Attachment parenting
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Attachment parenting (AP) is a
parenting Parenting or child rearing promotes and supports the physical, emotional, social, spiritual and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood. Parenting refers to the intricacies of raising a child and not exclusively for a ...
philosophy that proposes methods aiming to promote the attachment of parent and infant not only by maximal parental
empathy Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. Definitions of empathy encompass a broad range of social, co ...
and responsiveness but also by continuous bodily closeness and touch. The term ''attachment parenting'' was coined by the American
pediatrician Pediatrics ( also spelled ''paediatrics'' or ''pædiatrics'') is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, paediatrics covers many of their youth until the ...
William Sears. There is no conclusive body of research that shows Sears' approach to be superior to "mainstream parenting".


History


Context

Attachment parenting is just one of many responsiveness and love-oriented parenting philosophies that entered the pedagogical mainstream after
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, and it owes many of its ideas to older teachings, such as
Benjamin Spock Benjamin McLane Spock (May 2, 1903 – March 15, 1998) was an American pediatrician and left-wing political activist whose book '' Baby and Child Care'' (1946) is one of the best-selling books of the twentieth century, selling 500,000 copie ...
's influential handbook '' Baby and Child Care'' (1946). Spock had mothers advised to raise their infants according to their own
common sense ''Common Sense'' is a 47-page pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–1776 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. Writing in clear and persuasive prose, Paine collected various moral and political argu ...
and with plenty of physical contact – a guideline that radically broke with the preceding doctrines of L. Emmett Holt and
John B. Watson John Broadus Watson (January 9, 1878 – September 25, 1958) was an American psychologist who popularized the scientific theory of behaviorism, establishing it as a psychological school.Cohn, Aaron S. 2014.Watson, John B." Pp. 1429–1430 in ''T ...
; the book became a bestseller, and Spock's new child-rearing concept greatly influenced the upbringing of the post-war generations. Thirty years later,
Jean Liedloff Jean Liedloff (November 26, 1926 – March 15, 2011) was an American author, born in New York City, and best known for her 1975 book ''The Continuum Concept''. She is the aunt of writer Janet Hobhouse, and is represented by the character Constanc ...
caused a stir by a "
continuum concept The continuum concept is an idea, coined by Jean Liedloff in her 1975 book ''The Continuum Concept'', that human beings have an innate set of expectations (which Liedloff calls the continuum) that our evolution as a species has designed us to meet ...
" that she presented to the public in a book of the same title (1975). In Venezuela, Liedhoff had studied
Ye'kuana people The Ye'kuana, also called Ye'kwana, Ye'Kuana, Yekuana, Yequana, Yecuana, Dekuana, Maquiritare, Makiritare, So'to or Maiongong, are a Cariban-speaking tropical rain-forest tribe who live in the Caura River and Orinoco River regions of Venezuela ...
, and later she recommended to Western mothers to nurse and to wear their infants and to share their bed with them. She argued that infants, speaking in terms of
evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
, have not arrived in the
modernity Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular socio-cultural norm (social), norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the Renaissancein the " ...
yet, so that today's way of child care – with bottle feeding, use of cribs and baby carriages, etc. – does not meet their needs. Later, authors such as Sharon Heller and
Meredith Small Meredith Francesca Small (born 20 November 1950) is a Professor Emerita of Anthropology at Cornell University and popular science author. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri. She has been widely published in academic journals, and her research is ...
contributed further ethnopediatric insights. In 1984,
developmental psychologist Developmental psychology is the scientific study of how and why humans grow, change, and adapt across the course of their lives. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult developmen ...
Aletha Solter Aletha Jauch Solter (born 1945) is a Swiss/American developmental psychologist who studied with Jean Piaget in Switzerland before earning a PhD in psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her specialist areas are attachment, p ...
published her book ''The Aware Baby'' about a parenting philosophy that advocates attachment, extended breastfeeding, and abstinence from punishment, similarly to what William Sears later wrote; however, the point that Solter stressed most was an encouragement of the child's emotional expression to heal
stress Stress may refer to: Science and medicine * Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition * Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
and
trauma Trauma most often refers to: * Major trauma, in physical medicine, severe physical injury caused by an external source * Psychological trauma, a type of damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a severely distressing event *Traumatic i ...
. In the 1990s, T. Berry Brazelton invigorated the discussion. He contributed new research about the capacity of newborn infants to express themselves and their emotions, sensitized parents for these signals, and encouraged them – just like Spock – to follow their own judgment.


Origin

William Sears came upon the term "attachment parenting" in 1982 by reading Liedloff. Initially, he referred to his new philosophy as "the new continuum concept" and "immersion mothering". When he published his book ''Creative Parenting'' in 1982, the concept was largely elaborate already. The "7 Baby-Bs" were not explicitly presented as a
canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western ca ...
yet, but as basic elements of a new parenting philosophy, they were distinctly clear even at that early point. In 1985, William Sears and his wife Martha Sears began to link the concept – ex post – with attachment theory which they had begun to recognize at that time. From then on, they used the term "attachment parenting". In 1993, William Sears and Martha Sears published ''The Baby Book'' which became the first comprehensive manual for AP-parents and which was occasionally dubbed "the attachment parenting bible". The first attachment parenting organization, Attachment Parenting International, formed in 1994 in Alpharetta, Georgia, and was founded by Lysa Parker and Barbara Nicholson. The first book that carried the term ''attachment parenting'' in the title was written by Tammy Frissell-Deppe, a mother who gave an account of her personal experiences and of those of her friends and acquaintances. In 1999, blogger Katie Allison Granju followed with another book, to which William Sears contributed a
foreword A foreword is a (usually short) piece of writing, sometimes placed at the beginning of a book or other piece of literature. Typically written by someone other than the primary author of the work, it often tells of some interaction between the ...
, before he, together with Martha Sears, published his own work, ''The Attachment Parenting Book'' in 2001. All three books stood – with their opposition against a crude behavioristic infant anthropology – in the tradition of Spock, but radicalized the concept of a contingency-oriented parenting on the one hand, and incorporated Liedloff's idea of an instinct-guided resp. "
natural Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are p ...
" childrearing on the other hand. In the same year as Sears and Sears' ''Attachment Parenting Book'',
Jan Hunt Jan Hunt (born 15 February 1938) is a British comedian, actress and music hall performer, who appeared on BBC television series '' Crackerjack'' with Michael Aspel, Ed Stewart, Peter Glaze and Don Maclean in the 1970s. She would often be seen pl ...
published her essay collection ''The Natural Child. Parenting from the Heart''. Hunt who sees herself as a
child advocate Child advocacy refers to a range of individuals, professionals and advocacy organizations who speak out on the best interests of children. An individual or organization engaging in advocacy typically seeks to protect children's rights which may be a ...
, campaigned in this book not only for attachment parenting, but also for
unschooling Unschooling is an informal learning that advocates learner-chosen activities as a primary means for learning. Unschoolers learn through their natural life experiences including play, household responsibilities, personal interests and curiosity, ...
. A more recent AP proponent is parenting advisor Naomi Aldort, who published her book ''Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves'' in 2006.


In practice


Baby Reading

Like before him the founders of attachment theory,
Mary Ainsworth Mary Dinsmore Ainsworth (; December 1, 1913 – March 21, 1999) was an American-Canadian developmental psychologist known for her work in the development of the attachment theory. She designed the strange situation procedure to observe early emot ...
in particular, William Sears teaches that a strong mother-child-attachment emerges from contingency, that is of emotional attunement of mother and child, which again is based on the mother's sensitivity. Since the mother "reads" the signals of her infant, Sears speaks in this context of "baby reading". Another metaphor that he uses is "to be in the groove".


