Dear Readers,

“I strongly recommend against co-sleeping. You’re just going to mess up your kids more than they already are.”

I smile now when I remember this comment from a local businessman, but I certainly wasn’t smiling at the time. Was he kidding?! Looking back, I don’t believe he was quite thinking through this comment or else he didn’t realize that I’m an attachment parent. We were discussing the roots of mental illness, and something I said must have triggered the idea of co-sleeping in his mind. When I asked his reasoning, he didn’t elaborate more than his opinion that there should be “some boundaries.” But he also didn’t want to hear any of the research supporting co-sleeping in raising emotionally - and mentally - healthy children.

As an API advocate, I naturally see Attachment Parenting as the best approach to raising children. So, it’s easy to get a little defensive when someone challenges my parenting choices — even, sometimes, going so far as to say that I’m damaging my children by promoting a close emotional bond.

Like many AP parents, I routinely encounter critics…through my place of worship, family, mainstream playgroups, even in seemingly benign locations like the grocery store. To say this is irritating is an understatement, but I’ve found that the more I learn about AP and see it work in my family, the more confident I become and the less bold others tend to be. It’s easy to criticize a new parent, not so easy to criticize a parent who exhibits confidence in her abilities. And those friends and family who truly love us will come to accept our different ways of seeing the world. It just takes time, and a little work on our part to acknowledge that some of our friends may not be that much of a friend after all.

Yet, no matter where we are in our AP journeys, we’re going to encounter people who are not only comfortable in criticizing AP but who seem to thrive on it. These people are bent on the idea that we are actually hurting our kids by promoting attachment and that children should learn independence beginning in babyhood. These are the hard situations, I think, because I don’t go out of my way to criticize their non-AP philosophies and they certainly don’t think it’s appropriate for me to do so, but they believe they should be able to do that exact thing to me. Turning a deaf ear, as politely as I can, works well for me…as does avoiding the particular person if I’m able.

It also helps hugely to have the support of a local API Support Group or the API Forums — to know that there are other parents out there, like you, who are swimming upstream and encountering the same lack of mainstream support. Here are a few threads on the API Forums you may find helpful:

• “Handling Criticism for Not Spanking” on the API Publications Forum;
• “Help” on the API Safe Sleep Forum;
• “Non-Attachment-Friendly Adults in Your Child’s Life” on the API Consistent & Loving Care Forum; and
• “Too Attached?” on the API General Forum.

~ Rita Brhel, editor of The Attached Family publications