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

Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-2005
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 2:37pm
You said you see no problem with the child having to cry to get fed. My response is that IF you know the kid is hungry and still wait for him to cry, then I have a serious problem with that. The "if" made the sentence conditional. If the condition doesn't apply to you, then it isn't about you and you have no call to get so worked up. If the condition does apply to you, then you shopuldn't later claim otherwise.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 2:37pm
How much of the time do you personally do the cooking?

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 2:41pm
Throughout history, the food itself HAS been very important. Lois is keeping that alive (as are lots of others). What I was disputing was the implied link between increased obesity and ritualized meals .And I don't just mean the ones where the type of food is "unimportant" but also the ones where the food itself is very important- such as Thanksgiving with its symbolic turkey and summer picnics where fussing over the barbecued food and then savoring its wonderfulness loudly is part of the ritual. I'm with Lois on this one. For many people- including throughout history and in other cultures- the food per se is important, not just the fact that people are eating it together. And my post was to specifically dispute that there is any link between this approach to food and rising obesity.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2006
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 2:43pm
how could you possibly come to that conclussion? we have homecooked meals almost every day, but a subsandwich and a bowl of soup can be just as homecooked as anything you could prepare. and i havent seen fast food mentioned anywhere, but go ahead and make your assumptions. actually a very nutrious meal is my homemade pizza and a salad. fortunately for my family we are not "foodies" we eat high quality, good, healthy, homemade food but for us the food is just not what is important at a given meal, being together is where we place our value. and we do occassionally have the dreaded hamburger, hot dog, brat kind of dinners - hasnt seemed to affect our health so far
Jennie
Avatar for mommy2amani
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 2:45pm

I was going to ask the same thing? If we went to the park, I nursed the baby right before we left, whether it was time or not, so we wouldn't have to worry about him needing to be fed on the way home. We also nursed right before we left the house.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-04-1997
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 2:46pm
You've created a false dichotomy, because there is no one here for whom eating is more important that being together with family.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 2:48pm
I'm with you on this. There is something about preparing food together that makes it so special. WIt might be fussing over the barbecue coals and all arguing about if they're really ready or not, or crowding into the kitchen on Thanksgiving (or any group meal) to each do one tiny thing like slicing tomatoes. Or maybe you don't all prepare it together but one person goes gourmet wild in the kitchen and everybody compliments the gorgeousness and tastiness. I see no link between this and rising obesity at all. Exactly the opposite. Obesity has risen as this approach to food has declined.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-2005
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 2:53pm

I cook weekends. Sometimes I spend all day Saturday and Sunday in the kitchen; sometimes only part of the day. I rarely cook on weeknights, though, unless it is for the meal the next day. I don't get home early enough to make home cooked meals after work every night. So, someone else in the family does that.

My dh is super picky about food. He wants it fresh and homemade.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-2005
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 2:55pm
If you don't care what the food is, as you keep insistning, then how are people to know that you actually do care about what the food is and make sure it is fresh, organic, healthy, etc. Why keep saying the food is unimportant when the food obviously is important.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-04-1997
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 2:56pm
One of my very favorite memories happened on the day before Thanksgiving, about fifteen years ago. My grandmother, mother, aunt, two cousins and their three daugters and I were in the kitchen preparing food from a hand-written recipe book that has been in our family for six generations now. I still remember that sweet feeling that washed ovr me as it occurred to me that here we all were, together, four generations, cooking dishes from recipes written down by my grandfather's grandmother. My grandmother died the next year, both aunts are gone now, and it will never happen again. One of those little girls recently became a mother, I will make sure she gets a copy of Grandmother's recipe book with which to raise her kids.

Pages