The Seven B's

William Sears strongly believes in the existence of child rearing practices that support "baby reading" and that augment maternal sensitivity. The methods of attachment parenting include seven practices/principles that according to Sears form a "synergetic" ensemble and that are based on the child's "biological needs". *Birth bonding *Breastfeeding *Baby wearing *Bedding close to baby *Belief in the language value of your baby's cry *Beware of baby trainers *Balance Until 1999, Sears named only five Baby Bs. The last two were only added in 2001 with the publication of the ''Attachment Parenting Book''.


Birth bonding

William Sears postulates the existence of a brief time slot immediately after birth during which the newborn is in a "quiet alert state" and particularly accessible for bonding. He refers to this birth bonding as " imprinting" and bases himself on a study by Drs. Marshall Klaus and John Kennell from 1967; however, Klaus and Kennell later modified their original assumptions, including the one cited by Sears. Sears advises women to abstain from
analgesic An analgesic drug, also called simply an analgesic (American English), analgaesic (British English), pain reliever, or painkiller, is any member of the group of drugs used to achieve relief from pain (that is, analgesia or pain management). It ...
s during childbirth, since those drug the child, too, and according to Sears interfere with the birth bonding.


Breastfeeding

William Sears argues that
breastfeeding Breastfeeding, or nursing, is the process by which human breast milk is fed to a child. Breast milk may be from the breast, or may be expressed by hand or pumped and fed to the infant. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that br ...
greatly accommodates mother-child-attachment because it triggers the release of
oxytocin Oxytocin (Oxt or OT) is a peptide hormone and neuropeptide normally produced in the hypothalamus and released by the posterior pituitary. It plays a role in social bonding, reproduction, childbirth, and the period after childbirth. Oxytocin ...
in the mother which supports her emotional bonding with the child, notably in the first ten days after childbirth. In opposition to bottle feeding which tends to being done in three to four hour intervals, breastfeeding enables the mother, too, to perceive the child's moods and needs exactly. Since the
half-life Half-life (symbol ) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable ato ...
period of the hormones
prolactin Prolactin (PRL), also known as lactotropin, is a protein best known for its role in enabling mammals to produce milk. It is influential in over 300 separate processes in various vertebrates, including humans. Prolactin is secreted from the pit ...
and oxytocin (which promote bonding) are very short, Sears recommends to breastfeed very frequently, newborns in particular (8 to 12 times a day). He claims that the hours between 1 am and 6 am are the most beneficial for breastfeeding. In general, Sears argues that breastfeeding is beneficial for the health of both child and mother. He claims that infants up to six months should be exclusively fed with
breast milk Breast milk (sometimes spelled as breastmilk) or mother's milk is milk produced by mammary glands located in the breast of a human female. Breast milk is the primary source of nutrition for newborns, containing fat, protein, carbohydrates ( lacto ...
, since he believes that, at that age, children are
allergic Allergies, also known as allergic diseases, refer a number of conditions caused by the hypersensitivity of the immune system to typically harmless substances in the environment. These diseases include hay fever, food allergies, atopic der ...
to all other foods. William and Martha Sears advise mothers to breastfeed every child for 1–4 years: William Sears advocates extended breastfeeding, since he is convinced that breastfeeding supports attachment even of older children and that it is a valid instrument to comfort older children or to bring mother and child together on turbulent days. Neither does he object nighttime breastfeeding of toddlers. As early as in 1992, Norma Jane Bumgarner had campaigned for extended breastfeeding. Sears' recommendations are in accordance with the
WHO Who or WHO may refer to: * Who (pronoun), an interrogative or relative pronoun * Who?, one of the Five Ws in journalism * World Health Organization Arts and entertainment Fictional characters * Who, a creature in the Dr. Seuss book '' Horton He ...
guidelines on breastfeeding, which recommend exclusive breastfeeding in the first six months and complementary breastfeeding in the first two years for all countries. Since breastfeeding studies are, for ethical reasons, never conducted as
randomized controlled trial A randomized controlled trial (or randomized control trial; RCT) is a form of scientific experiment used to control factors not under direct experimental control. Examples of RCTs are clinical trials that compare the effects of drugs, surgical te ...
s, critics have repeatedly suspected that studies may have produced the superiority of breastfeeding as an artifact. Both the physical, emotional and mental development of children and the preferences of women for a feeding method are strongly determined by socioeconomical factors such as the mother's
ethnicity An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
,
social class A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...
, and
education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
. If researchers go without
randomization Randomization is the process of making something random. Randomization is not haphazard; instead, a random process is a sequence of random variables describing a process whose outcomes do not follow a deterministic pattern, but follow an evolution d ...
and turn a blind eye to those possible alternative factors, they fundamentally run a risk to falsely credit the feeding method for effects of socioeconomic factors. A loophole from this problem was first presented by Cynthia G. Colen (Ohio State University), who successfully factored out socioeconomical determinants by comparing siblings only; her study demonstrated that formula fed children showed only minimal differences to their breastfed siblings, insofar as their physical, emotional and mental thriving was concerned. William Sears' assumptions about the benefit of breastfeeding for the attachment have been studied. In 2006, John R. Britton and a research team (Kaiser Permanente) found that highly sensitive mothers are more likely than less sensitive mothers to breastfeed and to breastfeed over a long time period. However, the study showed no effect of the feeding method on the attachment quality.


Baby wearing

Sears advises mothers to wear infants on the body as many hours during the day as possible, for example in a sling. He argues that this practice makes the child happy and allows the mother to involve the child into everything she does and never to lose sight of the child. He advises working mothers to wear the child at least 4–5 hours every night in order to make good for her absence during the day. In 1990, a research team from New York revealed in a randomized study that children of lower class mothers who to the age of 13 months spent a lot of time in a child carrier on their mother's body showed significantly more frequently a secure attachment as defined by Ainsworth than the control group children, who spend more time in an infant seat. For middle-class families, an equivalent study doesn't exist yet. Sears argues furthermore that baby wearing exercises the child's
sense of balance The sense of balance or equilibrioception is the perception of balance and spatial orientation. It helps prevent humans and nonhuman animals from falling over when standing or moving. Equilibrioception is the result of a number of sensory systems ...
; since a child who is worn on the mother's experiences more of her conversations, he believes that baby wearing is also beneficial for the child's
language acquisition Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language (in other words, gain the ability to be aware of language and to understand it), as well as to produce and use words and sentences to ...
. However, there are not studies that confirm such effects. It is undisputed that baby wearing can calm children down. Infants cry the most at the age of six weeks; in 1986, a research team at McGill University showed in a randomized study that infants of that age cried significantly less if their parents wore them a lot on the body during the day. Sears recommends babywearing for the purpose of settling a baby to sleep, too. He approves on the use of a sling up to the age of three, since child wearing can also be used to calm a misbehaving toddler down. Other pediatricians find it disputable to wear children beyond the age of nine months permanently on the body, arguing that this is against the child's natural desire for autonomy.


