attachment parenting

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2004
attachment parenting
1781
Mon, 08-14-2006 - 3:17pm

A woman I know (I used to work with her dh) practices "attachment parenting". Here is a definition (for those who don't know what it is):

"Attachment Parenting includes respecting your child's needs, feeding on demand, and answering your baby's cries. Other parts of Attachment Parenting include co-sleeping, nursing on demand, sling or other baby carrier wearing, and cloth diapering. Not all Attachment Parents practice all of the above, but never the less love the idea of Attachment Parenting and comforting their children.

Attachment parenting uses mild discipline methods and avoids all physical or emotional punishment, such as inflicting shame on a child for inappropriate behavior. Children are encouraged and allowed to sleep with their parents, and you treat your bed as the family bed. Meeting your child's needs according to the child's time frame during the early years of development is an essential part of attachment parenting. Children will be allowed to grow and learn at their own pace and not according to standard time frames."

What do you all think of attachment parenting?

I don't see attachment parenting as something a WOH parent could do, or could they? What do u think?

I am also curious to see if SAHPs vs/ WOHPs will have different opionions on this topic.

If anyone here practices attachment parenting - was your decision to do so closely linked with your decision to be a SAHP?

josee

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iVillage Member
Registered: 07-26-2006
Sun, 08-27-2006 - 1:21pm
LOADS of companies give dad 6 weeks off now WITH PAY. I told you already but you just ignore my posts that my BIL just had a baby and he got 6 weeks off with full pay. No one is saying that mom is sick, mom is recovering from giving birth. Sorry but mom not sleeping all night and being able to grab little cat naps here and there when the baby is sleeping is a total different story than mom having to get dressed and drive to work and work all day with little to no sleep the night before. So are you saying that you were ok to head back to work within 2 weeks? How much sleep were you getting? Why didn't you head back into the office? Can you answer the question about dc not taking children at 2 weeks? Were you hiring a nanny to care for a 2 week old? A nurse? What? Can you answer the questions or do you need to sway this to another topic to avoid answering the questions?
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 08-27-2006 - 1:29pm
with my first three my husband took off a full month. With my last one he was only able to take off ten days. guess it depends where you work.
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iVillage Member
Registered: 08-27-2005
Sun, 08-27-2006 - 1:53pm

It seems pointless to repeat this but I'll try. Long parental leaves in Europe are generally intended to boost the birthrate by encouraging more couples to have kids and offering them rewards for doing so. In addition to extra time off, families also get a monthly allowance per child (we get over $150 per month per child) regardless of WOH/SAH status for either parents.

The point is not to tell mothers that "working is so bad during whatever time, we'll pay you not to do it." You still haven't explained how, logically, governments are saying this specifically to women if the parental leave is offered equally to both fathers and mothers. Who takes most of the leave is irrelevant. If the societal aim is to discourage women from working for x amount of time after the birth of the child, then the leave would have be structured to only be available to women for that x amount of time. It isn't in most countries.

Avatar for kerry88
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-22-2003
Sun, 08-27-2006 - 2:27pm

2 weeks? I can't even fathom going back to work 2 weeks after giving birth. Talk about not having any time whatsoever to bond with the baby or recover from a major medical issue.

If most companies insist on 6 weeks, are they too encouraging SAH? Because they are encouraging you not to work, much like you say Canada does. According to you, both are "telling women" not to work for a predetermined period of time after birth...

Kerry with Campbell Elizabeth 11.03.06 and Benjamin Brady 12.10.03
Avatar for kerry88
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-22-2003
Sun, 08-27-2006 - 2:30pm

But you're saying you weren't ill. Didn't it make you "sick" taking money from them when you could have been working? You said that it would, before.

I'm sure you donated that money to charity because you could have gone back to work 4 weeks prior to your actually doing so.

Kerry with Campbell Elizabeth 11.03.06 and Benjamin Brady 12.10.03
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-31-2005
Sun, 08-27-2006 - 2:38pm

"It seems pointless to repeat this but I'll try. Long parental leaves in Europe are generally intended to boost the birthrate by encouraging more couples to have kids and offering them rewards for doing so. In addition to extra time off, families also get a monthly allowance per child (we get over $150 per month per child) regardless of WOH/SAH status for either parents."

I'm curious what has caused a shrinking population in Europe and when the decline began. Is this happening in most of the northern European countries? Are the birthrates increasing as a result of governmental intervention?

I remember studying population pyramids in a human geography course once and found the subject fascinating.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-27-2005
Sun, 08-27-2006 - 3:18pm

There is a very well-recognized connection between maternal education and birth rate: the higher the maternal education, the lower the birth rate. In the U.S., immigrants are the main reason why the overall birth rate is still relatively robust. European countries traditionally have not had the same rate of immigration and the birth rate has fallen as maternal education has gone up.

The effect of the parental leave is haphazard, in large part because it cannot stand alone as a way to encourage more families to have children. Using two examples I know well (Germany and Sweden), here are some of the reasons why parental leaves are a relative success in Sweden and relatively unsuccessful in Germany:

Some elements of the German system:

1) The German tax system very clearly favors families with a single, high-income earner. There are a number of tax advantages that are only available to families with one income or with one good income and one very poor pt income. The dual WOHP couple get hit with a much larger tax bill if both earn relatively equal amounts.

2) Dc possibilities in Germany are downright dismal, even in the largest cities. Afterschool care is nearly non-existent.

3) There is a strong cultural bias against women working ft or pt for more hours than a child is in school.

