trainers that don’t seem to have an off switch. My friend wants to know what she can do to help her husband feel confident about tapping more completely into his intuition and doing the AP thing full time.

Sound familiar?

As a subscriber of Mothering, a participant in the Mothering Dot Commune forums, and a reader of many AP blogs, I’ve often seen variations on the same story: a woman wants a home birth, but “DH” isn’t into it, how can she convince him? A woman wants to practice attachment parenting with their new baby; how can she get DH on board? A woman is vegetarian and wants to raise her child as same; how can she—well, you get the idea.

Maybe it’s the circles in which I spend most of my time running, but it sure seems to me that things like having a home birth, practicing attachment parenting, eating a meatless diet made up of healthy whole foods, and generally living in a conscious and attached fashion somehow become campaigns for many women. Many of our male partners need convincing, and it seems a lot harder for them to fall into the lifestyle.

Part of it might be as simple as upbringing. As one AP dad says in his blog (bolding mine):

I grew up in a household that was a combination of strict and detached, where my parents unquestionably loved me, but in a distant and pretty much uninvolved way. As a consequence, while I have always been determined to not be this way with my kids, it's tough because there's a sort of behavioral destiny in this vein that I've had to fight on and off for years. I think we all have to be very conscious parents if we don’t want to just fall blindly into the patterns our parents used in rearing us, actually, and that’s not very easy to do, particularly in stressful situations.

Yet, it’s an argument any woman could make as well, isn’t it? I’d argue that it’s because we live in a sexist, patriarchal society that women get “permission” to “dote” and practice attachment living whereas men have it the other way around. It’s “natural” for us to be nurturing, intuitive, and attached to our children, for us to be demonstrative toward them with our emotions and affections. In fact, some of us may even feel pressure to perform as the perfect AP mama according to those "natural" expectations. Dads have traditionally experienced different parenting pressures, most of which allow for (and expect) distance.

I know plenty of women who are harangued by strangers and even family/friends/partners over their decision to practice attachment living, but it seems the men generally get one of two reactions, depending on the crowd: either they’re criticized for deviating from script society has handed them about how to live up to their masculinity, or they’re given a standing ovation.

The other day, my partner and I went to an outdoor music festival with our 6-month-old son. I toted him around in the Beco most of the time and no one seemed to bat an eye, except for a few smiles (at his big blue headphones) and a couple disapproving grimaces (“concerts are no place for babies!”).

When my husband strapped him on, however, it was an entirely different story. Women stopped him on the street and begged to take his photo, not even noticing I was there! They cooed and complimented him and generally became puddles of goo on the pavement. These well-meaning passersby might as well have said, “Good job being an involved and attached father! You don’t have to do that, you know. You’re really going above and beyond! You obviously don’t care about looking masculine, and that’s so cool.”

Traditionally, men have been kept out of pregnancy, birth, and child-rearing, only advised to play supporting roles. Bradley (and later Sears) began to bring men back into the parenting picture again in a big way; Bradley advocating for childbirth to be “husband-coached” (don’t get me started—his heart was in the right place), and the Sears franchise encourages fathers to enjoy such things as skin-to-skin time with their babies and not to balk at strapping on a sling.

Attachment parenting amounts to practicing “feminine” ways of knowing. It asks us to get down on our children’s level, to intuit and anticipate their needs, to tune into them emotionally and otherwise. It asks us to be tender, to ask instead of tell or explain. It asks us to share our beds, our breasts, our hearts. It’s not a “method” to which you can subscribe, and it’s not always convenient. It’s demanding and it’s hard work. It’s enriching, too, and even better when both parents are into it.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, take your pick), for many men AP means giving the proverbial finger to typical ideas of masculinity. It’s hard for some of us to overcome ideas we might have learned about gender when we’re learning to parent our own children. Co-sleeping and extended breastfeeding are areas of the AP lifestyle that often raise the most eyebrows among non-APing men. After all, doing those things must preclude any kind of sex life, right? For a guy to agree to such a thing must mean he handed his wife his man card on a silver platter.

My partner is a computer guy and I’m an academic, so we both appreciate a factual and logical approach. During my pregnancy, we pored over books and articles together, with me taking the lead. I dog-eared pages and sent him links and we both quickly arrived at most of the same conclusions. I see many other women doing the same thing: preparing to do battle over home birth or AP, stockpiling research for The Big Conversation. Hey, whatever works!

So I get why it’s hard for some of our partners to get behind AP at first. It seems to require peeling back a lot of complicated layers. But by setting new examples for masculinity—especially for our sons—we show our children a broader spectrum of gendered and parenting behavior. I think I’m pretty lucky to (e-)know a lot of men—like my partner and Jeremy Adam Smith, for example—who are proud to be AP dads.

So, tell us about your partners and your (shared?) journey to attachment living!

The Mama Shape

Conversations amongst my fellow AL bloggers (my Baby Ladies!) often turn to post baby body talk. It's something that seems to weigh on the mind, even if lightly, of even the most down to earth of us.

I am in awe of my body. It grew into a beautiful shape while developing crazy powers inside. It truly is a temple- housing, knitting, birthing, nourishing three healthy humans relatively effortlessly.

It's still hard not to balk at the changes that hit so fast as we enter Motherhood. I'm back to my before children weight again but no longer will I slide into those butt-cleavage jeans without a hearty muffin top lapping over. No longer can I slip off my bra to be greeted by perkiness- they almost groan as they settle, weighted by milk and motherhood. My thighs could kill a man and pink ribbons adorn my hips.

Biologically it makes sense. We have no need for a flawless body to attract a mate anymore. We do need milk bags, hearty baby lugging limbs and that handy pooch to sit that clinging child on.

Truly beautiful. And hard to remember. As I strive for perfection I often lose the meaning in the process. In my mind I see my 20 year old body as ideal. But how ignorant that body was- of housing, of knitting, of birthing, of nourishing.

Tell us your thoughts on the Mama Figure!