Breastfeeding: a father's perspective

In response to http://www.phdinparenting.com/2010/03/01/a-different-kind-of-baby-led-weaning/

There is a lot of talk about attachment parenting with what seems to me little common ground other than nurturing the parent-child bond. Within the small community of people I know and love, many preach attachment parenting. Alicia and I are among them. But we all seem to do it differently. Sometimes it depends on what books you read, what course you've attended, who your friends are, etc. Most often, it seems, the parenting decisions you make are most influenced by the needs of your individual family.

For example, single parents may have to make some sacrifices in order to stay afloat, or the addition of a second child can change the dynamic considerably. I don't claim to be the expert on attachment theory, either.

One thing that has been eating away at me for, well, years is breastfeeding. Of course I am a loud advocate for breastfeeding, and for doing it as long as possible. But the question is, what does "as long as possible" mean? Attachment pundits argue for letting the child decide when to stop, rather than weaning being imposed upon them. And, in theory, I agree with this. But in practice I find it way more challenging. And they're not even my breasts!

Among our peers, our child has been breastfeeding the longest - at 3.5 years. I know this is no world record and some kids will go for much longer. In most cases, the moms made a decision to wean their children despite being adherents to attachment parenting. It just didn't work for their lifestyle/sanity anymore. Sometimes the children chose on their own to stop. While most of these kids are now sleeping independently, giving the parents (read:mother) more liberty and a better sleep schedule, this isn't always the case. Every child is different, and some may need the bedtime cuddling well past the age of 5 or 6 or even 10.

Our daughter loves breastfeeding. She talks about it all the time. If she could, she would do it all day and all night, as long as my wife is around. When my wife is absent, Hadley doesn't seem to miss breastfeeding at all. She'll sleep through the night and doesn't show any insecurity, as far as I can tell. We have tried having numerous conversations about stopping breastfeeding and she agrees to the notion but can't stop herself when the urge comes on. In addiction terms, she's in the pre-contemplative stage.

Now, it's unfair to call breastfeeding an addiction, just as it's unfair for the father (me) to try and place limits on the mother-child bond. So I find myself in a tricky position. I feel like it's nearing the time for breastfeeding to end. My reasons are these: it wrecks my wife's sleep, it saps my wife's health and it sticks a wedge between wife in daughter such that they can't be intimate without breastfeeding. But these are all my reasons about my wife. See where this is going? The issue is prickly and I don't want to come off as judgmental.

Let me be clear: I couldn't care less about social norms and what others think about Hadley breastfeeding at 3. If there no other disadvantages, I wouldn't even go on about it. But the fact it, she is making no signs of wanting to slow down. If we leave it up to her to stop breastfeeding, what if she wants to wait until she is 7? Is that attachment parenting? At what point are we allowed to impose our own agenda?

It seems to me that parents impose their own agendas on other issues ranging from food to clothes to daycare choices to not beating up the cat. So why not breastfeeding? Why is this sacred territory? Again, I am not a mother and I don't claim full knowledge of the experience. But I think mothers ought to be able to place reasonable limits on their relationship with the child, without fear of traumatizing the kid for life.

Rudolph trumps all

Christmas evokes such conflicting emotions, it's a wonder why we bother. I think we keep it up for the presents, even though nobody ever likes what they get.
For Hadley, Christmas was confusing for her skeptical little mind, not least because she was forced to swallow the concept that a fat guy broke into our house to eat cookies and give her presents. She did not like the idea at all but was willing to go through with it for our sake. So I've decided not to push another lie on her. She can believe what she wants.

The myth of Rudolph, on the other hand, captured her little mind like nothing else in her short life. She watched the cartoon a bunch, left him some celery on Christmas Eve, and then proceeded to eventually become Rudolph over the course of several days. Over the holidays, Hadley was given a par of cardboard antlers at the mall, which she wore constantly. She insisted we call her Rudolph from then on. Then she started acting in what she calls the Rudolph movie: walking around the house on all fours while we narrate her adventures.

But now it's the middle of January and the reindeer thing has not subsided by any means. In fact, we must call her Rudolph all the time or suffer a toddler tantrum. She has assigned all other 8 reindeer names to members of her immediately family, including the pets. I quickly nabbed Comet before she gave it to someone else.

She introduces herself to strangers as Rudolph, going out of her way to make sure they get it right. She doesn't act reindeer-y anymore; she just wants the new name, which we are happy to go along with. What's particularly awesome is that Hadley has also added some new reindeer to the repertoire, since all 8 are already used up. Sometimes people get to play these roles, but mostly I think they're just for special occasions, when a toy emerges with no name. So far the new reindeer are:
Olive (from the 'other reindeer' story)
Fabula Janjula (I was temporarily given this name but it was stripped from me shortly after)
Journey
Sheena

Lil' Karl and the river of lies

This may come across as provocative but that is not my intention.

I've been struggling since Hadley was born with how to present religion to her. I would, of course, like to instill in her some of the same values that we have as parents. We're spiritual but do not in any way believe any religious teachings. I feel that Hadley ought to approach everything in life with an open but critical mind, and this includes religion. But we certainly don't want to make the mistakes that many/most religious parents make, which is to force a belief system upon their child. Hadley can make up her own mind and we will cheer her on.