Co-sleeping

William Sears states that any sleeping arrangement that a family practices is acceptable as long as it works; but he advises mother to sleep close to the child. He thinks of
co-sleeping Co-sleeping is a practice in which babies and young children sleep close to one or both parents, as opposed to in a separate room. Co-sleeping individuals sleep in sensory proximity to one another, where the individual senses the presence of othe ...
as the ideal arrangement and refers to it as the nighttime equivalent of baby wearing: co-sleeping supports, in his opinion, the mother-child-attachment, makes breastfeeding more convenient, and prevents not only
separation anxiety Separation anxiety disorder (SAD) is an anxiety disorder in which an individual experiences excessive anxiety regarding separation from home and/or from people to whom the individual has a strong emotional attachment (e.g., a parent, caregiver ...
, but also
SIDS Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is the sudden unexplained death of a child of less than one year of age. Diagnosis requires that the death remain unexplained even after a thorough autopsy and detailed death scene investigation. SIDS usual ...
Sears is convinced that mother and child, in spite of frequent nighttime breastfeeding, have the best sleep when they sleep close together. He is also convinced that due to the extra nighttime feedings, a child that sleeps close to the mother thrives better than a child "crying, alone, behind bars". Moreover, Katie Allison Granju argued that co-sleeping is beneficial for children, too, because it gives children a vivid notion of the concept of bedtime. The idea of co-sleeping was not new in modern Western societies; as early as in 1976, Tine Thevenin had campaigned for the "family bed". Sears doesn't see a problem when a three-year-old still shares their mother's bed every night. He doesn't even object if a child is in the habit of spending the whole night with her mother's nipple in her mouth, except when the mother really feels uncomfortable. Sears advises working mothers to co-sleep on all accounts in order to compensate the child for her daytime absence.
Sudden infant death syndrome Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is the sudden unexplained death of a child of less than one year of age. Diagnosis requires that the death remain unexplained even after a thorough autopsy and detailed death scene investigation. SIDS usuall ...
(SIDS) occurs with an incidence of roughly 33 per 100,000 live births. James J. McKenna studied five pairs of co-sleeping mothers and infants and found them to synchronize nighttime arousals. With the study, he raised the questions of 1) whether there's a relationship between these synchronized nighttime waking and breathing stability and 2) whether this could be related to some forms of SIDS. Studies that investigate SIDS directly have shown that co-sleeping raises the SIDS risk instead of lowering it. Things that increase the risk of SIDS include: 1) when the infant is younger than four months, 2) the parents were especially tired, 3) the parents consumed alcohol, 4) parents were smokers, 5) slept on a sofa, or 6) the baby was in a duvet. Even in the absence of these risk factors, studies have still shown there to be an increased risk of SIDS when bed sharing. The U.S.
Consumer Product Safety Commission The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (USCPSC, CPSC, or commission) is an independent agency of the United States government. The CPSC seeks to promote the safety of consumer products by addressing “unreasonable risks” of inj ...
also warns against co-sleeping. Attachment Parenting International issued a response which stated that the data referenced in the Consumer Product Safety Commission statement were unreliable, and that co-sponsors of the campaign had created a conflict of interest. The American Academy of Pediatrics' policy on SIDS prevention opposes bed-sharing with infants, although room-sharing is encouraged. In general, research doesn't confirm an advantage of co-sleeping over separate beds. A meta study from Israel has pointed out in 2000 that sleeping aids such as
pacifier A pacifier is a rubber, plastic, or silicone nipple substitute given to an infant to suckle upon between feedings to quiet its distress by satisfying the need to suck when it does not need to eat. Pacifiers normally have three parts: an elongate ...
s and
teddy bear A teddy bear is a stuffed toy in the form of a bear. Developed apparently simultaneously by toymakers Morris Michtom in the U.S. and Richard Steiff under his aunt Margarete Steiff's company in Germany in the early 20th century, the teddy bear, ...
s significantly improve the child's sleep, while co-sleeping and frequent nighttime breastfeeding if anything hinder the formation of wholesome sleeping patterns. Co-sleeping mothers breastfeed three times as frequently during the night as mothers who have their bed for themselves. The most important factor for a child to get a good sleep proved to be the mother's emotional accessibility, not her permanent physical closeness.


"Crying is an attachment tool"

William Sears determines
crying Crying is the dropping of tears (or welling of tears in the eyes) in response to an emotional state, or pain. Emotions that can lead to crying include sadness, anger, and even happiness. The act of crying has been defined as "a complex secr ...
as the child's pivotal mean of self-expression. Parents are challenged to "read" the crying – which is initially generalized – and to provide the child with empathic feedback in order to help them to differentiate and elaborate the repertoire of their signals gradually. Furthermore, he recommends ''prevention'' of crying: parents are advised not only to practice breastfeeding, baby wearing and co-sleeping as much as possible, but also to get into the habit of properly responding to the early warning signals so that crying doesn't happen in the first place. Likewise, parents must teach their child that some trivial occasions are no cause for alarm at all. In general, Sears argues that infants should never be left crying because this would harm them. But as early as in 1962, T. Berry Brazelton had shown in a study that a certain amount of crying in young infants does not indicate emotional or physical problems, but is to be considered normal and harmless.


No sleep training

William Sears names two reasons why infants should not undergo sleep training: he believes that infant training hardens the mother emotionally and that children who underwent such training don't sleep better but merely resign and become apathic, a state that he refers to as "shut down syndrome", although a condition of this name doesn't exist in
DSM DSM or dsm may refer to: Science and technology * Deep space maneuver * Design structure matrix or dependency structure matrix, a representation of a system or project * Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ** DSM-5, the fifth ed ...
or ICD. Frissell-Deppe and Granju believe that sleep training is traumatic for children. Sears argues that advocates of sleep training are professionally incompetent and merely business oriented, and that there is no scientific proof that sleep training is beneficial for children.


Balance

For parents and particularly for mothers, attachment parenting is more strenuous and demanding than most other present-day ways of parenting, placing high responsibility on them without allowing for a support network of helpful friends or family. William Sears is fully aware of the arduousness of the methods. He suggests a whole package of measures that aim to prevent an emotional burnout of the mother, like the prioritization and delegation of duties and responsibilities, streamlining of daily routines, and collaboration between both parents. Sears advises mothers to turn to a
psychotherapist Psychotherapy (also psychological therapy, talk therapy, or talking therapy) is the use of psychological methods, particularly when based on regular personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase happiness, and overcome pro ...
if necessary, but to stick to attachment parenting at all costs. Sears finds the burden of attachment parenting just and reasonable, and describes the opponents of this philosophy as "authoritarian males ... caught up in their role of advice giver". Granju, too, takes a swipe at "the male dominated 'scientific' childcare guidance". She argues that the low reputation that breastfeeding, namely extended breastfeeding in the Western world has, arises from a
sexualization Sexualization (or sexualisation) is to make something sexual in character or quality or to become aware of sexuality, especially in relation to men and women. Sexualization is linked to sexual objectification. According to the American Psychologi ...
of the female breast: from the perspective of a sexist society, the breast "belongs" to men, not to children.
Mayim Bialik Mayim Chaya Bialik ( ; born December 12, 1975) is an American actress, game show host, and author. From 1991 to 1995, she played the title character of the NBC sitcom ''Blossom (TV series), Blossom''. From 2010 to 2019, she played neuroscientist ...
, too, considers attachment a
feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
option, since it constitutes an alternative to the – male dominated – superiority of physicians who traditionally shaped the spheres of
pregnancy Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops ( gestates) inside a woman's uterus (womb). A multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins. Pregnancy usually occurs by sexual intercourse, but ca ...
,
childbirth Childbirth, also known as labour and delivery, is the ending of pregnancy where one or more babies exits the internal environment of the mother via vaginal delivery or caesarean section. In 2019, there were about 140.11 million births globall ...
, and
mother ] A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given childbirth, birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the cas ...
hood. Since attachment parenting poses a considerable challenge to the reconcilability of motherhood and Women in the workforce, female career, the philosophy has been greatly criticized, most notably in the context of the attachment parenting controversy from 2012.


