Yesterday Eva showed us a cover of Time magazine in which a woman appeared breastfeeding a 3-year-old boy (the same one you see here above) accompanied by a surprisingly controversial headline: Are you mother enough
The article is based on the so-called parenting with attachment, or respectful parenting, by calling it another way, and with the headline it aims to provoke a self-assessment by the mothers, so that each one is among the mothers who are sufficiently mothers and those who, for not raising with attachment, or for doing otherwise, should be placed below the scale of sufficient mothers and insufficient mothers.
It is clear that it is only a headline, a shocking and unfortunate phrase, because The mother on the cover is no more mother for breastfeeding a three-year-old child, nor is she the mother who does not breastfeed. As I said a few days ago in another post: the love of a father or mother is not measured.
This is not going to make a contest to see who is the most sacrificed, the most self-sacrificing mother or the one who spends the most time with her children. This is not a competition to see who is a mother of first and who is a mother of second. This is about trying to educate children in the best way possible because at the time a baby is born, their parents acquire the responsibility to make him a good person, happy, autonomous and free.
The subtitle seems to say otherwise
Leaving aside the headline we can read the subtitle, which helps us know where the shots go: "Why parenting with attachment takes some mothers to extremes and how Dr. Bill Sears became his guru." After making us believe with the title that the subject is an ode to parenting with attachment, which makes mothers the most complete and prepared, the most sufficient, it turns out that parenting with attachment makes mothers reach extremes. This is where I wonder: Extremes? What extremes?
What extremes are we talking about?
Now I have not defended my parenting principles with anyone for a long time, basically because it is something that wears a lot and in the end you end up getting tired, but some time ago I did find people (more in the forums than in the face to face) that labeled the attachment with attachment as an extremist That of breastfeeding until I do not know when, that of sleeping with a baby until he is older and goes alone to his room, that of carrying it all day hanging ... that is to reach extremes that, apparently, have been valued similarly from Time magazine.
But nevertheless I don't think this is an extreme. It is as if someone tells me that I am very extremist because I am educated with everyone: "man, do not be so polite, neither one extreme nor the other", which would be something like, do not be a bad mannered, but neither be educated with everybody. Or as if someone tells me that I am very extremist because I pay attention to all the traffic signs: “neither so much nor so little, some traffic lights in red you can skip, man…”.
For me they are extreme, if we talk about parenting, being a totally permissive father, who lets his children do what they want and when they want, at the risk of doing too much or too little and being a totally authoritarian father, pending discipline your child so that he can barely develop his own "me."
Then, putting at one end a pasota education and at the other a suffocating education I would place in the middle the one in which the parents leave freedom, but do not let the child disrespect others, that in which there are rules and some values (or limits, if we want to call them that), but they are negotiable, that in which you do not punish or hit, but show what the consequences of their actions are, that in which children are respected because you pretend that they learn to respect others. For me this is not an extreme, for me it is the middle ground.
Breastfeeding, collecting, carrying ...
Three of the things that usually define parents who follow the “method” of parenting with attachment (in the magazine they talk about method, as if there were some instructions for it) are breastfeeding on demand, schooling and taking child close to his parents to be more calm.
In the photos of the magazine we see mothers breastfeeding, as if they could only be part of the select club of people who educate their children according to the principles of parenting with attachment those who breastfeed their children, and by extension those who They collect and behave.
This is a garrafal concept error, because respectful upbringing is not summed up in breastfeeding a child who is breastfeeding, sleeping with him or carrying him, but rather It is summed up in treating children in the same way that we like to be treated, in respecting their needs, their convictions and their ideas, listen to them, talk, dialogue, negotiate, find solutions to problems, etc.
All this can be done without breastfeeding, without carrying children and sleeping in separate beds, although it is true that when they are younger, if we respect their needs, they usually do not wean until they are several years old, that they sleep with their parents, because it is where they feel safer and that they go near mom or dad, in a baby carrier, because it is where they are calmer.
But, what if a child is uncomfortable collecting, what happens if after two years he stops breastfeeding because he says he does not want more or because that little or no milk comes out, being pregnant mom is demotivating ... what happens if a mother gives tit, ponytail and portage, but then she goes from shout to shout, from cheek to cheek and from threat to threat, because it happens that this is not a “like me, I am a better mother, or as I use a baby carrier, I am more than you "
This is not about that, raising a child with attachment, in a respectful way, trying to be better people to be a better example and trying to control the disrespectful automatisms that live in us, in a lethargic situation, is something much bigger, much more extensive, something that is part of people's way of life. It is not a pose or a fad, it is See children as people and treat them as such simply.
To give an example, my two oldest children are not ported or breastfed since they were 2 and a half years old, at which time they both left on their own initiative. Is my wife worse for not breastfeeding than a mother who breastfeeds them when they are 3 years old?
Am I father enough?
If you look at the magazine article, the father is never talked about. It seems that that of respectful parenting, or simply that of parenting, is a matter of mothers. If being a mother enough is a matter of breastfeeding big children, as we see in the photos, Where are the parents?
It's been a while since "you're the father because you put the seed" has gone down in history, I think, so I would have liked to see in these photos the parents of the creatures, couples of sufficient or insufficient mothers, that We also share dark circles, time with the children, arms and in general the life of our children.
A mother spends more time with her children because she is the one with maternity leave, is the one who breastfeeds and is usually the reference, the primary caregiver of children (and children, therefore, always look for her when they are little) , but that does not make her love them more, that she is better or that she is more than the father.
Dr. Bill Sears is the guru of these mothers
Most of these mothers have as common link the postulates of Dr. Sears, of whom we have already spoken in Babies and more. Being a pediatrician and at the same time publishing books, is the reference to which they can hold on when criticisms and doubts appear.
In Spain something similar happens with Carlos González, who with his book "Kiss me a lot" has changed the way of thinking of many mothers and fathers, explaining to them why children are as they are and why they do what they do. It is not a Gonzalez method, just as there is no Sears method, it is simply Know the needs of children to understand their demands.
Dr. Sears has a website, in fact, where he shares many of the articles he has written.
The debate is served
I know that I have "talked" a lot and said many things. You can agree with me or not, but I (we) would like to know your opinions about it, that you tell us what you think about evaluating mothers according to their way of educating, feeding, etc.