4) Employers openly expect women to be responsible for all issues with children even after they go back to work after parental leave. Nearly no men take any kind of leave to care for children, including sick children.

5) Jobs must be held for 3 years. Most women do not go back to their jobs so employers are unable to permanently fill the position with new people for 3 years.

Some elements of the Swedish system:

1) Taxes are strictly individual. Regardless of how much one's spouse earns, each person is taxed separately. Pensions are also strictly individual, it is not possible for a widow to have any access to the government pension earned by her husband.

2) Dc and afterschool care are everywhere. It is extremely easy to find cheap, good quality dc and all schools must offer in-house afterschool care to every child requiring it.

3) There is a strong cultural bias in favor of WOHMs.

4) Employers openly expect both men and women to deal with child issues once the parental leave is up. While women take the bulk of the parental leave (on average about 1 year), men and women equally share care of sick children. A man is just as likely to disappear for a week to care for a sick child as a woman, or take off some days to deal with school stuff.

5) Jobs need only be held for 1.5 years. 93% of all women return to their jobs.

Those elements sound disconnected to the birth rate, but they actually aren't. In Germany, the entire system essentially conspires to keep women out of jobs (employers are openly leery of hiring women who could get pregnant) and actually financially punishes families with 2 good careers. The tax system alone, for example, is a serious disincentive: Germany punishes families with 2 good incomes by taxing both at a higher rate than the single earner would have been taxed at (due to a complicated joint taxation scheme). Sweden makes it more advantegous to have 2 good incomes rather than 1 very good income. In Sweden, family A with 1 income earner with a salary of (for example) $100,000 will perhaps pay about 42-45% taxes in total; whereas family B with two income earners each earning $50,000 will pay 33% in total taxes (each is taxed at the $50,000 rate, they are not taxed together).

Employers in Sweden tend to be less leery of hiring women into good positions because even if they will, at some point, take time off for a child they are 1) extremely likely to return to the job within a year and 2) no more likely than men to take time off later on to deal with kid stuff (illness, school meetings etc.).

The upshot is this: in Germany, many women feel literally forced to choose between family and career. More and more, they are choosing either not to have a family or to limit the family to one child. In Sweden, it's much easier to combine both, even if one has 3 or 4 children. Women don't feel that they have to choose so they feel comfortable combining both. The end result is that Sweden has a much higher birth rate than Germany even though far more women WOH. Sweden actually has one of the highest birth rates in Europe.

What's happening in Germany is also true of a number of other countries (such as Italy and Austria) that theoretically have long parental leaves in place but that effectively punish women who try to return to work. Women feel forced to choose and they are choosing their jobs...

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-06-2006
Sun, 08-27-2006 - 4:12pm

Not considering that they were the ones telling me I couldn't work. I didn't decide to take time off and make them pay me, my doctor didn't tell them I needed that time off. They made that decision. For what reason, I don't know. I have no clue as to why a doctor isn't deciding when I am and when I am not fit to return to work. I wasn't even required to see a doctor upon my return. If they're going to tell me I can't work, you bet they're going to pay me.

This was not me deciding I didn't want to come back, it was my employer telling me I couldn't for a certain time. Their decision, their bill. I did take longer but I don't think anyone owes me a dime for that. That was my decision and my bill. 20/20 hindsight, I should have used my vacation time to do a ramp back instead of blowing it on a few more weeks off. That transition back was difficult after being off 10 weeks.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-06-2006
Sun, 08-27-2006 - 4:24pm

"That is exactly a question I have asked repeatedly, of ministers, missionaries, seminarians, etc. i uisually get told that I'm just trying to stir things up, that God is a good loving god who never intends to harm us,a nd that we just ahve to accept there are things we'll never know."

This one drives me nuts. God can't be good and loving and have our best interest at heart and then turn around and allow (if she's :) in control, she's allowing it) awful things to happen to people. If you want to believe in a good and loving God then you have to believe that God does not control what happens on this earth because too much of it is not good and loving. If you want to believe that God controls everything then God causes evil things to happen to good people. I guess as punishment for sins (UGH nice loving God there.)

Personally, I don't think God pays attention to what happens here. I think we are here for a purpose though I'm not sure what it is. Perhaps we are creating either heaven or hell with our actions or inactions. I do believe in the power of prayer but I'm not sure that it's not a power that has always been within us. Sometimes I think that God left us here, all alone, but with what we need to get by. I guess I have an eastern view of prayer. Like it activates some power within us and each other.

I also can't rule out reincarnation. I can't buy that a "loving" God would give you one shot, that may be a day long or 100 years long and then judge you for eternity on that one shot deal. Reincarnation with the purpose of us being here to be to pull each other through makes too much sense to me. If I live enough lifetimes, I'm bound to experience just about everything and then the judgement would be fair. I don't get why some people die young and others are given a long life to decide one way or the other. It doesn't seem right to me.

I get accused of strring things up too, lol.

Avatar for kerry88
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-22-2003
Sun, 08-27-2006 - 4:28pm

Yes, but I don't see how what your employer did is any different than what Canada offers, except for the fact that Canada gives you a *choice* which your employer did not give you.

Quoting from you:

"If a society will pay you not to work, for whatever period of time, they're declaring working a bad thing. Bad enough that they'll pay you not to do it."

By your definition, your employer is declaring working a bad thing.

Also, you said that you would not ever feel comfortable taking money from an employer when you're not working, yet you did it.

Kerry with Campbell Elizabeth 11.03.06 and Benjamin Brady 12.10.03

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