Parental authority

Sears states that in attachment families, parents and children practice a highly developed and sophisticated type of communication that makes it unnecessary for parents to use practices such as scolding; often, all it takes is a mere frown. He is convinced that children who trust their parents are cooperative and don't resist parental guidance. He therefore recommends positive discipline. But in contrast to many AP parents, he isn't fundamentally opposed to confrontative methods (firm, corrective response), and he gives high significance to child obedience and
conscience Conscience is a cognitive process that elicits emotion and rational associations based on an individual's moral philosophy or value system. Conscience stands in contrast to elicited emotion or thought due to associations based on immediate sens ...
. Sears is a decided advocate for authoritative parenting. As studies have shown, it is indeed possible to use discipline strategies that are sensitive and, therefore, one should not equate discipline and insensitive caregiving.


In theory


Claim

Like Benjamin Spock before them, William and Martha Sears consider their parenting philosophy as a common sense and instinct-guided
ad hoc Ad hoc is a Latin phrase meaning literally 'to this'. In English, it typically signifies a solution for a specific purpose, problem, or task rather than a generalized solution adaptable to collateral instances. (Compare with ''a priori''.) Com ...
way of parenting. In contrast to Spock who derived his ideas in a straight line from
Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts in ...
's
psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
, the Searses in fact didn't start out from a theory; even the tie to attachment theory was only engineered ex post, when the philosophy was already largely complete. Apart from Liedloff's rather eclectic thoughts, they came to their ideas mainly from their own personal impressions: Despite the lack of a consistent theory, William and Martha Sears consider attachment parenting scientifically proven: Their belief in such scientific proof doesn't hinder the Searses to advise AP parents not to engage in discussions with AP critics. They also favor some science while they refuse other:


Fundamental terms and criticism

Critics consider a lack of a consistent theoretical foundation – notably the lack of precise definitions of the fundamental terms – a shortcoming of the attachment parenting concept.


Sensitivity

The concept of mutual emotional fine-tuning has been known in psychology since
Franz Mesmer Franz Anton Mesmer (; ; 23 May 1734 – 5 March 1815) was a German physician with an interest in astronomy. He theorised the existence of a natural energy transference occurring between all animated and inanimate objects; this he called " ani ...
, who introduced it under the term "
rapport Rapport () is a close and harmonious relationship in which the people or groups concerned are "in sync" with each other, understand each other's feelings or ideas, and communicate smoothly. The word stems from the French verb which means liter ...
", before Freud adopted it for psychoanalysis. In relation to the mother-child-tie, behaviorists and developmental psychologists rather speak of "contingency" today; Daniel Stern coined the term "attunement", too. For Williams Sears, attachment parenting is a kind of parenting that is radically characterized by maternal responsivity. For that, he adopted Mary Ainsworth's term of " maternal sensitivity": The woman directs her attention completely on the child (" babyreading") and responds continuously to every signal that the child sends; the result is a state of harmony between mother and child that leads to mutual attachment. Sears believes that the maternal "tuning-in" begins during pregnancy already.


Attachment

Within the framework of
infant cognitive development Infant cognitive development is the first stage of human cognitive development, in the youngest children. The academic field of infant cognitive development studies of how psychological processes involved in thinking and knowing develop in youn ...
studies, the child's attachment to the parents has been well researched. We know that attachments and parental love and care are vitally important. Back in 1958,
Harry Harlow Harry Frederick Harlow (October 31, 1905 – December 6, 1981) was an American psychologist best known for his maternal-separation, dependency needs, and social isolation experiments on rhesus monkeys, which manifested the importance of caregi ...
demonstrated that baby monkeys would choose comfort and affection over food. As early as in the late 1940s,
Donald Winnicott Donald Woods Winnicott (7 April 1896 – 25 January 1971) was an English paediatrician and psychoanalyst who was especially influential in the field of object relations theory and developmental psychology. He was a leading member of the Br ...
gave a detailed account of the development of the child's attachment; at the latest after the sixth month, healthy children begin to disengage from the mother-child symbiosis quite normally. However, it was
Margaret Mahler Margaret Schönberger Mahler (May 10, 1897 in Ödenburg, Austria-Hungary; October 2, 1985 in New York) was an Austrian-American psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and pediatrician. She did pioneering work in the field of infant and young child resea ...
who gave the most accurate description of the attachment development during the first three years. William Sears' publications reveal no knowledge of this relevant literature. Sears' use of the term "attachment" is merely
colloquial Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom normally employed in conver ...
. He applies it synonymously with terms like
trust Trust often refers to: * Trust (social science), confidence in or dependence on a person or quality It may also refer to: Business and law * Trust law, a body of law under which one person holds property for the benefit of another * Trust (bus ...
, harmony, closeness, bonding, love bonds, and connection: "Attachment describes the whole caregiving relationship between mother or father and baby." He mentions that attachment emerges from contingency, but in his further accounts, he never differentiates between attachment and contingency. The readers must therefore assume that attachment is a deeply vulnerable state that never stabilizes and that requires constant reestablishment through incessant sensitivity. Later in the book, in contradiction to his own preceding statements, Sears reassures adoptive parents: "Don't worry about the attachment your child may have 'missed' in foster care. Infants are extremely
resilient Resilience, resilient, resiliency, or ''variation'', may refer to: Science Ecology * Ecological resilience, the capacity of an ecosystem to recover from perturbations ** Climate resilience, the ability of systems to recover from climate change * ...
."


Insecure attachment

The establishment of a secure mother-child attachment is the declared and pivotal goal of attachment parenting. In numerous scientific studies, the normal development of attachment has been well documented. The same applies for deviant or pathological developments. Problematic or disturbed attachment has been described in three contexts: *In extreme and rare conditions, the child may not form an attachment at all and may suffer from
reactive attachment disorder Reactive attachment disorder (RAD) is described in clinical literature as a severe and relatively uncommon disorder that can affect children, although these issues do occasionally persist into adulthood.DSM-IV-TR (2000) American Psychiatric Ass ...
. Children who suffer from reactive attachment disorder have often experienced extremely traumatic childhoods with a lot of neglect and abuse. An example of such a case is for children in orphanages in Romania where babies have been known to be left for 18–20 hours by themselves in their cribs. As adults, people with reactive attachment disorder show severe emotional abnormalities and a severely impaired social behavior. *Mary Ainsworth described a type of disorganized attachment that appears, too, mostly in children who suffered
child abuse Child abuse (also called child endangerment or child maltreatment) is physical, sexual, and/or psychological maltreatment or neglect of a child or children, especially by a parent or a caregiver. Child abuse may include any act or failure to a ...
; boys are more frequently affected than girls. Those children show distress, and their mothers reveal an obvious lack of empathy. Disorganized attachment is no mental disturbance in terms of ICD, but a type of behavior that can be observed in the
strange situation The strange situation is a procedure devised by Mary Ainsworth in the 1970s to observe attachment in children, that is relationships between a caregiver and child. It applies to children between the age of nine and 30 months. Broadly speaking, the ...
test only. In "normal" middle-class families, about 15% of all children show a disorganized attachment. In social problem groups, the percentage can be significantly higher. *A third group of problematic attachment is constituted by the types of insecure-avoidant and insecure-ambivalent attachment, both described by Mary Ainsworth, too. Children who are insecurely attached behave in the strange situation test either aloof towards their mothers, or they fluctuate between clinginess and rejection. As
Beatrice Beebe Beatrice Beebe (born June 8, 1946) is a clinical psychologist known for her research in attachment and early infant-parent communication. Her work helped established the importance of non-verbal communication in early child development. She is ...
(Columbia University) has substantiated in a study in 2010, these children experience from their mothers constantly behavior like under- or overstimulation, intrusiveness, or volatility. Nonetheless, their mothers displayed empathy and were fully able to respond to their children's emotional expressions appropriately; the children showed no signs of emotional distress. Insecure attachment as defined by Ainsworth is very common and applies for example in the U. S. to about one out of three children. William Sears uses the terms "lesser quality of attachment", "insecure attachment", and "non-attachment" synonymously. His formulations don't reveal which kind of problematic attachment is meant: reactive attachment disorder (ICD), disorganized attachment (Ainsworth) or the two forms of insecure attachment (Ainsworth). Still in 1982, he mentioned "diseases of non-attachment" not referring to the attachment theorists Bowlby and Ainsworth, but to Selma Fraiberg, a psychoanalyst who studied blindly born children in the 1970s. Due to the vague description of problematic attachment, Sears and AP organizations who use his criteria have been reproached to produce a high rate of
false positives A false positive is an error in binary classification in which a test result incorrectly indicates the presence of a condition (such as a disease when the disease is not present), while a false negative is the opposite error, where the test result ...
. The same applies to definitions of
attachment therapy Attachment therapy (also called "the Evergreen model", "holding time", "rage-reduction", "compression therapy", "rebirthing", "corrective attachment therapy", and "coercive restraint therapy") is a pseudoscientific child mental health interventi ...
, a concept that frequently appears to be partially overlapping with attachment parenting. Attachment parenting supporters have distanced themselves from attachment therapy, notably from its methods, but not from its diagnostic criteria. Sears offers a discrimination between (good) attachment and (bad)
enmeshment Enmeshment is a concept in psychology and psychotherapy introduced by Salvador Minuchin (1921–2017) to describe families where personal boundaries are diffused, sub-systems undifferentiated, and over-concern for others leads to a loss of auton ...
, but again without explaining to his readers how exactly they can identify the difference. There is no conclusive body of research that shows Sears' approach to be superior to "mainstream parenting". In field studies in Uganda, Ainsworth has observed that sometimes even children who spend plenty of time with their mothers and who were breastfed on cue, developed signs of insecure attachment; she concluded that it is not the quantity of mother-child interaction that determines the attachment type, but the quality. It is, therefore, not practices like co-sleeping, babywearing or feeding on cue that Ainsworth identifies as the crucial determinant for a secure attachment, but the ''maternal sensitivity''.


