Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
 Katie Granju is a freelance writer, a producer for momsonline.com, a mother
 of three and the author of "Attachment Parenting: Instinctive Care for Your
 Baby and Young Child" (Simon & Schuster), a new look at an ancient method of
 parent/child bonding. "Attachment Parenting" was named one of the best
 parenting and family books of 1999 by the editors of Amazon.com. Katie is
 currently working on her next book, an exploration of raising a large family
 in a small-family world, which is slated for release in 2001.
 
 Interviewing Katie is Karen Freeman. Karen has been long interested in how
 we become who we are and has thus spent much time mulling over the
 interrelations of nature and nurture. As associate director of experiential
 and individualized learning at Webster University, she has worked since the
 late '80s with adult students to identify and articulate what they have
 learned from their experience.
 
 Please join me in welcoming Katie Granju and Karen Freeman to
 inkwell.vue!
 
  

    
Hi all. Thanks for having me as a guest at the well. I'm looking
forward to the discussion.

Katie
  

    
Hi, Katie!  So happy to see you here!

To get us started--I guess everyone has firm opinions about
child-rearing. Even people who aren't very interested in children have
strong views about how parents should interact with their
children--usually expressed forcefully when a child is causing adult
discomfort in a public setting! I suspect that those of us who have
children, approach the adventure with some basic ideas/values of our
own which we build upon by seeking advice from like-minded experts.

This has brought me to wonder how new or about-to-be parents approach
any advice-about-child-rearing books.   And it makes me wonder how you,
Katie, first encountered theories of child-rearing and how you have
used them to guide you with your own children.

So, what did *you* read in anticipation of the birth of your children
and how were you influenced?
  

    
I was actually a voracious reader during each of my three pregnancies
( I am a writer after all ;-). But with each one, I became more
specialized in what I was reading. With my first, in 1991, I read
whatever was handed to me ( all the mainstream stuff like "Solve Your
Child's Sleep Problems" by Richard Ferber,"What to Expect the First
Year,"  plus Brazelton, Spock, etc.) I wanted to do things "right" with
the baby. I was only 23 at the time and although I was very excited
about becoming a mother, I realize now that I was also very insecure in
many ways about how competent I would be in that role. 

Even as a neophyte mama, so much of the traditional American childcare
advice just didn't ring true to me. When I read about sleeping
schedules (always in a separate crib, of course!) and feeding schedules
and how to avoid spoiling babies, it just sounded wrong-headed to me.
And sexist too. Most of the advice-givers were grandfatherly-aged men.
But I didn't want to jeapordize my baby's well-being, so I tried to
apply a lot of these theories to my poor guinea pig of a son, Henry,
now eight. The results were breastfeeding problems (and soon, complete
failure), and a feeling that the two of us were missing something in
our connectedness. In my first two years with Henry, I often felt that
other mothers seemed to intuitively "get" their babies better than I
did.

I discovered Mothering magazine (www.mothering.com) when Henry was a
toddler and I have to say that being exposed to alternative parenting
styles through this revolutionary magazine was a real eye opener to me.
The voices in Mothering pointed me in the direction of other parenting
resources, like books by Dr. Sears and "The Continuum Concept" by Jean
Liedloff. Suddenly I felt like I was stumbling onto parenting info and
guidance that actually felt right to me. It was at this time that I
also began actively educating myself about human lactation and that was
a very radicalizing experience because it became abundantly clear to
me that my own problems with nursing were due almost 100% to egregious
medical mismanagement -- the kind people sue over if doctors give that
sort of terrible advice in any other area of medicine. I felt very
ripped off by these traditional parenting books and my own
pediatrician. 

In 1995 I became pregnant with my daughter, Jane, and I also came
online for the first time. I started reading misc.kids and soon found
that I identified most strongly with the wise, wonderful guidance
offered there by some more experienced mothers who practiced what is
now termed attachment parenting. Although I didn't know many other
mothers like that in my own neighborhood, I was able to find community
and mothering support from my online friends. I joined the first e-mail
list on the Net for parents who supported child-led weaning, Parent-L,
and was an active participant there for several years. 

