In response to the Time's piece last week on attachment parenting, and the outcry afterwards:
"Yes, the tenets of attachment parenting are regressive, and even potentially anti-feminist. But it’s unlikely that the individual women who practice them are going to be feminism’s downfall. What might actually kill feminism is our preference for shaming and tearing down individual women rather than advocating overdue policy changes around child-rearing: Pushing for mandatory long-term maternity or paternity leave, or high-quality childcare for all children, or a new ethos of work that doesn’t penalize parents (usually mothers) for trying to maintain a healthy and flexible work-life balance."From Attachment Parenting: Beyond the Backslash by Sady Doyle
Who could possibly disagree that advocating for positive change is better than tearing down women? But that seems like a straw man mixed with a false dilemma. The discussion that has curdled around this article seems premised on the following: to be a good mother (or "mom enough" as the headline says), you must become an empty vessel, concerned only with meeting your child's needs.
ReplyDeleteIt may be true that children who receive constant attention do better on some measures (though I don't think the attachment advocates have proven their case; and why does that constant attention have to come from the mother?). But obsessive preoccupation with how a mother's actions affect her child is regressive and anti-feminist. It presupposes that the child's well-being brooks no trade-off with the mother's, that the mother is properly a mere means to the child's well-being.
That assumption is regressive and anti-feminist, and individuals who advocate a parenting philosophy that imply or presuppose it deserve to be challenged, even if they are other women.
Most attachment parenting is fine, it's when parents become extreme, judgmental, and become self-sacrificing of their own well-being that it becomes more of an issue.
ReplyDeleteI think the point of the article is a good one - even if certain extreme aspect of attachment parenting are negative, we shouldn't be maliciously attacking anyone, nor is this debate what feminism needs to focus on to further its overall cause.