Need

The theoretical starting point of attachment parenting – the idea of contingency – would suggest a concept of the infant as a creature who is essentially defined by their feelings and communication. William Sears, though, defines infants even more essentially by their
need A need is dissatisfaction at a point of time and in a given context. Needs are distinguished from wants. In the case of a need, a deficiency causes a clear adverse outcome: a dysfunction or death. In other words, a need is something required for a ...
s. Need is therefore another basic term; attachment parenting means quintessentially to attend to the child's needs. As early as in the 1940s, psychologists such as
Abraham Maslow Abraham Harold Maslow (; April 1, 1908 – June 8, 1970) was an American psychologist who was best known for creating Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, cul ...
shaped detailed models of the human needs; ever since, scientists have made a clear distinction between needs on the one hand and
desire Desires are states of mind that are expressed by terms like "wanting", "wishing", "longing" or "craving". A great variety of features is commonly associated with desires. They are seen as propositional attitudes towards conceivable states of aff ...
s on the other hand. In 2000, T. Berry Brazelton, a pioneer in the field of newborn psychology, and child psychiatrist
Stanley Greenspan Stanley Greenspan (June 1, 1941 – April 27, 2010) was a clinical professor of Psychiatry, Behavioral Science, and Pediatrics at George Washington University Medical School and a practicing child psychiatrist. He was best known for developing th ...
published their book ''The Irreducible Needs of Children'', in which they re-assessed the term for pediatrics. When the Searses published their ''Attachment Parenting Book'' one year later, they responded neither to Maslow nor to Brazelton and Greenspan, but used the word ''need'' merely in a colloquial sense. Although they stressed that parents must distinguish between needs and desires of children, in particular of older children, they denied their readers a guideline of how to tell needs and desires apart. With a view to infants, they believe that needs and desires are plainly identical. In general, they use both terms synonymously. With a view to toddlers, they often phrase it: a child is not ready yet (to do without breastfeeding, without co-sleeping, etc.); but even in contexts like these, they speak of needs, too. Opponents of attachment parenting have questioned that the behavior of a 3½ year old who still demands to nurse can actually be classified as a ''need''. Most likely the child is seeking
consolation Consolation, consolement, and solace are terms referring to psychological comfort given to someone who has suffered severe, upsetting loss, such as the death of a loved one. It is typically provided by expressing shared regret for that loss an ...
. To give a child comfort is an important parental responsibility; but parents are just as well liable to teach their child to take heart by their own power.


Stress

Stress has been surveyed and documented in many studies. The theoretical foundation was created in the 1960s by
Richard Lazarus Richard S. Lazarus (March 3, 1922 – November 24, 2002) was an American psychologist who began rising to prominence in the 1960s. A ''Review of General Psychology'' survey, published in 2002, ranked Lazarus as the 80th most cited psychologist of ...
. In 1974,
Hans Selye János Hugo Bruno "Hans" Selye (; hu, Selye János; January 26, 1907 – October 16, 1982) was a pioneering Hungarian-Canadian endocrinologist who conducted important scientific work on the hypothetical non-specific response of an organism to s ...
introduced the differentiation between distress and
eustress Eustress means beneficial stress—either psychological, physical (e.g., exercise), or biochemical/radiological (hormesis). The term was coined by endocrinologist Hans Selye, consisting of the Greek prefix '' eu-'' meaning "good", and ''stress'', ...
, and in 1984, psychoanalyst
Heinz Kohut Heinz Kohut (3 May 1913 – 8 October 1981) was an Austrians, Austrian-born United States, American psychoanalyst best known for his development of self psychology, an influential school of thought within psychodynamics, psychodynamic/psychoanaly ...
proposed the concept of ''optimal frustration''; Kohut postulated that the harmony between parents and child needs some well allotted disruption in order to empower the child to develop a healthy
personality Personality is the characteristic sets of behaviors, cognitions, and emotional patterns that are formed from biological and environmental factors, and which change over time. While there is no generally agreed-upon definition of personality, mos ...
. In resilience psychology, too, there is broad agreement today that it harms children if their parents keep any stress away from them indiscriminately; by doing so, they suggest to the child that everyday problems are painful and overall to be avoided. Even though stress is one of the fundamental terms of attachment parenting, William Sears' publications don't reveal acquaintance with pertinent literature about this topic. Sears links stress and distress with the release of
cortisol Cortisol is a steroid hormone, in the glucocorticoid class of hormones. When used as a medication, it is known as hydrocortisone. It is produced in many animals, mainly by the ''zona fasciculata'' of the adrenal cortex in the adrenal gland ...
, but uses both terms synonymously and in a purely colloquial sense. He refers the term to any uncomfortable or frustrating state which makes the child cry – a signal which AP mothers are supposed to carefully attend to since stress sickens the child. On the other hand, Sears advises mothers not to overreact and to teach the child imperturbation ("Caribbean approach"). He leaves it up to the parents to decide which type of response individual situations ask for. For parenting, any fuzziness of the term stress as well as of the term need have far-reaching consequences. If it is assumed that any crying of the child indicates harmful stress and that any of his demands indicate a true need, parents are bound to confuse rapport, sensitivity, responsivity, emotional availability, and wise protection with behaviors that, from an educational standpoint, are highly dysfunctional and that William Sears mostly wouldn't agree with himself: *with anxious continuous monitoring of the child *with over-parenting, that is the continuous removal of such problems which the child could actually cope with herself *with continuous
micromanagement In business management, micromanagement is a management style whereby a manager closely observes, controls, and/or reminds the work of their subordinates or employees. Micromanagement is generally considered to have a negative connotation, main ...
of the child's moods, aimed to keep the child happy around the clock; indeed, William Sears considers happiness "the end result and the bottom line of child-rearing".


