My mother practiced attachment parenting with me back when most parents probably wouldn't know what that was; she breastfed me until I was nearly four years old, co-slept, wore me in a sling. She did this because it seemed to her to be the most natural thing. Her own mother didn't do any of these things so it was certainly an approach she just sort of came up with lol. I've read a lot about attachment parenting and practice the same with my daughter. I do think my mother did better than I'm doing but. I disagree with how my mother handled me as a toddler and from then on though. I don't plan to ever use corporal punishment as my mother did (though I do think that was out of desperation more than an actual belief in its effectiveness). The main thing I disagree with though is the fact that my mum let me do more or less whatever I wanted as a teenager; drinking, smoking and drugs (Well, pot anyway) at 13, having my BF sleep over at 16. I used to dissapear for days and turn up whenever I felt like it. I'm definately not going to allow my DD to do these things.
My mum mainly brought me up as a single parent (from the age of 2) so she didn't have the support of a husband or family around her. She went back to work when I was 4 becasue of this which was very unusual back in the early 70's in country Victoria.
In the beginning I was BF but only for the first 6 weeks as at that time my parents moved house and the Dr put mum back on the pill - she blames that and the stress of moving for her milk drying up. She was very supportive of me continuing to BF for as long as possible as she felt that it was something she would have liked to have given me.
Parenting - My DP and I make decisions on how we will raise our children together. This was never discussed between my parents. While my father was around things were done his way but once he left my mother never consulted him and he didn't want to be involved.
Sleeping arrangements - I was always in a seperate room to my parents but with my DD we slept in the same room for the first 5 months. I don't think my father would ever have put up with a baby in the bedroom.
Discipline - my mother used smacking as a last resort or when I was doing something dangerous. She was firm but never unfair. I try to use similar with my DD but probably use the last resort less. She always provided parental boundaries right through to when I left home.
I think one of the things that helped was that she was a primary school teacher and was always reading up on the latest child development theories and practices - which she still does - and I talk about these with her. She looks after my DD one day a week and we discuss what she is doing, how to work through issues and what has/hasn't worked.
I have posted about this before, but I consciously parent differently from my mother in terms of food and meal times.
My Mother is from a long line of women who are wonderful cooks. Women who can make beautiful food on a very meagre budget. Women who understood that food equated power. I can clearly remember my grandmother "ruling" the dining table with her freshly made bread, LOL! And my mother carried on this "tradition".
My Mother, whilst I know she had every best intention at heart, used food, inadvertently, as an emotional tool.
As children, if we ate well, we were praised and cuddled. If we ate well, and finished off our plates, we were rewarded with puddings and kisses.
If, on the other hand, we chose not to eat, we were berated and my Mother would vent her anger on us.
So, when I recall all of these behaviours, I know that, in order to break this pattern that has developed over generations of women, that I must parent differently.
I recall when my eldest daughter was just starting solids and I had lovingly prepared some homemade delight. She spat it out and I got cross with her. WHAT??? All of a sudden I understood how and why my mother had acted like she did. What a waste of my time and energy and good food! But in that instant I also realised that it was only food. And that as a new Mother, my children will "waste" my time and frustrate me, but that is NOTHING to do with what they chose to put in their mouth.
Years on, I have three small children. They eat what they like, and when they like. There is no emotion attached to food. They can snack if they want. They are never told to finish their plates before they can have dessert. Meal times are happy normal times. Mummy may cook, or Daddy may cook. It makes no difference. Fruit is fruit, chocolate is chocolate, there are no "treats" or "food rewards". If they fall over, they are kissed and cuddled to make it better, not offered a lolly.
Every day I watch myself to make sure I am not repeating the patterns of prior generations.
I want my kids, particularly my two girls, to grow up with a fit and healthy approach to food. Not one laced with emotion.
Don't know if i'm useful (not australian), but here it is
My mother was essentially gentle in that she rarely shouted and never smacked. SHe was our main carer partly because they consciously decided one parent would raise the kids and Dad was usually busy with work, and partly because in retrospect she guarded her role rather jealously - her biggest condemnation would be "oh you're JUST like your father!". She had a strong emotional hold over us all - like me she was a person who commanded respect easily, but sadly she sometimes abused that power.
She had issues with food. On one hand i was always told to finish my food, clean my plate and be appreciative of the cooks' (usually her) effort. On the other hand my older sister who was and is still obese was constantly berated for being overweight and put on a million crazy diets as a child (i wasn't born until she was 16).
