Attachment Parenting (and Finding a Therapeutic "Niche"!)

There are many kinds of specialties in psychotherapy: some therapists only work with individuals and focus on depression and anxiety; some work only with couples and focus almost entirely on marital/relationship issues, with little focus on sex and sexuality; some therapists work almost entirely with individuals and couples with sexual disorders and challenges; some therapists have a specialty of working with families, with a sub-specialty of doing play therapy with young children; others have a particular skill in working with adolescents and the list goes on.

The methods by which therapists come to develop “niches” in their clinical practices are many and varied. For example, some therapists feel drawn to working with people who have substance abuse histories, either because the therapist him or herself has substantial recovery from, and understanding of, substance abuse, or was raised in a family where there was alcoholism or drug use. In this case, the “niche” was chosen and made complete sense given the therapist’s own unique history. Still other therapists maybe interested in the larger issues around substance use and abuse, while having no particular experience of addiction to a substance, but discover that they are particularly skilled in working with this population of folks.

I happened into one of my therapeutic niches quite by accident.

One day I received a telephone call from a young couple who were looking for a couples’ therapist as they were having problems in their marriage. The couple, eschewing standard child-rearing practices, felt strongly about raising their child using attachment parenting practices, and had encountered problems locating a therapist who was supportive of, and wouldn’t pathologize, their parenting style. Parents’ decisions to practice attachment parenting have been “blamed” on various factors: they are told that they chose AP as a result of their own (theoretical) experience of feeling detached and disconnected from their own parents; they are told they are scared of intimacy with adult partners and use their children to avoid this; they are told that they are over-indulgent and don’t know how to set appropriate limits or “discipline” correctly, and the list goes on. As a result of these kinds of therapeutic catastrophes, a stream of parents subsequently contacted me, seeking couples’ therapy which would take into account their attachment parenting (AP) methods.

I raised my child under somewhat alternative circumstances, strongly influenced by reading John Bowlby’s books on parent/child attachment during my pregnancy. Committed to nursing (and despite many negative comments from friends and family), I breast-fed my daughter until she sadly weaned herself at the age of 16 months. Although my daughter only had brief periods of being home-schooled, I was supportive of home-schooling as a choice and felt strongly that children should be primarily parented and taken care of by their parents and close loved ones. I “wore” my daughter everywhere, carrying her in a sling until she began walking at the tender age of 10 months, and even then until she reached one year old. I still carried my daughter in the sling if we were out running errands.

For most of my daughter’s early life I was a single parent, reliant on child care and schools to “help” with the education and care of my child and I was therefore not, by strict definitions, an AP parent. I nonetheless supported the philosophical ideals and values of AP. My own experience with some of these practices meant I was more understanding of the challenges which AP parents face.

So, what is Attachment Parenting?

By way of an overly brief description, Attachment Parenting is a term coined by Dr. William Sears. He proposes a parenting style that focuses strongly on the quality of the relationship between infant and parent, and suggests the following tools to cement early attachment. (Please note that this is not an exhaustive list. For more information, please visit http://www.attachmentparenting.org/ or http://www.askdrsears.com/ .)

1. Create a solid early connection with your newborn infant.
2. Pay close attention to an infant’s cues, staying close at all times.
3. Breastfeeding (preferably until the child self-weans).
4. “Wearing” your baby, by using slings and carriers so that your infant is close to you at all times.
5. Sharing sleep (Some parents create a “family bed” with all family members sleeping in the same bed; others use bed extenders, etc.)
6. Maintain balance in family life

Sears encourages parents to recognize that their child’s dependence is a psychosocial, developmental need that needs to be factored into any and all parenting strategies. His belief is that if this need is successfully met it will provide a solid foundation for a child’s developing sense of self, and create a close, affectional bond between parents and their children. His emphasis on loving, respectful, thoughtful parenting is the hallmark of his ideology.

This sounds wonderful for children, but how does this labor and time-intensive method of child-rearing work for the couples who still need time to focus on their emotional and sexual intimacy?

Let me first of all stress that most of the issues facing AP couples are no different than for those confronting any other couple, but there are specific situations that do require creative solutions for AP parents. AP parents often come to my office reporting that while their children are flourishing in their AP household, the romantic/affectional side of the couple’s relationship often suffers. While maintaining balance in all aspects of family life is one of the ideas enshrined in the principles of attachment parenting, negotiating the complexities of an intimate couple relationship is hard to do given the intense hands-on aspect of AP.

