The Rigbys:
My husband and I have looked into this subject at length, and don’t find the research convincing. Because of this, we don’t subscribe to the attachment parenting philosophy.
Mrs. Rigbys, everyone; she doesn’t believe in AP and yet appears to feel the need to post in every thread which mentions AP to tell everyone this.
And always with a smile! So that when she PMs you to complain that you’ve replied to one of those threads, thereby “resurrecting” one she considers “controversial” and wishes would just die, you know she’s doing it out of her great wealth of Christian charity!
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Attachment Parenting and gentle discipline is just common sense. That’s why you’ll see so many posts from people saying, “I’ve been doing this all along! I had no idea it had a name!” Coming from an understanding of God’s love for us and the Church’s teachings on children and childhood, the logical conclusion is AP.
(Had Puritanism not infected our culture with the idea that children are born sinful and must have the evil spanked out of them, must have their evil natures broken, then I don’t think we would ever be able to convince ourselves that hitting our children and sticking them in their rooms to listen to them cry is somehow right or that children need to have their spirits broken. What does that teach them, after all? When someone does something you don’t like you hit them? How do we expect children to understand that adults are supposed to be able to hit them but they’re not allowed to hit others? Talk about cognitive dissonance.)
St. Augustine said that even our evil acts are motivated by a desire for good, but one that has been perverted by sin. I think we need to understand those actions by children which we would label “wrong” in this context. When my son repeatedly pulled all of my DVDs off of the rack as an infant, he wasn’t being evil. Not the first time and not the tenth. I told him not to do it any more but he was two, explaining to him why he shouldn’t do that wasn’t going to get through to him. So I wised up and moved the DVD rack to somewhere that he couldn’t reach it. It’s not about bending a child to your will so that they don’t interfere with your life as it was before they were born, it’s about embracing this new life and accomodating it as needed.
I don’t know why people would not want to be close to their children, to carry them around and keep them in bed when they’re very small. Babies are cuddly, it keeps them out of trouble and happy, and it’s much less work. I can only assume that the trend of making babies sleep in a craddle in another room was advanced by selfish people who didn’t want to be bothered by their children, backed up by psychologists who insisted that it was somehow
laudable and necessary to do this, assuring mother that while the pitiful cries of their baby would make them want to run in and scoop up the child that they must be strong – that after a few nights the child would give up and stop crying. Are we so modern that we think we know better than our hearts and maternal/fraternal instincts?
(Same deal with infant potty training. No child
wants to sit around in a soiled diaper, though if forced to do so often enough the child will become numb to it.)
I mean, it’s just common sense and it makes life much easier for parent and child.
Maybe you meant something like this?
Regarding the so-called “AP practices,” we consider each one on its merits (convenience, pleasantness, nutritional benefits, etc.), and use the ones that we find beneficial for our family.
, my now 6 month old is beyond that age, so-- I nurse him to sleep on the living room floor, and dh and I can use the bed, or- baby will be asleep in the bed- we use the couch.