Instinct and nature

Instinct Instinct is the inherent inclination of a living organism towards a particular complex behaviour, containing both innate (inborn) and learned elements. The simplest example of an instinctive behaviour is a fixed action pattern (FAP), in which a v ...
is another basic term of attachment parenting. The Searses describe attachment parenting as the
natural Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are p ...
, biological,
intuitive Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning. Different fields use the word "intuition" in very different ways, including but not limited to: direct access to unconscious knowledge; unconscious cognition; ...
and spontaneous behavior of mothers who rely on their instincts, sixth sense, inner wisdom or common sense.; They attribute even motherliness itself to instincts, whereas they attest men a reduced instinct for children's needs. Instinct theory developed in the 1930s within the framework of
ethology Ethology is the scientific study of animal behaviour, usually with a focus on behaviour under natural conditions, and viewing behaviour as an evolutionarily adaptive trait. Behaviourism as a term also describes the scientific and objectiv ...
. It owes its basic ideas to William McDougall among others, and its elaboration mainly to
Konrad Lorenz Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (; 7 November 1903 – 27 February 1989) was an Austrian zoologist, ethologist, and ornithologist. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von Frisch. He is often regarded ...
and
Nikolaas Tinbergen Nikolaas "Niko" Tinbergen (; ; 15 April 1907 – 21 December 1988) was a Dutch biologist and ornithologist who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz for their discoveries concerning the or ...
. Lorenz believed that instincts are physiological processes and assumed they could be described as neuronal circuitry in the brain. But already
Arnold Gehlen Arnold Gehlen (29 January 1904 in Leipzig, German Empire – 30 January 1976 in Hamburg, West Germany) was an influential conservative German philosopher, sociologist, and anthropologist. Biography Gehlen's major influences while studyin ...
had disputed that humans still have much instinct at their disposal; for him, plasticity and learning aptitude outranked instinct. In today's research, the term instinct is regarded as obsolete. Recent studies have demonstrated that motherly behavior is not inbred but biologically and socially determined. It is partly triggered by oxytocin, partly learned. William Sears' writings show no knowledge of this current state of research. The Searses use the word instinct in a purely colloquial sense and synonymous with terms like hormonal and natural; as an antipole of instinct and nature, they identify the things that "childcare advisors" say. William Sears, who owes his formative impressions to Jean Liefloff, points to mammals,
primate Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians (monkeys and apes, the latter including huma ...
s, "other", "primitive", and "traditional cultures", namely on Bali and in Zambia. Developmental psychologist Heidi Keller who comparatively researched the mother-child relationship in a large bandwidth of cultures, disputes that attachment parenting can be described as a return to a "natural motherliness", like many supporters advertise it. Keller doesn't rank attachment parenting as a counteragent to the high-tech world but asserts that it "paradoxically fits optimally into a society of individualists and lone warriors how we experience it in the Western world". Many of the methods that the representatives of attachment parenting attribute to the
evolutionary history of life The history of life on Earth traces the processes by which living and fossil organisms evolved, from the earliest #Origins of life on Earth, emergence of life to present day. Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago (abbreviated as ''Ga'', fo ...
don't actually play the major role in non-western cultures that is attributed to them. In Cameroon for example, children are actually carried in a sling initially, but then have to learn to sit and to walk much earlier than European and North American children; rather than to cultivate affectionate eye contact, mothers blow into their children's face in order to get them out of the habit of making eye contact.; ; Even in the United States, there are
minority groups The term 'minority group' has different usages depending on the context. According to its common usage, a minority group can simply be understood in terms of demographic sizes within a population: i.e. a group in society with the least number o ...
which can be classified as highly "traditional", none of them practicing attachment parenting.
Amish The Amish (; pdc, Amisch; german: link=no, Amische), formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptist Christian church fellowships with Swiss German and Alsatian origins. They are closely related to Mennonite churches ...
mothers for example co-sleep with their infants, but only for the first several months; they never let their infants and toddlers out of view, but they don't wear them while they are working. From very early on, Amish children are raised to serve God, family, and community rather than to express their own needs. The infants of
orthodox Jews Orthodox Judaism is the collective term for the traditionalist and theologically conservative branches of contemporary Judaism. Jewish theology, Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Torah, Written and Oral Torah, Or ...
traditionally sleep in cradles. In communities where there is no ''
eruv An eruv (; he, עירוב, , also transliterated as eiruv or erub, plural: eruvin or eruvim) is a ritual halakhic enclosure made for the purpose of allowing activities which are normally prohibited on Shabbat (due to the prohibition of ''ho ...
'', Jewish parents are not allowed to carry their children about on
Shabbat Shabbat (, , or ; he, שַׁבָּת, Šabbāṯ, , ) or the Sabbath (), also called Shabbos (, ) by Ashkenazim, is Judaism's day of rest on the seventh day of the week—i.e., Saturday. On this day, religious Jews remember the biblical storie ...
. Native Americans traditionally used
cradleboard Cradleboards (, se, gietkka, sms, ǩiõtkâm, smn, kietkâm, sje, gietkam) are traditional protective baby-carriers used by many indigenous cultures in North America and throughout northern Scandinavia amongst the Sámi. There are a variety ...
s which could be worn, but which involved minimal physical touch of mother and child.


Optimal development of the child

As Suzanne M. Cox (Northwestern University) has pointed out, neither attachment theory nor attachment parenting offer a general outline of the optimal development of the child, which could be used to empirically measure the efficacy of attachment parenting.Cox, Suzanne M.: ''Bridging Attachment Theory and Attachment Parenting with Feminist Methods of Inquiry''. 2006. The Searses promise parenting results such as increased independence,
confidence Confidence is a state of being clear-headed either that a hypothesis or prediction is correct or that a chosen course of action is the best or most effective. Confidence comes from a Latin word 'fidere' which means "to trust"; therefore, having ...
, health, physical growth, improved development of the
motor An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power g ...
and language skills, good manners,
conscientiousness Conscientiousness is the personality trait of being careful, or diligent. Conscientiousness implies a desire to do a task well, and to take obligations to others seriously. Conscientious people tend to be efficient and organized as opposed to ...
,
social competence Social competence consists of social, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral skills needed for successful social adaptation. Social competence also reflects having an ability to take another's perspective concerning a situation, learn from past ex ...
, sense of justice,
altruism Altruism is the principle and moral practice of concern for the welfare and/or happiness of other human beings or animals, resulting in a quality of life both material and spiritual. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures and a core as ...
, sensitivity, empathy,
concentration In chemistry, concentration is the abundance of a constituent divided by the total volume of a mixture. Several types of mathematical description can be distinguished: '' mass concentration'', ''molar concentration'', ''number concentration'', an ...
,
self-control Self-control, an aspect of inhibitory control, is the ability to regulate one's emotions, thoughts, and behavior in the face of temptations and impulses. As an executive function, it is a cognitive process that is necessary for regulating one's b ...
, and
intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can b ...
. However, there is no conclusive evidence from empirical research that supports such claims. The ultimate target of child rearing is, according to Sears, happiness. Similar to the German
catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
Albert Wunsch, Sears therefore ranks among those parenting advisors whose philosophies reflect stray aspects of their
religious beliefs A belief is an attitude that something is the case, or that some proposition is true. In epistemology, philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to attitudes about the world which can be either true or false. To believe something is to take i ...
, but result in a purely worldly target. In the year of the publication of the ''Attachment Parenting Book'',
Wendy Mogel Wendy Mogel (born March 23, 1951) is an American psychologist and author, whose first book, ''The Blessing of a Skinned Knee'', identified the problems faced by middle class children at a time of social anxiety. Her second book, ''The Blessing o ...
, by contrast, suggested her own very influential concept of
character education Character education is an umbrella term loosely used to describe the teaching of children and adults in a manner that will help them develop variously as moral, civic, good, mannered, behaved, non-bullying, healthy, critical, successful, traditiona ...
that was straightforwardly based on her
Jewish faith Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the M ...
(''The Blessings of a Skinned Knee'', 2001).


