News of a new parenting fad recently crossed my parental radar, like a UFO appearing out of nowhere and encroaching on monitored airspace. On closer inspection this latest "new" trend in parenting, "Attachment Parenting," turns out to be déjà vu all over again.
Attachment parenting is based on a theory that infants and toddlers form a strong bond with their primary caregiver-usually the mother, but, just as easily, the father, provided he's willing and able to wear a 30-pound leech 24 hours a day.
Yes, proponents of this charming new theory are convinced that junior will suffer irreparable damage if he is not stuck to the parent of choice like toilet paper to a hapless shoe from dawn to dusk. After dusk, these hearty, well-meaning parents deny themselves a well-deserved break for their aching backs and tenuous marriages: Junior shares the parental bed as well.
True believers in this new age movement of back-to-the-papoose-parenting truly believe that inseparable parenting will insure that their offspring will one day grow into healthy adults who easily form lasting, meaningful relationships. Whether or not these attachment-fortified men and women will still be breast-feeding well into adulthood remains unclear.
By logical extension of the "attachnment" theory, the rest of us - those of us who were raised by parents who believed in putting us in cribs at night - are aimless drifters doomed forever to fleeting unstable relationships with anyone other than our precious selves.
The concept was first presented--at least in its latest trendy incarnation--by British psychiatrist John Bowlby, who observed that teens with whom he worked often failed to report a sense of attachment to others in their lives. Whether or not it occurred to Mr. Bowlby that teens have traditionally been concerned with little more than me, myself and I is not clear, but Bowlby decided that these angst-ridden teens were clearly victims of unattached parenting. The solution? Wear your baby like a leech. Let it become the center of the universe, dictating your every move, and invite the precious child into your private marriage bed like a good novel you just can't bear to put down.
Don't get me wrong. I bought - and used - both a baby sling and, later, a baby backpack, with both of my sons. Like the Attachment parents, I enjoyed the chance to feel my tiny son on my chest, as he nestled near my heart. It seemed to pacify him and I enjoyed the chance to share some of my more mundane daily activities with him. At times it was a matter of simple practicality. The grass had to get cut somehow, and there was no way to hear the baby monitor with all that racket. So I'd take him along for the ride.
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