Dear Ms. Kraus,

It would seem from your “detachment parenting” rant that you know little about what attachment parenting involves, and that you are surrounded by people who are similarly confused by the topic.

I feel inclined to address some of the points that you made in your “Message to Dr. Sears”.

First, I am a parent of a child over 9 months of age. I have three children, actually. A 5 1/2 year old, a 2 1/2 year old and a 5 month old. I am an attachment parent. For the most part. I’d probably categorize myself more in the “gentle parenting” category.

I’m not entirely sure what types of “attachment parents” you have seen, but I would recommend that they seek out communities of Attachment Parents, as their experience sounds rather painful and abnormal and they might need some help with some parts of the attachment parenting thing because it sounds like their parenting methods may have crossed over into “indulgent” parenting or “fearful” parenting. (Or what is also possible is that you are so confident in your own method of parenting that you are seeing things through a certain perspective.)

At nine months children go through separation anxiety. This is age appropriate. And if the child is holding onto the bars of the crib screaming their head off, then they are not being parented in an attachment parenting style. Because children that are being parented in an attachment parenting style are asleep peacefully after having been nursed or rocked or snuggled to sleep. Nine month old AP children are not the ones screaming in public, they are the ones perched belly to belly with their parents, or perched high on their caregiver’s back. They hide their faces against mom or dad when they don’t want to interact with a stranger, or they peek out over their carrier and grin gummy little grins when they do. They enjoy supported independence and are seldom screechy. In fact, I love nine month olds and one year olds. They’re sweet, social and starting to discover their independence.

Parents declaring failure at nine months are parents who possibly do not understand the span of Attachment Parenting. It’s not a nine month investment. It takes time. Just like it takes you time to change from 23 years old to 30 years old. You can’t accelerate it. And if you are inconsistent in how you respond to your child then the child is going to respond with insecurity and clinginess.

My children have so far moved to their own bed in their own room at two and a half. Without tears. My oldest started being able to fall asleep on his own after the bedtime routine at three and a half. I anticipate that his younger brother will learn to do so at around the same time. I am happy with this. My five month old, I expect, will learn to consistently sleep through the night in her own bed in our room at some point when all of her teeth have come in, and at random points before then as well.

We wait it out, we don’t cry it out. We share our bed but it is not the only bed, and much of the time it is our bed alone as our children sleep elsewhere. Our middle child eagerly glomped on the chance to move to the bottom bunk in what is now “The Boys Room”, and loves his big boy bed at two and a half. He has never cried alone to sleep, and when he’s a bit older we’ll go through the same process that we went through with his big brother where he learns how to relax. How to stay in bed. How to close his eyes. How to fall asleep without us in the room nearby him. Sure, we could force the issue and press him into all of these things earlier. Why? This timeline works for him. (He sleeps through the night, by the way. Unless he is sick or teething. And he has for quite some time. And our five year old only needs nighttime parenting if he has a nightmare or is ill.)

My relationship with the father of my children is more impacted by the presence of laptops and smartphones and overtime at work, and televisions than it is by attachment parenting. A strong warm responsive man who can’t stand to hear his children cry and who dances with them in the dark of the night is one of the most attractive things for me. One of the least attractive things is someone who places their own needs above those of an infant, and who would choose to tear their child’s family apart rather than cope with short term situations. His commitment to being there for our children is one of the things that makes me committed to being there for him. While I cannot speak for him, I would hope that he feels similarly. If not, then I chose the wrong person to have a family with, and he’s holding back on the communication thing. Right now we want more sleep and we want more time with each other, but not at the expense of the three small creatures that depend on us.

I’m also confused by that friend of yours who says that no one has ever loved her the way her son loves her. My kids don’t love me like that. They take me for granted, quite honestly. They love each other like no one else. They cling to me when they need to, and they push me away when they need to. I enjoy seeing them love everyone else in their lives. I’m not parenting them to have them love me more than anyone else ever has. I’m parenting them to set them free. I’m parenting them to have many people in their lives that they love and look for. I’m parenting them to value family and closeness and trust and I am raising them to understand the things that they can do for themselves.

I’m a home base, not a cage or a tether or a slingshot. I’m not a clingy parent. I follow along behind my older two as they discover the world for themselves. I interject on safety issues, help them learn to settle disputes without needing my input, and I teach them about independence and self reliance through play and through trusting them to troubleshoot their own issues without my swooping in to save them from problems that they solve remarkably well together while I watch and smile from the other side of the room where they left me.

It occurs to me that you may have confused some other parenting style for “Attachment Parenting”, or that you may be seeing parents adopt portions of attachment parenting out of exhaustion and giving in rather than out of an understanding for the reasons behind AP. You may be seeing narcissistic parents that hope to train a child to love them in some perfect sort of way.

Because if you have seen Attachment Parenting in action you would not see exhausted unhappy miserable parents that hate each other and that are at the full mercy of their children. There is a difference between a gardener that battles dandelions and the gardener that is cultivating them for their leaves. In one situation the gardener is struggling and miserable, and in the other situation the fluffy yellow field is a sign of their success. Do not confuse the parent laying on the couch with an infant sprawled dangerously atop their belly for an attachment parent. Do not confuse Attachment Parenting with the person with the screaming six month old in a baby bjorn at the grocery store while her four year old tries to eat all of the candy at the check out counter.

Let me make a suggestion for you. Why don’t you let other parents seek out the style of parenting that works for them rather than choosing to launch a war against a parenting style that you don’t seem to fully understand? Suggest that they seek out others that have made similar choices and that have found more joy in them than they seem to. Suggest that they learn from people that are following the same path that they are following, rather than calling out at everyone to make a U-Turn and then fork right for the One True Good Parenting Style Not Destined for Doom and Divorce and Other Dastardly Things.

I could choose to dub your “detachment parenting” style as “abandonment parenting”, as I do not personally choose to use it and consider it a bit of a waste of my personal time to try to deeply understand and relate to a parenting style that is quite alien to me and that I quite simply will not be adopting because it doesn’t make sense to me and because I am happy with how my children are growing.

Instead I choose to look at you and your child and see the smiles and the hugs and the closeness and the awesome Halloween costumes you plan on making some day.

Don’t stare so hard at the bags under my eyes that come from my five month old daughter’s spotty sleep. Instead see how I smile as I bury my nose in her hair as she naps peacefully in a wrap against my chest. I have chosen the parenting style that makes my heart sing.

Be happy for me, as I am happy for you.

❤ Sarah

(This is in response to the Huffington Post article by Nicola Kraus titled “My Message to Dr. Sears“)