Some of the challenges are:

* While they remain committed to sharing sleep with their children, the sleeping arrangements often create challenges to a couple’s attempts to initiate sexual intimacy, and there is frequently a down-turn in a couple’s ability to be sexual as much as they would otherwise choose.

* In practical terms, AP usually requires at least one parent to be present with their child or children throughout the day and night. This also requires that an infant has unlimited access to nursing, a role usually falling to the parent who can or is willing to breast-feed. Sometimes hurt feelings surface for the parent who spends less time with the child or children, as children tend to exhibit a preference for the parent who spends more time with them. This can lead to tension between the couple and arguments and bickering often ensue.

* Breast-feeding mothers often report that while they are committed to nursing their infants until their children self-wean, there is often a diminished identification with their bodies, and in particular their breasts, as erogenous zones. It is not uncommon for women who have given birth to temporarily lose interest in having sex. Also, ironically the very hormone, Prolactin, that stimulates milk production, is also the very same one that curbs testosterone and estrogen levels. Lower levels of Estrogen are also responsible for vaginal dryness which can make penetrative sex very uncomfortable and sometimes downright painful. Low levels of testosterone leads to low desire. Low-desire in one partner often leads to feelings of rejection, anger and sadness in the other.

* Given that there are relatively small numbers of people who are attachment parents, it makes life difficult in terms of creating real supports for your AP family. What this means is that unless you live near supportive family members and/or other AP friendly or practicing families, your AP family will have few places to turn for respite from non-stop parenting and the tasks and chores that accompany this. For most AP parents, this translates into having little or no “down time” or alone time without the children.

I’m not going to go into solutions for the above challenges, given that it would make for an even larger blog than this one. Suffice to say that addressing practicalities and coming up with strategic solutions is one aspect of the focus of many AP couples’ sessions. The biggest initial clinical challenge as a therapist working with attachment parents is finding time when I can meet with them without their children, which is exactly the problem facing AP parents as they try to find ways to focus time on their relationship. Parents who have nursing infants have an even greater challenge on their hands. I aim to be as flexible as possible with AP families, offering to come to their homes if they are in a position, financially and otherwise, to pay for my travel time, and being willing to have infants stay with them in my office if they have no other options. (I do not recommend this option if the couple is having serious problems, particularly when they are very angry with each other. Infants readily pick up on their parents’ anger and distress.)

One of the wonderful and exemplary aspects of attachment parenting is parents’ commitment to their children and to creating a family life that is loving and child-centered. Prioritizing your children’s growth and development is a noble and worthwhile philosophy, and the challenge for attachment parents is often the struggle to determine how to maintain responsiveness to a child, while at the same time honoring the individual adult’s needs and, even more challenging, the growth and development of the couple’s romantic and affectional relationship. This is, at the end of the day, the challenge facing most couples with children. In all the exhaustion and preoccupation with focusing on the parental relationship with the child, the adults’ romantic relationship all too easily gets lost in the shuffle. The relationship that they have with their spouse or partner will form the template that their child will use for creating and maintaining his or her own relationships in later life. I don’t remember the genius who said this, but there is a famous quote that says something to the effect of, “Marriages are like sharks. If they don’t keep moving forward, they die.” Continuing to develop your intimate “love map” with your partner is a central and crucial task for any couple; this intimacy and connected friendship is the life blood for any sexual relationship. Such a task is almost impossible to achieve unless you find creative ways to carve out time for yourself and your partner, despite the challenges.

Central to the clinical work I do with AP parents is the eliciting of their general philosophy of child rearing, and to define what they mean by being an “attachment parent.” I ask each parent to develop a list of adjectives that define the nature of the relationships they have with their children, the specific ways in which they relate to their children, the kind of human being they hope their child will grow up to be and what they see as their particular and individual strengths as a parent. Where do they see themselves as needing some help?

I then ask them to create a similar list, but this time using the concept of being “attachment lovers.” What is their general philosophy for being a couple? What would they mean by being an “attachment lover.” What adjectives would describe their preferred relationship? What words would describe their preferred way for relating to each other? What are their hopes for their “attachment lover” relationship and what do they aspire to have it grow into? What are their particular and individual strengths as a lover, as a friend and partner? Where do they see themselves as needing some help with their “attachment lover” self-concept?

In developing a relationship "compass" as we begin our work together, the most helpful part of my work with AP parents is the development of their own unique blueprint for both their parenting style and their intimate relationship.