Although lately I hear a lot of criticism of parenting
books/magazines/online forums, I think that they can serve a very
important purpose. Many of us no longer have mothers and sisters and
aunts around us to help us define and develop a parenting style that
works and to answer specific questions. These resources can fill that
need. They did for me. I think the fact that parenting books sell so
well means that many parents long for that kind of reassurance and
connection with other parents.

A few of my current favorite parenting resources are Mothering
Magazine, www.wearsthebaby.com, www.bestfed.com, www.hipmama.com,
www.momsonline.com, "Our Babies, Ourselves," by Meredith Small (Anchor
Books), "The Vital Touch" by Sharon Heller,"So That's What They're For:
Breastfeeding Basics" by Janet Tamaro-Natt, and I *still* look things
up often in "The Baby Book" by William and Martha Sears.

Katie
  

    <scribbled>
  

    
(Sorry about the preceding--found an embarrassing grammatical error as
soon as I posted!)

You mention that child-care books serve an important role for new
parents who don't have their own family who can guide them as parents,
but I wonder if these books aren't also read by new parents searching
for a better way than those which have been modeled by their own birth
families!

In my own case, I believed the role of a parent was to help the child
discover and become his/her own “true” self. My own parents (like all
conscientious mid-century parents) focused on molding their children
into good, autonomous citizens who lived up to society's expectations.
So, I was actively ignoring the model I had.

At any rate, I read everything that was in the parenting/child
development section of the St. Louis Public Library in 1971 and paid
especial attention to the developmental guides published by the Gasell
institute. Looking back on it, I realize that the thing I missed in all
that reading was how to pay attention to *my* particular baby so that
I could help him become himself instead of helping him become who I
dreamed I might have been if I’d just been raised right!  While much of
what I read did advocate paying close attention to the baby and 
responding, I don’t recall any discussion about how to ensure that you
are paying attention to the baby and not to your own feelings about the
baby.  But now that I think of it, I suspect it is not the sort of
thing one can learn vicariously.

How did you develop your sense of who each of your particular babies
was/is?
  

    
Karen, I'm due to deliver in about six weeks, and I think we've
corresponded a little in email.

I'm interested in hearing, now that your kids are presumably older,
what sort of effects your different child rearing methods on them when
they were babies has now. In other words, can you see differences?
  

    

Welcome, Katie and Karen!
  

    
Karen asked how I came to develop my sense of who each of my babies
was/is. (and by the way, can someone tell me how to quote from previous
posts? Thanks.)

All three of my children (Henry who is 8, Jane who is 4 and Elliot, 2)
have had very distinct personalities right from birth. My challenge as
a new parent was to surrender to their uniqueness and not try to
impose some predetermined idea of who I wanted them to be on to them.
As years have passed and I have grown more trusting of my own mothering
abilities, I have also become better able to adapt my parenting to my
children's very different behaviors and needs. 

This is one area where attachment parenting practices have been
especially helpful to me. Instead of caring for the three of then  "by
the book," I care for them "by the kid." Each of them has always had
fairly distinct preferences for sleep, eating, touch time from me, etc.
By keeping them physically close and letting them lead the way in
showing me what they need from me, I have gained a more organic,
intuitive ability to read their cues that continues to serve our
relationships well as they grow into childhood. 

For example, my four year old still *needs* to nurse sometimes in
order to pull herself together when she gets over-stimulated. If I had
weaned her at 6 months, I don't think I would be as aware of the fact
that she can really feel out of control sometimes and is helped by
having physical contact with my body. Sucking also still really soothes
her and I am glad that she has that resource when she needs it. My two
year old, on the other hand, is already weaning himself because he is
a much more mellow, less high needs person. By allowing him to lead the
way with weaning, that facet of his personality has revealed itself
more clearly. 


