AP Madness Misses the Point

When the Attachment Parenting (AP) phenomenon was featured on the cover of TIME, the story went viral in the blogosphere and across the news world. The smart and venerable feminist rag Ms. featured the AP "Momtroversy" in a blog by Elline Lipkin just yesterday.

But the whole debate may be couched in the wrong terms. Are we missing the biggest points here? The framing of the AP "Momtroversy" is hiding some of the real issues.

The Attachment Parenting Epic

As the mom of an almost-four-year-old who has come into her own as a mother during the AP heyday, I can tell you that AP was an endless source of guilt in the early days, when my sleep-deprived brain was in worry overload on whether I was doing the right thing for my baby. AP advocates the needs of the child over all, and cites some fairly sketchy science to "prove" that babies can be harmed by not being in constant contact with their adults.

Those who follow AP strictly breastfeed for extended periods, co-sleep in a family bed, and use even mild discipline sparingly if at all. The child is the one who "chooses" when to move to a single bed, to stop breastfeeding, or to start behaving more maturely.

The "Alternative" Ethic

Alternative parenting and AP parenting aren't synonymous. The AP label has bogarted the basic ideology of many 21st-century moms who believe the best things for their children aren't what the American consumerist machine is selling. I'm an alternative mother, NOT an AP mother.

A person on the street who sees a baby in a sling, for example, assumes the mom is an AP advocate, when she may just be making use of one of the easiest ways to carry a baby hands-free. The AP baggage has overtaken many of the key points to cloth diapering, babywearing, and breastfeeding, muddying the waters to the point that any parents who advocate "alternative" parenting practices are assumed to be AP extremists.

AP Absurdity?

The extreme end of AP parenting paints parents who let their children sleep alone, who don't breastfeed for multiple years, or who discipline their children (even compassionately) as unfit, selfish parents who don't put the needs of their children ahead of their own. After several years sorting through the mountains of online parenting information and learning to have confidence in my own decisions, I'm coming to see those opinions as blatantly silly.

Personally, I don't put much stock in the opinions of any male "expert" who knows nothing of my family's particular situation or needs, but purports to know exactly what's best for my child. Ditto for other mothers who have the luxury of AP parenting because their family has the luxury of living on one income or clings to AP ideology with the same fervor as a religion.

Here are just a few ways we've chosen "the Middle Path" of balance and practicality over AP extremes, with positive results:

Nursing. When nursing turned out to be something that just didn't work for my daughter and I after three months of constant effort, no matter how hard I tried and pumped and tried again, I was heartbroken. But my little girl grew quickly and happily on our homemade formula (made with our doctor's approval) and supplementation with storebought formula.

Co-sleeping and Sleep Training. When we decided to put our little girl to sleep in her own crib so that we could get the sleep we needed to be better parents, I worried that gently teaching her to sleep alone could hurt her in the long run based on my AP reading, although many experts advocate a healthy independent sleep schedule. My daughter thrived on the peace and quiet of sleeping in her own space, knowing her parents were in the next room and would be there for her when she needed them.

Babywearing. When my daughter got too big to carry in a sling safely and comfortably, she and I both missed that intimacy during everything from grocery shopping to gardening. But I put the safety of my back above our desire to stay that physically close. I'm no good to her if I'm laid out recovering from a back injury.

Cloth diapering. When we moved to our farm and I could no longer cloth diaper because we were re-using our wash water as gray water on one of our flower beds, I worried about the environmental consequences of the mountains of disposable diapers I sent to the landfill. But overall, our trash output is still less than that of most American families since we compost, avoid or re-use extra packaging, and eat a lot of unpackaged whole foods from our garden and animals.

Car Seats. When we set our car seat to be forward-facing when our little girl was two, since we spend so much time in the car, I worried that we were putting her at greater risk for injury. Our farm is literally 30 minutes from surrounding towns and cities, so we log a lot of road time in our small, excellent-gas-mileage car. But she thrives on seeing the world around her, is learning to read from "stop" and "yield" signs, and already plays complicated car games with us because we've given her room to communicate. We're both careful drivers on fairly unpopulated roads, so we consider it an acceptable risk.

I Advocate the "Middle Path"

My child is healthy as a horse, well-balanced, and fairly polite for her age. She is an absolute firecracker who inherited her mother's temper and her father's vitality. She's also a compassionate and loving little girl who knows the importance of telling the truth and instinctively reaches out to other kids who are sad or hurt. She sleeps fairly well, eats real food, and says "please" and "thank you."

And we did it without attachment parenting.