Distribution and acceptance

Attachment parenting is particularly popular among educated urban women in Western countries, who are interested in
ecological Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...
and
social issue A social issue is a problem that affects many people within a society. It is a group of common problems in present-day society and ones that many people strive to solve. It is often the consequence of factors extending beyond an individual's cont ...
s. In the United States, parenting tips of well-known people like the actresses Mayim Bialik and
Alicia Silverstone Alicia Silverstone ( ; born October 4, 1976) is an American actress. She made her film debut in the thriller ''The Crush (1993 film), The Crush'' (1993), earning the 1994 MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Performance, and gained further prom ...
contributed to the popularity of the philosophy. Many North American Women are organized in support groups of Attachment Parenting International (API), the movement's umbrella organization, in which Martha Sears serves as a
board member A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organi ...
. In Canada, there are further AP organizations such as the Attachment Parenting Canada Association (Calgary); even some public health organizations promote attachment parenting. William Sears has close ties to the international
La Leche League La Leche League International (LLLI) () is a non-governmental, nonprofit organization that organizes advocacy, education, and training related to breastfeeding. It is present in about 89 countries. The aim of the charity is to provide mother to ...
(LLL) which feature him as a conference speaker and published several of his books. In LLL groups, many mothers get in touch with attachment parenting for the first time. There are also attachment parenting organizations in Australia and in New Zealand. In Europe, Attachment Parenting Europe (APEU, in Lelystad, Netherlands) campaigns for attachment parenting; in the Dutch language the philosophy is referred to as ''natuurlijk ouderschap'' ("natural parenthood"). This organization keeps liaisons to representatives in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. In 2012, there were 30 AP groups in England and Wales. In Germany, there are independent AP institutions in several cities. Hamburg, the movement's central point in Germany, hosted a first Attachment Parenting Congress in 2014, under the patronage of Federal Minister of Family Affairs, Manuela Schwesig. A second one has been announced for 2016. In Austria and Switzerland there exist a small number of AP institutions, too. In Sweden, fantasy and science fiction writer Jorun Modén solicits attachment parenting, which she refers to as ''nära föräldraskap'' ("proximal parenthood"). In France where the philosophy is dubbed as ''maternage intensif'' or ''maternage proximal'', the movement has virtually no followers; due to the success of the
Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
ic education reforms, the French traditionally have a deeply rooted belief that educated child care specialists educate children at least as well as mothers do.


Controversy

Since 2012, there has been a controversy about Sears' positions which has been mostly carried out in the English-speaking world. It began in 2012 with a cover picture on ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine that showed a Californian mother breastfeeding her almost 4-year-old. In the accompanying article "The Man Who Remade Motherhood", journalist Kate Pickert argued that even if William Sears' positions are much less radical than those of his followers, they are misogynistic and give mothers a chronically guilty conscience, and that they frequently disagree with relevant research results. The cover picture and article became the starting point of agitated disputes in many media. At the same time, attachment parenting attracted attention of sociologists like Ellie Lee, Charlotte Faircloth, Jan Macvarish, and
Frank Furedi Frank Furedi ( hu, Füredi Ferenc; born 3 May 1947) is a Hungarian-Canadian academic and emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent. He is well known for his work on sociology of fear, education, therapy culture, paranoid parent ...
who described the phenomenon an example of 21st century "Parental Determinism". As early as in 1996, sociologist Sharon Hays had described the sociocultural phenomenon of an "Intensive Mothering"; with attachment parenting, this phenomenon finally became tangible and recognizable. In 2004, media critic Susan J. Douglas and philosopher Meredith W. Michaels followed with their account of a "New Momism".


''Time'' cover picture and article

The ''Time'' magazine cover picture and article were published May 21, 2012. Pickert described how parents who follow Sears tend to take opinions that are much more radical than Sears himself. Nevertheless, many parents catch from Sears' books an outlook that Pickert jestingly describes as a "post-traumatic Sears disorder": a severe sense of insufficiency that seems to appear in particular in such mothers who ''want'' to follow Sears' advice, for the sake of their children's mental health, but ''cannot'', e.g. because they can't afford to be stay-at-home-moms.


"Parental tribalism"

Katha Pollitt Katha Pollitt (born October 14, 1949) is an American poet, essayist and critic. She is the author of four essay collections and two books of poetry. Her writing focuses on political and social issues from a left-leaning perspective, including abo ...
referred to attachment parenting as a
fad A fad or trend is any form of collective behavior that develops within a culture, a generation or social group in which a group of people enthusiastically follow an impulse for a short period. Fads are objects or behaviors that achieve short- ...
. Parents who follow the philosophy have been reproached as acting according to their own helplessness and unsatisfied emotional neediness which may be the true reasons for their decision to incessantly pacify their child by breastfeeding and babywearing even into toddlerhood, as the belief that the child actually needs all that permanent intimacy for their healthy development is only a subterfuge. Emma Jenner argued that parents who are in the habit of stereotypically attending to each of the child's signals with physical proximity will not learn to perceive the child's needs in the full extent of their bandwidth and complexity. Katie Allison Granju, who advocates attachment parenting and who published comprehensive guidelines for AP parents, offers a different perspective. She characterizes attachment parenting as not just a parenting style, but "a completely fulfilling way of life". Sociologist Jan Macvarish (University of Kent), a pioneer in the recent field of parenting culture study, described how AP parents utilize their parenting philosophy as a strategy of individualization, as a way to find personal identity and to join a group of congenial adults. Macvarish even speaks of "parental tribalism". According to Macvarish, it is characteristic for such choices that they are much more angled towards the parents' self-perception than towards the child's needs. Sociologist Charlotte Faircloth, too, considers attachment parenting a strategy that women pursue in order to gain and to express
personal identity Personal identity is the unique numerical identity of a person over time. Discussions regarding personal identity typically aim to determine the necessary and sufficient conditions under which a person at one time and a person at another time can ...
.