Katie
  

    
Wups, in #6 I said Karen when I meant Katie.  Sorry....too many Ka
names. :-)
  

    
Katie--is it ok if we ask you detailed questions about your personal
experiences with your own kids rather than focus on your writings?  I'm
really curious about what you refer to as a "complete failure" with
breastfeeding Henry.  But I'll leave it alone if you'd rather.
  

    

Could we have a definition of the term "attachment parenting," please?  I
just reread the topic so far and I'm not sure exactly what it means.
  

    

And let me just jump in here quickly with a word to non-WELL members
reading this interview on the Web:  if you have questions or comments for
Katie Granju, please e-mail them to inkwell-hosts@well.com and we will see
that they get posted in this topic.  Thank you!
  

    
David!  How could I have overlooked the obvious?  Thanks so much for
the reminder.

Since I showed up first, let me tell you what I understand and then
we'll wait for Katie to come along and correct my errors and fill in
the holes I've left. I believe the term comes from pediatrician William
Sears and is based on the idea that the most important parental task
is to successfully bond with the baby so as to best protect, nurture
and understand the baby.  This bond is established and maintained
through on-demand nursing, sleeping in a family bed rather than
separately in a crib, carrying the baby in a sling or other
baby-wearing device, always attending to the baby's cry.  (I think that
sentence has certain syntactical difficulties but it would take the
rest of the afternoon for me to fix it!)

I hope that's a good start.
  

    
>>>Katie--is it ok if we ask you detailed questions about your
personal
experiences with your own kids rather than focus on your writings? 
I'm
really curious about what you refer to as a "complete failure" with
breastfeeding Henry.  But I'll leave it alone if you'd rather.>>>>

No, it's absolutely fine to ask about my kids :-). My experience
mothering my children is what informs my writing on parenting topics.


Complete breastfeeding failure with my first baby went something like
this:

I totally planned to breastfeed. Never considered that I might
bottle-feed. But I knew very little about the subject (although I
*thought* I knew enough.) I started out nursing my son in the hospital.
Everything seemed to be going OK, but I wasn't clear on how often he
should eat, so I let him sleep a bit longer between feeds than I should
have. Also, my mother and grandmother were dying to feed the baby, so
I let them fix him some of the handy-dandy formula samples that had
been sent home with us from the hospital, and offer supplemetary
bottles. With every bottle he took, he became less interested in my
breasts. At his ten day check up, he had lost a small amount of weight,
so the pediatrician immediately recommended full-time bottle feeding
for several days. Within 24 hours of quitting all nursing, I began
developing symptoms of mastitis (a painful breast infection) and the
next day, my OB hospitalized me for three days so I could receive IV
antibiotics. During this time, I was told that I could not nurse the
baby, so I was to "pump and dump" my milk. I was given a cheap
breastpump and no real instructions how to use it. 

By the time I returned home to my baby, he was totally disinterested
in nursing and completely bottle-fed. Everyone assured me that I really
shouldn't worry about it, that this wasn't my fault and it really
didn't matter how he was fed as long as he was eating. I sadly accepted
this line and from about three-four weeks postpartum, Henry never
nursed again.

Basically, I was given terrible advice from beginning to end. No one
met with me in the hospital to explain that breastfed babies should be
eating at least eight times every 24 hours and that nursing on demand
is the optimal way to insure a strong start to breastfeeding. I was
told to never, ever allow the baby in bed with me, which meant that
when my mother offered to get up at night and give the baby bottles, it
seemed like a wonderful idea. If he had been right next to me, I could
have rolled over and offered to nurse him as soon as he began rooting
around -- all without having to get up or even sit up. When he began
preferring bottle to breast, my pediatrician never explained to me
about "nipple confusion."  He just told me that some babies never
really take to breastfeeding. When I developed mastitis, my OB never
explained to me that this was due to lack of breastfeeding frequency.
And I certainly did not need to be hospitalized and separated from my
baby.