So, how are we similar? She BF, so did i. She used cloth nappies, so did i (though i switched for the toddler years with DD, mum didn't, and i probably won't next time either). She didn't smack, neither do i. She used the naughty spot and so do i (middle of her double bed for her, bottom step of the stairs for me). She did not EVER swear and she very very rarely spoke coldly or harshly to us, so when she did it was like a knife going in! I swear actually, but NEVER NEVER at people, and i try hard never to be cold in my expression. She always treated us, from before we were even born, as sentient, thinking, feeling, VALUABLE people. She would no more ignore the crying of a newborn than she would ignore ANY person in distress. She always hugged us, she always loved us and TOLD us how loved we were. I don't think a single day of my life passed when she was alive that i spoke to her and DIDN'T hear "i love you". I try hard to be the same. I would never CC a baby, or a child, or an adult! I am open about how much i love DD, i tell her (and DP for that matter, and all those i love) that i love them, and am quick to tell DD how proud i am of her and talk to her about her own pride.
And how are we different? She could be quite emotionally manipulative and i try hard not to be (and sometimes fail, but keep right on trying!). She was a bit of a controlling person too and again i try hard not to be. I used to think that because i can see and solution i should be the one to enact it, but i am learning (LATE) that there is more than one way to skin a cat and that balance is more important that speed of resolution in almost every relationship and situation. She was independant to the point of being rejecting and i try not to be.
My mum died when i was 24, 15 months before DD was born. And yet i am incredibly grateful to her. DP and XP's families are very different to me. Luckily both of them feel my gentler way to be a good one, but the XPIL's and PIL's can be rather negative about some things - if i do not force DD to sit (screaming and crying!) on the loo she will be in nappies when she begins school, if i do not hit her she will never learn to be good, if i do not speak harshly and unkindly to her she will be a soft person and get hurt all the time. And because i was raised without force, smacks or harsh words i can stand up for myself gently and say "this is what i KNOW can work, this is how i show my love". Because i do think that in almost every case (though clearly not all) however a person is raising their children it is because of love.
my name is Lea and i have 2 childern Nixon , who is 2 and Gabriella who is 4 mths , we live in Ipswich QLD
oh gosh where do i start , my parenting is waaay opposite from my mothers (i say mother because me dad was never around )
I am totally in love with attachment parenting and couldnt imagine life any other way ...
Growing up i had a pathetic childhood ... i hated it .. my mum was so strict there was basiclly no warm fuzzy feelings about it .. I was never allowed to go see my friends , or do anything , never allowed to watch certain shows ...
I rememenber never being told haw good i was doing or how talented i was or how pretty i was ... I knew my mum loved me but i just also knew she didnt know how .
I did poor in maths and for a while i got tutoring but then it just fizzeld out , till this day i can not do simple sums ... I was never encouraged to do sports ...
I remember not being allowed to talk to boys and have boyfriends . I had to go to the libary every lunch hour and to puzzels and crap , just so i did nt talk to boys . my mum had spies on me ...
I was growing up under the impression that i was not good enough ..
But as i grew older , my relation ship changed with my mum and its now really good ... but there is still alot missing, walls are up ... i keep a lot of secrets from everyone as im afraid to open my doors ..
To be honest , the relationship with me and my DH (i love him soooo much it hurts) is blocked by the walls i have c around me . I have done excatly the same thing as my mum and let no one in ! i am stiff as a board inside and have a cement heart , as im scared to fully love him , incase it really hurts , or he hurts me .. etc .. but thats the only way i know how .. mum drilled it into me that men are bad .
Parenting:
when pg with my first . I asked mum alot of questions.. we never talked about birth or breastfeeding .. i knew i had been bottlefed as "i didnt suck right"
so that was it . i was comfortable with my elective c sec and ready to bottle feed , put my baby in anouter room to sleep , and not pick it up too much or i'll spoil him ...
I thought that every other parent out there did it all the same way .. so i was ok with that .. i knew there were tree hugging hippies that BF their kids till they were 2(but they were the exceptio) .. i knew vaginal birth were painful and i knew i didnt want my DH there if i were to birth vagianally , because its what my mum did ..
i was shelterd as a child .. when my dh talks about his child hood i mourn for a happy less strict more loving one ..
so a few weeks befroe i was due i found my self telling my mum i was going to bottle feed ..
I didnt mention that my decision was based on my lack of slef love and awarenees of my body .. I was taught my body should not be touched , should not be shared .. so each time i had sex i had guilt. i knew if i BF id hate it ...
Things changed when my c sec date came .. I was asked in the hosp , will you be BF .. I said "yes i'll give it a go"
so i did and there , in that moment became my love affair with motherhood ... those little drops of "liquid gold " became the foundation of my kids today ... they thrived on my milk ... i make it on my own and im good at it ... !!
TBH my mum never mentioned BF to me and always wanted to look after him over night , and that she would keep formula at her place ...
if he cried it was always "put him on the bottle , you were fine "
He had alot of problems BF and didnt latch on for 2 months ..I fed him until he was 7 mths .. then the formula that mother pushed so hard for me to use was only making him sick ... for sick months he had a runny nose and fevers alot , he turns 1 and on proper milk , and he was fine !
