Beyond the Sling
A Real-Life Guide to Raising Confident, Loving Children the Attachment Parenting Way.
To Mayim Bialik, Attachment Parenting's natural, child-led approach not only felt right emotionally, it made sense intellectually and instinctually. She found that when she followed her intuition and relaxed into her role as a mother instead of following some rigid parenting script, both she and her children thrived. Taking into account her experience as a mother (and her scientific background), Mayim presents the major tenets of Attachment Parenting.
Trust Your Instincts
You Know More Than You Think
Ah, parenthood. Guiding a little soul through its infancy. Caress-ing tiny chubby fingers by moonlight. Molding a person from start to finish, and seeing only goodness and satisfaction reflected back at you every single time that your child breathes, speaks, and smiles. Creating a miniature version of you, only better, smarter, wiser, and more fashionable! Isn’t this what your life as a parent looks like?
Yeah, I didn’t think so. Mine doesn’t look like that, either.
Don’t get me wrong: I love being a parent. My two sons have stolen a piece of my heart and brain; they occupy a sacred part of my entire being and will do so forever. However, I also find parenting incredibly challenging, utterly exhausting, downright frustrating, and often crazy-making.
Part of what is so confusing is all the conflicting advice we parents get, from all angles: our parents, our friends, our doctors, our baby books, various “experts,” even perfect strangers on the street. Everyone ’s got an opinion, and no one is shy about sharing it with us.
But if you are anything like me, you don’t have a predetermined set of decisions about child rearing laid out. Furthermore, you get confused when you are given dozens of different answers to one seemingly simple question, especially if each answer sounds reason-able, is backed by research, and is delivered by someone you like and trust. A whole parenting industry has been created, it seems, solely to confuse us.
We are told to hold our babies—but don’t hold them too much! Or should we hold them more? (There’s research supporting both assertions.)
We ’re advised to sleep close to them—but not too close! (You’ll find vocal supporters on both sides of this argument as well.)
We’re recommended to hold them and comfort them—but not too much, because they have to also learn to self-soothe! (But how much is too much? And is my kid the same as yours?)
And on and on and on. It’s enough to make you wonder how anyone ever reaches first grade without the need for a pediatric psychologist living in their home to help sort through all of this insanity.
Parenting books number in the tens of thousands, each promising you comprehensive help raising the “best” child in the quickest amount of time, and specialty books seeking to solve “once and for all” the most persistent of parenting concerns such as sleep and feeding. I read those books when I was first pregnant, and I have read dozens of them throughout the past seven years. Some of what I read has helped me, but most of what I read has made me feel overwhelmed, incompetent, and sometimes wrong for doing what I wanted to do. I know I’m not alone in feeling this way.
This is not that kind of parenting book. What I have discovered, and what I seek to share with you, dear reader, is this: you already know the majority of what you need to know to be an incredible parent. It was only when I believed this and began to apply it consistently to my growing family that my anxiety, worry, and exhaustion began to lift. It was then that I truly began to enjoy being a parent and to see myself as a successful parent; not a perfect parent, and not always the most patient parent, but a sensitive, loving, and confident parent who truly loves this life I have chosen. That’s really what this book is about: empowering you to make the best choices for your kids.
So what exactly have I chosen for my kids? I have figured out what works for our family, and the basic idea is this: hundreds of thousands of years of evolution have prepared all of us, should we so choose, to be a parent. A good parent! Not a perfect parent but the best parents we can be. The knowledge we need is already programmed into our DNA.
But trends in the past two hundred years or so of Western culture have convinced us that we need a lot of help: help giving birth; help choosing what to feed the baby; help “teaching” our baby to sleep, to eat, and to learn; help making the baby independent as soon as humanly possible; help just being a parent. I propose that we, for the most part, need very little of this kind of help in these matters. By understanding basic theories of attachment and infant development, by surrounding ourselves with a community (and a culture) that seeks to support healthy and natural choices that make intuitive sense, and by trusting that everything a baby needs is communicated honestly, simply, and without malice or manipulation, we can truly be the parents that nature intends us to be.
A baby tells us exactly what he needs in his own language. Our job is to learn to speak that language. That’s what this book is all about.
Read more here.