This is unfortunately a pretty common series of events for American
women who want to breastfeed. Doctors, on the whole, are terribly
misinformed about the risks of artificial feeding (
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/1999/07/19/formula/index.html ) and so
they don't consider it important to stay current in lactation science.
And since most of our mothers and at this point, grandmothers did not
breastfeed, they are often unable to offer any effective guidance.

I am happy to report that I went on to happily breastfeed my next two
babies -- and in fact am still nursing both of them (although they both
seem to be slowly weaning now....)

Katie
http://www.attachmentparent.com/
  

    
Katie, what you describe in terms of what information the medical folks
shared with you (or rather, didn't share) sounds like this all happened
30 years ago. But I believe all of your children are under 10 years old.
This is really surprising to me and I'm glad you trusted your own instincts
in the long run.
  

    
Yeah, that was my reaction, too, Cynthia.  This happened in the
nineties?????  That is very discouraging.  

Did Henry ever get included in the family bed?  How'd you do that? Did
he, as many children do, revert to his bottle when Jane was born?
  

    
I've done a lot of research on breastfeeding in the 90s (see the URL
for the Salon piece I posted above), and unfortunately, my own first
experience with medical personnel and breastfeeding is the norm rather
than the exception. In fact, fewer than twenty-five percent of U.S.
babies are still receiving any breastmilk by 5-6 months of age.

Henry sleeps with us now sometimes. I became much more relaxed about
bed-sharing after I saw how wonderfully it enhanced our family life (we
began using a family bed with baby #2). He was almost four when Jane
was born and was pretty far past his bottle by then. But he did suck
his pacifier until he was five and since by that time I was aware of
natural ages of weaning in humans (see:
http://www.prairienet.org/community/health/laleche/detwean.html , I was
really OK with that. I think that Henry would have nursed past age 3
if he had been breastfed.

I also wanted to respond to the question of what exactly attachment
parenting *is*. I answer this in my book and it is excerpted at:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ts/book-excerpt/067102762X/ref=pm_dp_ln_b_3/
002-5740214-1108226

In a practical sense, attachment parenting is a very hands-on style of
caring for babies and young children which usually involves some or
all of the following practices: breastfeeding on cue culminating in
child-led weaning, family sleep sharing, "babywearing" with a sling or
other carrier, responsive attention to a child's dependency needs, and
minimal parent-child separation in infancy. Until very recently,these
ideas were considered rather far out and radical by most American
parents and certainly by American baby doctors, but that's really
changing now. I've seen a huge cultural shift in terms of parenting
norms since the time my first baby was born in 1991 until my last was
born in 1998.

Katie
  

    
When I read your book, one of the things I was really struck by was
how the society seems to have moved further and further away from
supporting families in ways that allow them to provide the kind of
nurturance that your review of the research suggests is best.

Probably because I'm "between" babies (my only child is 28; no
grandkids in sight) I do find myself reflecting on the social
implications of child-rearing practices.  We do, as a society seem to
have a very difficult time with investing now for a payoff even as
little as fifteen years away.

Your experience with medical personnel remind me of Carol Gilligan's
work--that it is the "male model" that sees the proper developmental
path as that which leads toward individual autonomy. If that is your
underlying belief, then anything that encourages the child--especially
the son--to separate from his mother and stand on his own two feet (!)
has got to be seen as a good thing.

I think it is Kurt Lewin who is generally credited with the statement
"There's nothing so practical as a good theory," which is certainly
true, but it is also true that if our theory is convincing enough, it
can completely blind us to other possibilities.

Piaget apparently often remarked on what he called "the American
question" which was, basically, about how children can be speeded
through the developmental stages.  It is discouraging to realize that,
in America at least, we've remained most concerned with making our
children who we think they should be (as quickly as possible) and have
learned very little about the long term effects both on the children
and the society.
  

    
The family bed sounds like a great idea to me, but (as a childless person) I
wonder how a sound adult sleeper never crushes a small child.
  

    
I've read that if you're overweight, a very sound sleeper, or a user
of drugs or alcohol, that a family bed is not advised. Also if you have
a waterbed.