In that 1st year , all the things i planned to do , went out the window ... I had PND and OCD .. and my son was my healer , the WWW was my source or knowledge . put the 2 together and you have me as a mother today ...
i held my son so tight , I wore him in a pouch , i slept next to him to feed him , he hardly cried , and if he did i was there .. I never smacked ( something that i got alot when i was a kid) i just loved my hardest , i found natural alternatives to nasty stuff .. i put cloth nappies on his bum (my mum used cloth nappies but she cant stand them these days ...)
I still give my son a dummy and a bottle .. I will let him grow out of his habits , something for him to be proud of and be a big boy ! and he will toilet train when he is ready .. (not when i was forced to at 11mths ..)
I look deep into his soul and let him be him ... I praise him for his efforts and step him when i feel i need to .. I will encourge him to be him ( something i never knew the feeling of, now when i am encouraged , i am so down on my self , I opt out of what ever i was doing)
His diet is relativlely pure , except for when mum comes over , we have given up fighting and for the breif time she is here i let her "control" my kids so she feels she has a bit of power.
My daughter is now here and , I now know the feeling of birth ... she was birthed by me and welcomed into this world with daddy by my side ... showered in love and breast milk and not shoved in a nursery somewhere .. we co slept in the hosp. and we co sleep at home , I love my boobs for the health they give my girl .. I wear her close ..
BUT i still get comments like :
* put her on the bottle
* have you got a pram
* Ill carry her , but not in that stupid thing
* its ok just give her some food
* give him a smack , he naughty
* wheres her cot , is she not in her own room yet .
* you dirtied your pants , thats yuck ..
* can they move in those nappies .. wont she over heat ..
* can i take both of them for a few days .. she will know who to take a bottle by then ..
so the way i see it , when she was a parent , there was no help , no encouragement , no resourcses .. no information ..
i want my mum to see the way i parent is beautiful .. I want to go back to her "era" and change her mind ..
even though i hated growing up they way i did , i want to thank my mum in a bittersweet way for making me the mum the woman i am today ..
She is still very much set in her own way , still insists on taking a bottle when we go out and acts all funny and says "your stuff" when it comes to trying to give her EBM .. and comes over and tries to pump water in to her .. even though we fought and fought when DS was little , she wanted to give him water , i said NO because he was fully BF .
bit of an eassay there ... but in short , yes our styles were differnt , but in a way i dont blame her , she just did what the hosp advised her to do and what the MCHNtold her to do ... she was doing her best ..
If she started off with a supporting DH and an informed mind and helpful health staff ... perhaps she would lower her garud and go with her instics ...
because thats what parenting is based on ..
Last edited by *charmalea*; January 5th, 2009 at 07:42 AM.
This is quite close to the bone for me as I have just become a mum 7 months ago and I've been dealing with the differences between my mum's parenting style and my own.
My mum was a very intense, interested, loving mum I'm the eldest of four children, I'm now 33 years old. Mum started a lot later than many of her friends, 32, after she and my Dad had been trying for ten years. A very long time in the seventies, she'd actually accepted that she would never have children and gone back to art school when she found out she was pregnant with me.
She breastfed all four of us for at least 18 months (me, she only gave up because she was six months pregnant with my brother) and up to 2.5 years for my youngest brother, she was a SAHM, wore slings, ran art classes at our school, baked her own bread, raised cows and chickens and grew vegies and a fruit orchard so we would have organic food. She free birthed my youngest brother at home with just my dad to help, this was an amazing experience as I met him at about 4 minutes old with his umbilical still attached.
She was, and still is, a fabulous doting wonderful Mum who we all love very very much. She wasn't beyond giving us a few whacks with the end of a feather duster on the hand and we had some massive fights when I was a teenager.
On the other hand I'm going back to work parttime when DS is nine months old, I did and continue to use controlled crying ( on a limited basis) which I am very happy with but I feel really odd about when she is around, she never looks badly on me or says anything but I can see she's itching to go in and pick him up, I also know she never would.
I breastfed with terrible trouble for six months before putting DS on formula to great relief but not without great heartache. For me this was the hardest thing, the very definition of a Mother for me was someone that breastfed her baby. I really really struggled to carry on and it wasn't until my Mum, after another tear filled telephone conversation, said "Darling, why don't you just put him on the bottle?" that I felt I could give up the fight and relax with my own decision.
My darling mum is now retiring part time to look after DS so I can go back to work without using childcare, (which she is staunchly against) so I am now going to have my son enjoy the same care I received. Which, I'm glad to say, is a very very good thing!
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