Attachment Parenting Assumptions

Welcome to the I Am Mom! Enough! Carnival hosted by Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama and Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children.
This Carnival is dedicated to empowering ALL parents who practice and promote and peaceful, loving, attachment parenting philosophy. We have asked other parents to help us show the critics and the naysayers that attachment parenting is beautiful, uplifting, and unbelievably beneficial and NORMAL!
In addition to the Carnival, Joni from Tales of a Kitchen Witch and Jennifer from True Confessions of a Real Mommy are co-hosting a Linky Party. Please stop by either blog to share any of your posts on the topic.
Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants. Post topics are wide and varied, and every one is worth a read.

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When criticising attachment parenting, recently highlighted in the now infamous TIME magazine article, I’ve seen lots of people making the assumption that this style of parenting is only for white, middle-class stay-at-home-moms. Apart from the fact this seems like a complete cop-out, excusing such people from responsibility for their parenting, it’s also complete and utter nonsense! 

If you took a cursory look at the many attachment parenting blogs out there, or spent a short time on attachment parenting forums, you might come to the conclusion that all attachment parents are white, affluent, eco-warrior feminists with nothing else to do but spend time with their kids, blog and make pretty things to stick on Pinterest. But look a little closer and you’ll realise this is far from true! 

Take myself for example. I’m white, and as of 3 weeks ago, I’m now a stay-at-home-mum. I spend a lot of time with my child and when I’m not I enjoy blogging, cooking and baking. But I can assure you I’m not middle-class and I’m definitely not affluent! I live on a council estate in one of the poorest villages in one of the poorest towns in the North of England. My home is a tiny 2 bed bungalow with just a communal garden attached. We don’t even have a bath tub! I haven’t been on holiday for almost 4 years. I used to work a very difficult and stressful job around my childcare responsibilities until I managed to pay off my debts and save some money. Now we’re scraping by on a frugal budget.

But none of this is an excuse for not responding to the needs of my daughter and assuring a firm attachment with her! In my opinion, attachment parenting is the best way to assure children grow up to be emotionally healthy adults, and also – I actually enjoy it! If you choose to parent differently, fine, but don’t try to excuse your choice and say the only reason I can be an attachment parent is because of x, y or z! Own your choice. Own your own life. And stop sending such negativity towards those people who have the audacity to parent differently to you! If you took a look at attachment parenting and felt you wanted to do it, believing it to be the best for your child, then you wouldn’t let anything stand in your way, surely?

So am I mom enough? I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean, and I don’t like the implications of it. Am I mom enough because I respond to the needs of my child with sensitivity? And where does that leave parents who aren’t attachment parenting? The question implies I’m smug because of the way I choose to parent, which is, I imagine, where much of the venom towards attachment parents is stemming from. It’s such nonsense! We’re all struggling through this parenting business in the best way we can. It’s not a competition! I don’t want a medal because I often used to survive on 4 hours broken sleep, then go to work for 8 hours, come home and do housework and breastfeed my daughter, never getting a moment to myself. I don’t do it to feel some pride that I’m a great mum. I do it because my daughter needs me, and when I had her this is what I signed up for!

Please, let’s all stop this anger and competition and start to focus on what’s important: the welfare of our children and the support of each other on this journey of parenting. Let’s stop niggling about our differences and start to see we’re all trying our best with what we have and that we need to support each other. 

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Thank you for visiting the I Am Mom! Enough! Carnival hosted by hosted by Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama and Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children.
Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants and check out previous posts at the linky party hosted by Joni from Tales of a Kitchen Witch and Jennifer from True Confessions of a Real Mommy:
(This list will be live and updated by afternoon May 28 with all the carnival links.)

• Good Enough? — Jennifer at True Confessions of a Real Mommy writes about how Good Enough is not Good Enough, if you use it as an excuse to stop trying.
• The High Cost of High Expectations JeninCanada at Fat and Not Afraid shares what it’s like to NOT feel ‘mom enough’ and wanting to always do better for herself and family.
• TIME to Be You! — Becky at Old New Legacy encourages everyone to be true to themselves and live their core values.
• I am mom and I have had ENOUGH — A mother had had ENOUGH of the mommy wars.
• Motherhood vs. Feminism — Doula Julia at juliamannes.com encourages feminists to embrace the real needs and cycles and strengths of women.
• There Is No Universal Truth When It Comes To Parenting — Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama discusses how parenting looks around the world and why there is no universal parenting philosophy.
• Attachment Parenting Assumptions — ANonyMous at Radical Ramblings argues that attachment parenting is not just for the affluent middle-classes, and that as parents we all need to stop worrying about our differences and start supporting each other.
• Thoughts on Time Magazine, Supporting ALL Mamas, and Advocating for the Motherless — Time Magazine led That Mama Gretchen to think about her calling as a mother and how adoption will play an important role in growing her family.
• Attachment Parenting: the Renewed Face of Feminism — Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children embraces her inner feminist as she examines how the principles of attachment parenting support the equal treatment of all.
• What a Mom Wants! — Clancy Harrison from Healthy Baby Beans writes about how women need to support each other in their different paths to get to the same destination.
• Attachment Parenting: What One Family Wants You To Know — Jennifer, Kris, 4 year old Owen and 2 year old Sydney share the realities of attachment parenting, and how very different it looks than the media’s portrayal.
• We ALL Are Mom Enough — Amy W. of Amy Willa: Me, Mothering, and Making It All Work thinks that all mothers should walk together through parenthood and explores her feelings in prose.
• A Typical Day Kat at Loving {Almost} Every Moment shares what a typical day with her attached family looks like…all in the hopes to shed light on what Attachment Parenting is, what it’s not and that it’s unique within each family!
• The Proof is in the (organic, all-natural) Pudding — Kym at Our Crazy Corner of the World talks about how, contrary to what the critics say, the proof that attachment parenting works in visible in the children who are parented that way.
• I am mom and I have had ENOUGH A mother had had ENOUGH of the mommy wars.
• Time Magazine & Mommy Wars: Enough! What Really Matters? — Abbie at Farmer’s Daughter encourages moms to stop fighting with each other, and start alongside each other.
• Attachment parenting is about respect — Lauren at Hobo Mama breaks down what attachment parenting means to her to its simplest level.
• I am an AP mom, regardless… — Jorje ponders how she has been an Attachment Parenting mom regardless of outside circumstances at Momma Jorje.
• The first rule of Attachment Parenting is: You Do Not Talk about Attachment Parenting — Emily discusses, with tongue aqnd cheek, how tapping into our more primal selves actually brings us closer to who we are rather than who we think we should be.
• Mom, I am. — Amy at Anktangle discusses how Attachment Parenting is a natural extension of who she is, and she explains the ways her parenting approach follows the “live and let live” philosophy, similar to her beliefs about many other areas of life.
• I Breastfeed My Toddler for the Nutritional Benefits — Christine at African Babies Don’t Cry shares why ‘extended’ breastfeeding is not extreme and how she is still nursing her toddler for the nutritional benefits.
• I Am Dad Enough! — Attachment parenting does not only have to be about moms; their partners are just as important. In Code Name: Mama’s family, Dionna’s husband, Tom, is papa enough for lots of things.

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