The following is a clip in two parts of a 60 Minutes Australia report on Attachment Parenting. A transcript of the report can be found on Australia’s 60 Minutes transcript page.

A warning about the video before you play it: it does contain images of children (the eldest five) nursing on their mother’s exposed breasts. If this sort of thing offends you (it doesn’t offend me), please don’t watch it.

The video cuts off during a quote by Dr. John Irvine, child psychologist, but picks right up where he leaves off in the second part.

Continuation of the clip:

I’ve watched this clip about three times now, and what I noticed is that there are many glaring inaccuracies. For starters, Attachment Parenting is definitely about having a strong parent-child bond, but it does NOT mean that you are disallowed from using pacifiers, cribs, diapers, vibrating baby chairs (”Neglect-O-Matics,” as one AP mom called them in the video), baby bottles, or other tools to aid you in raising your child. It is often preferable that these items are not used most of the time, but if you need to use them to maintain your sanity, or to keep your marriage from falling apart, or to not feel so touched-out or burned-out, then as an Attachment Parent (or any other type of parent), you should use them. One of the eight defining principles of Attachment Parenting is “Strive for Balance in Personal and Family Life.” If you need to take a shower and the baby is happy to sit in a bouncy chair outside the shower stall for ten minutes while you take care of your personal hygiene, then using a “Neglect-O-Matic” is perfectly reasonable. Some people shower/bathe with their babies, and that is also perfectly reasonable, but not everybody feels that they can keep their baby safe in the shower with them. Likewise, as a breastfeeding mother, if you’re burned out on breastfeeding after two years (or seven years, or three months, whatever), part of “taking care of yourself” means that you can say “no” to your child. It is not a requirement of Attachment Parenting to be obliged to breastfeed if it’s taking its toll on you psychologically, mentally, physically, or in any other way.

Another obvious error in reporting was when the reporter claimed that Attachment Parenting meant “no discipline.” This is completely untrue. Attachment Parenting professes practicing Positive Discipline. Positive discipline means addressing the needs of the child and conscientiously teaching and learning with the child the best way to interact with the world and others. It takes a lot of patience, dedication, and self-discipline on behalf of the parent, but the work put into raising one’s child to be a responsible adult is certainly worth it. I loved the quote of the Aussie mum, Janet Fraser, who said, “…I’m caretaking a future adult.” Brilliant! Yes! Exactly! She also had another quote which was great, “You can’t force a child to breastfeed.” Truer words were never spoken. I know that all-too-well from my own breastfeeding experience with my daughter.

The reporter did raise some good questions, but I feel her slant against Attachment Parenting and all things even remotely AP was pretty negative. I also felt like Dr. John Irvine, the child psychologist, was not even-handed in his assessment of Attachment Parenting. He seems to be confusing Attachment Parenting with permissiveness, which is not accurate. He vaguely refers to having seen “the kids” in his office — He says, “I’ve got the evidence here in the clinic. I see the kids,” but what kids? What percentage of the kids he sees are being raised truly AP and what percent are being raised punitively or permissively? I’d be willing to bet the vast majority of the kids he sees are being raised traditionally, with a lot of punitive discipline and neglect.

On a personal note:

PapaBear, my husband (about to turn 30 years old next month), was raised by very progressive parents. His mother, a psychotherapist, breastfed him until he was almost five and his father quit his job when he was a baby to take care of him until he was four. During the day, his father spent every waking moment with him, building a geodesic dome and letting him experiment with his power tools whenever he wanted. At night, his mother would come home from work and breastfeed him. They all occasionally co-slept. His parents believed in positive discipline, and never used corporal punishment to discipline him, not once. Though his parents divorced and remarried other people, they still treated him as the most important person in their lives. He is now an exceptionally well-adjusted, mature, and compassionate adult of superb intelligence. The way they raised him didn’t have a name yet, but nowadays it would be called Attachment Parenting. FWIW, I believe Attachment Parenting works. My husband is living proof of it.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 18th, 2007 at 10:00 am and is filed under Videos, Lactation, Breastfeeding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.