Child-rearing and lifestyle preferences of AP parents

Multiple authors have stated that many parents choose attachment parenting as part of an individualization strategy and as a statement of personal identity and of social affiliation. This assumption is supported by the observation that most AP parents show further distinctive parenting and life style preferences that are based on a particular set of attitudes (notably: a striving for naturalness), which, however, are mostly not directly tied to the declared goal of attachment parenting: *"gentle" childbirth, "natural" childbirth,
home birth A home birth is a birth that takes place in a residence rather than in a hospital or a birthing center. They may be attended by a midwife, or lay attendant with experience in managing home births. Home birth was, until the advent of modern medic ...
; *use of homemade toddler food from organic ingredients,
veganism Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal product—particularly in diet—and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. An individual who follows the diet or philosophy is known as a vegan. ...
,
paleolithic diet The Paleolithic diet, Paleo diet, caveman diet, or stone-age diet is a modern fad diet consisting of foods thought by its proponents to mirror those eaten by humans during the Paleolithic era. The diet avoids processed food and typically incl ...
; * use of washable
cloth diaper A cloth diaper (American English) or a cloth nappy or real nappy or a reusable nappy (Australian English and British English) is a reusable diaper made from natural fibers, man-made materials, or a combination of both. They are often made ...
s,
elimination communication Elimination communication (EC) is a practice in which a caregiver uses timing, signals, cues, and intuition to address an infant's need to eliminate waste. Caregivers try to recognize and respond to babies' bodily needs and enable them to urinate ...
; * "gentle discipline", "positive discipline", non-confrontative parenting; *
naturopathy Naturopathy, or naturopathic medicine, is a form of alternative medicine. A wide array of pseudoscientific practices branded as "natural", "non-invasive", or promoting "self-healing" are employed by its practitioners, who are known as naturop ...
,
holistic health Alternative medicine is any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine despite lacking biological plausibility, testability, repeatability, or evidence from clinical trials. Complementary medicine (CM), complementary and alt ...
,
homeopathy Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine. It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Its practitioners, called homeopaths, believe that a substance that causes symptoms of a dis ...
, and decline of
vaccination Vaccination is the administration of a vaccine to help the immune system develop immunity from a disease. Vaccines contain a microorganism or virus in a weakened, live or killed state, or proteins or toxins from the organism. In stimulating ...
. William Sears' son Robert Sears published a ''Vaccine Book'' in 2007 which fueled the vaccine skepticism among parents, and in some AP groups, parents are explicitly asked not to have their children vaccinated. Vaccine skepticism is not universal among AP groups, however. Some practices and preferences of AP parents are prevalent only in North America: * decline of infant
circumcision Circumcision is a surgical procedure, procedure that removes the foreskin from the human penis. In the most common form of the operation, the foreskin is extended with forceps, then a circumcision device may be placed, after which the foreskin ...
(in Europe, infant circumcision is relatively rare). *
naturism Naturism is a lifestyle of practising non-sexual social nudity in private and in public; the word also refers to the cultural movement which advocates and defends that lifestyle. Both may alternatively be called nudism. Though the two terms ar ...
. *
homeschooling Homeschooling or home schooling, also known as home education or elective home education (EHE), is the education of school-aged children at home or a variety of places other than a school. Usually conducted by a parent, tutor, or an onlin ...
or unschooling (in Europe, homeschooling is less popular). The Sears encourage some of these practices explicitly, for example non-smoking, healthy and home-prepared food, no circumcision, but don't comment on how they are supposed to be linked to the core ideas of attachment parenting. Only in the case of positive discipline, the link is quite obvious.


Feminist perspective

In his ''Complete Book of Christian Parenting and Child Care'' (1997), William Sears opposes maternal occupation, because he is convinced that it harms the child: Any form of intensive, obsessive mothering has, as Katha Pollitt stated, devastating consequences for the equality of treatment of women in the society. In France,
Élisabeth Badinter Élisabeth Badinter (née Bleustein-Blanchet; 5 March 1944) is a French philosopher, author and historian. She is best known for her philosophical treatises on feminism and women's role in society. She is an advocate of liberal feminism and ...
argued that over-parenting, obsession with washable diapers and organic, home made infant food, and parenting practices as the ones recommended by Sears, with breastfeeding into toddlerhood, bring women inevitably back into outdated patterns of gender role. In the United States, Badinter's book ''The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women'' (2010) had a partially critical reception, because there is no publicly paid childcare leave in this country, and many women consider it a luxury to be able to be a stay-at-home-mom during the child's first years. Still, gynecologist Amy Tuteur (formerly
Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...
) stated that attachment parenting amounts to a new subjection of the woman's body under social control – a trend that is more than questionable in the face to the hard-fought achievements of women's movement. As
Erica Jong Erica Jong (née Mann; born March 26, 1942) is an American novelist, satirist, and poet, known particularly for her 1973 novel ''Fear of Flying''. The book became famously controversial for its attitudes towards female sexuality and figured pro ...
observed, the rise of attachment parenting followed a surge of glamourized motherhood of popular stars (
Angelina Jolie Angelina Jolie (; born Angelina Jolie Voight; June 4, 1975) is an American actress, filmmaker, humanitarian and former Special Envoy to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award ...
,
Madonna Madonna Louise Ciccone (; ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Widely dubbed the " Queen of Pop", Madonna has been noted for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, songwriting, a ...
,
Gisele Bündchen Gisele Caroline Bündchen (, , born 20 July 1980) is a Brazilian fashion model. Since 2001, she has been one of the highest-paid models in the world. In 2007, Bündchen was the 16th-richest woman in the entertainment industry and earned th ...
) in the
mass media Mass media refers to a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication. The technologies through which this communication takes place include a variety of outlets. Broadcast media transmit information ...
. She stated that the effort to model exceptional children under sacrifice of the parent's own well-being transformed motherhood into a "highly competitive race"; all attempts of women to radically monopolize their parental responsibilities very much accommodate
right-wing politics Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, author ...
.


A "culture of total motherhood"

In her 2005 book ''Perfect Madness. Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety'',
Judith Warner Judith Warner (born July 4, 1965) is an American writer. Warner is a senior fellow at American Progress, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Time.com as well as the author of a range of nonfiction books, amon ...
, too, described how attachment parenting has taken a strong influence on mainstream parenting and how it has established a "culture of total motherhood"; due to these cultural changes, mothers are convinced today that they have to instantly attend to every need of their children in order to protect them from the risk of lifelong abandonment issues. As early as in 1996, sociologist Sharon Hays wrote about a newly formed "ideology of intensive mothering". Characteristic of this ideology is the tendency to impose parenting responsibility primarily on ''mothers'' and to favor a kind of parenting that is child-centered, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labor, and financially intensive. Hays saw the motives for the overloading of motherhood in the idealistic endeavor to cure an overly egoistical and competitive society through a counterbalancing principle of altruistic motherliness. But according to Hays, any kind of "intensive motherhood" that systematically privileges children's needs over mothers' needs happens without fail to the economical and personal disadvantage of mothers. In 2014, a team of researchers at the University of Mary Washington showed in a study that mothers endorsing the belief that parenting is challenging (e.g. "It is harder to be a good mother than to be a corporate executive"), which is associated with ''intensive motherhood'', have statistically more signs of depression


Fathers in attachment parenting

Dr. Sears has taken an adamant stance against fathers being primary caregivers in attachment parenting. On his website, he claims that fathers should "help" by supporting mothers and creating an environment which allows the mother to devote herself to the baby. Sears has claimed infants have a natural preference for a mother in the early years; although, little scientific literature actually supports this conjecture since these studies are typically done in situations where the mother is the primary caregiver and not the father. It is biased to say that infants have a "natural" preference for the mother when their mother is the one who is their primary caregiver; a more correct statement would be that infants have a attachment preference for the parent who is their primary caregiver. Studies have found that between 5 and 20% of children actually have a primary attachment with their father. One specific caregiving activity in which Sears claims fathers should be supportive rather than primary is feeding. Breastfeeding includes nutritional benefits which are undeniable, but the main reason breastfeeding is promoted in attachment parenting is for the mother-child bonding through skin to skin contact and intimacy; however, the benefits of skin to skin contact and intimacy are still present for fathers. Dr. Sigmund Freud theorized that infants tend to prefer mothers since it is the mother who fulfills the infant's oral needs; however, if the father is fulfilling this need, it would be reasonable to assume that attachment would form with the father. Through what is called " bottle nursing", fathers and other caregivers who cannot breastfeed hold the infant touching their bare torso and feed gently and intimately, focusing their attention on the baby. Other common mother-child AP practices, such as bonding after birth and co-sleeping, may also be equally beneficial for fathers.


Notes


References

* * *


Further reading

*Sears, Martha; Sears, William (1997). ''Complete Book of Christian Parenting and Child Care: A Medical and Moral Guide to Raising Happy Healthy Children''
''The Benefits of Attachment Parenting for Infants and Children: A Behavioral Developmental View''


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Attachment Parenting Attachment theory Breastfeeding Parenting