Here's the conundrum: we can't simply sit back while she's 3 and let her decide. First, she's way too young to make sense of religious propaganda and she's way too young to examine it with scientific rigour. Second, in North American society - as we all know - the overemphasis on Christianity shifts the balance of power of persuasion. Hadley will not stand a chance and likely faces the same existential/atheist crisis that I had at the age of 7. Icons, stories and churches abound. There is not the same amount of compelling "stuff" for non-believers, because we don't feel the need to convince ourselves or others. (This, of course, replicates the age-old right wing vs. left wing information battle).

So what do we do while she's 3 years old? Here's an example, if I'm being too rhetorical at this point. So we're walking through the mall to the grocery store and Hadley sees two huge images hanging on the wall: Santa and Jesus. They are side by side and form a part of some Christmas display. Hadley naturally asks who they are. My answer to "who is Santa?" I will deal with in my next blog post. But as for Jesus, up to now I have been referring to him as Lil' Karl. I just don't want to get into it with her before she can really understand the history of Christianity and the history of resistance to religious oppression. It's not my place to bombard her with my beliefs but nor is it responsible to give her the Christian interpretation so early on in her vulnerable life.

So I just call him Lil' Karl and she shrugs, and walks on. If I had said, "that's Jesus", the name may have stuck with her. Since 'Jesus' comes up in conversation more often than 'Lil' Karl', she is likely assimilate what she hears about Jesus more easily. She will begin to ask more questions and hear more stories about divinity and resurrection and stuff like that. Which is fine, if she's ready to process these stories as stories and not truth. I don't think she's ready. And it's very hard/painful to un-believe once you have been brainwashed.

Believe me, I WANT Hadley to ask questions and I want to tell her the truth. I feel terrible about telling her a lie by calling that long-haired white man Lil' Karl. But he's certainly not Jesus either. Jesus the Jew. Jesus the scruffy desert-dweller. Jesus who would have died at 32 anyway because that was the life expectancy 2000 years ago. No, that's not Jesus but it's some false image that gets forced onto young children everywhere. I simply cannot explain the concept of lies and propaganda to a 3-year old. So I am forced to choose a lie to tell her. Either I replicate the Jesus lie, or I invent a new one. I could say, "I don't know" but then she'll just ask someone else. So for now, that guy is Lil' Karl. It was meant as a joke but you can tell my reasons are serious indeed.

Long live Lil' Karl!

Garden glory

Summer is when Hadley gets all her vitamins. D and E from the sun, C and B from all the fruit and vegetables.

She has always been more interested in fresh harvest than store-bought or straight-from-the-fridge produce. In this I think she is exhibiting her instinctual gatherer self, who picks what she needs and lets the rest grow. Sadly we need to pick it all or it will freeze in a couple of months.

The last two nights Hadley ate almost her entire dinner while prancing through the back garden:

purple runner beans
snap peas
blackberries
strawberries
kale
carrots
parsnip
nasturtium

This is why our garden is so haphazard and jam-packed. It's hard to specialise when there's so much variety to munch on!

Jump in the Water

I'm trying to turn Hadley into a water baby. I grew up with a fear of water, swimming, pools, and I have never really lost that. I avoid beaches whenever I can. It comes, ironically, from forced swimming lessons. So I am acutely aware that if I push it on her, Hadley could react the same way.

But so far she loves it. I mean, to a point. She's not going off diving boards or anything. But nor would i want her to right now. She just loves to splash and run and get her feet wet. Really, it's almost her favourite thing to do in the world. We're lucky to live in an oceanside town, where she can just tear up and down the beach in her birthday suit and scream at the top of her lungs.

I'm even beginning to loosen up a bit, too. This fall I plan on re-taking swimming lessons while Alicia and Hadley wade in the kids area. Maybe one day I'll actually be able to teach my daughter how to do the front crawl.

untitled #1

Toothpick races in the rain. Best way to spend an afternoon.

Nausea

I just got back from a 5-day trip to Toronto to attend this summit. It's been 5 or so years since I was last there, long before Alicia and Hadley. Long before I missed anyone this much.
It's the greatest length of time I've ever spent away from my own daughter.
I had thought I could do it and that I would have more than enough to occupy me while gone. Alicia finds it difficult to be away from Hadley for any period but up to now I hadn't missed her so much that my stomach hurt. This time changed everything.
I don't mean to be melodramatic.
OK, so maybe I do.
I was pretty much attacked throughout my trip with these bouts of emotional pain, the kind that reminded me of when I was 18 and couldn't bear to be away from a certain girl. What made it all the harder was that I kept being exposed to other children: at the conference, at Shalini's house, and just random kids on the subway.
Do you know this feeling? I just wanted to reach out and cuddle these random toddlers. I missed, at a deep and visceral level, the physical bond I have with my daughter. I ached. I was miserable.
It didn't help that I was reading this book on attachment parenting the whole time. In it, the authors stress the unique link between parents and children, that doesn't really exist anywhere else in life. Tell me about it, I thought.
Next time, I'm bringing the family with me.