Katie, how does a couple manage sex when they're family bedding?
  

    
My wife is a big believer in attachment parenting, and we have a family bed.
Sort of.  I have my own bedroom when my schedule is such that I can't afford
to miss sleep.  With sex, what I can say is, where there's a will, there's a
way.

Dan
  

    
The most important things to know about sharing sleep with babies and
young children are these: in most cultures all over the world it is the
norm, and there are many ways to do it.

 Although American parents have been warned away  from sleeping with
their kids for the past hundred years or so, prior to the 20th
century,most U.S. families slept with their kids. There wasn't room for
everyone to have their own sleep space, it assured that the littlest
family members stayed warm, and for breastfeeding mothers and babies,
it just made (and still makes) life much, much easier.

 With the advent of Freudian worries about sexualized relations
between parent and child, as well as the growth of bottle-feeding,
family sleep sharing in the U.S. become rarer and rarer until the
1960s-1980s, when people who slept with their babies and little kids
were pretty much considered weirdos. Also, having babies and toddlers
sleep alone fit neatly into the growing emphsasis on "teaching
independence" as early as possible in American children. 

Today there is a lot of good research to support the safety and
desirability of family sleep sharing. Anecdotally, the U.S. has one of
the lowest family bedding rates in the world (maybe even the lowest,
although that is changing) and certifiably has the highest SIDS rates
in the world. You can read more about this at:

http://www.breastfeeding.com/reading_room/family_bed.html

The many families I interviewed for my book who use and enjoy a family
bed implement it in their own families in lots of different ways. Some
have their children in their beds full time. Others attach a crib or
child's bed to the side of an adult bed or have a crib set up in their
room. Some have their children start the night in their own beds and
then bring them into their bed after night wakings. Some parents
co-sleep into early childhood while others move their children into
their own rooms in late infancy. There is no one "right" way to
co-sleep. 

As far as safety, a parent should take the same precautions she would
take with any other sleep space being prepared for an infant: no soft
bedding (definitely no waterbeds), baby should sleep on his back or
side (a natural position for a co-sleeping, breastfeeding baby)Parents
should not sleep with their babies if they are under the influence of
drugs or alcohol or if they are in a state of profound exhaustion. But
for most babies and parents -- all higher primates and most mammals --
parents sleeping with their young is a normal, healthy, positive
behavior. That's the main message that I try to get out. I am not
trying to tell people what they *should* do. I want to tell parents
what they *can* do because for so long we were all told that we should
never sleep with our babies under any circumstance. As for myself and
many of my friends, once you have begun sleeping with a baby right from
birth, it's very hard to imagine doing it another way. I cannot
conceive of NOT sleeping with my infants. That would feel very strange
to me and to my husband. 

As for sex, you can start your children in their own beds at night,
you can be with your partner in other areas of the house, etc, etc.
Seeing the parents' bed as the only place for sex is really a cultural
construct. And personally, in the postpartum year, I have a lot more
energy for other things when I am not getting up all night to feed the
baby!

Katie
  

    



This comment is from sed372@aol.com:




From: Sed372@aol.com
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 07:26:50 EST
Subject: Attachment parenting
To: inkwell-hosts@well.com

The idea that infants or young children can "learn" to comfort
themselves is absurd. Adults don't know how to comfort themselves.   Or
sometimes they do by turning to alcohol, etc.  Human beings comfort
other human beings. I didn't allow my son to cry it out, and most of my
friends raised their children the same way, despite the outcries of
mothers and in-laws.  This may be, in part, a generational difference
in attitudes towards children.
  

    
Geez, I know how to comfort myself, in many cases.
  

    
I agree with Sharon that adults can provide comfort for themselves somewhat
(without turning to gettin' high), but human-to-human comfort is a lot more
rewarding, for sure.

I once had some friends who thought they weren't supposed to "give in" to
their first baby's crying. It was painful to visit them when the baby would
be crying in his bedroom for half an hour or so. I don't know how they could
stand it! It made me extremely uncomfortable.