7.30.2008

Attachment Parenting vs. Detachment Parenting Part 1

I’ve been hearing a lot lately about Attachment Parenting. Sibling Six of Nine is big into this and I have to be careful what I say about it because she is practically the president of the Attachment Parenting Fan Club and also you don’t want to make her mad because I did that once in high school and she gave me the silent treatment for two whole weeks.

Being a bit afraid of her as I am, I decided that the responsible thing for me to do would be to learn a little bit about Attachment Parenting before I write about it. And so, even though I really hate homework, I went online and found out a little more about it.

I found out that the essence of Attachment Parenting is to form a strong connection with your kid. I think that is a great idea and I’m in big favor of it as long as the parent doesn’t lose his or her own individual identity in the process.

Now, Attachment Parenting has eight main principles that the new crop of moms and dads are following. They are quite different than the principles that I followed when bringing up my kids, but I think I am fairly open minded about most of them, especially since I brought up my kids on the DETACHMENT parenting model, where you react to having no time for yourself by hiding from your kids in the bathroom just to hear yourself think.

The first one is to Strive for Balance in Personal and Family Life. This means that you have to say “no” to all of the people who are asking you to spread yourself too thin because that makes you cranky and you won’t be nice to your kid. I think this is a great idea. It means that raising a kid has become elevated in importance.

Twenty years ago, if you stayed home with your kids like I did, you were kind of embarrassed about it. You sort of dreaded meeting new people who asked: “So, what do YOU do?”

Now I feel like moms of little kids would reply: “I’m shaping a human being, that’s what!” I like the concept of that, but I feel really badly that these poor moms who are investing so much time and effort into every phrase and action might not realize that the kid and his brother are going to grow up with two completely different personalities even though they were raised exactly the same and then you will wonder if you were fighting a losing battle against a stronger opponent called Personality.

Stay tuned as we examine a principle a day for the next week.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Attachment, detachment...blah...blah..blah! Really, isn't this just the new form of playing tennis? Rather than compete on the court, now parents try and out-do one another with all the super-duper parental psychology thingies. I agree, that despite all the parenting techniques the children each individuate themselves. Something about those unique genetic traits thingies.

Anonymous said...

I really like the picture for this story. The parent is obviously telling the young child "Pull my finger and watch what happens!"

Now that's parenting!