Joanne wrote: "...a mother I am helping has now been told by a child
psychologist that attending to her child`s needs was ``controversial in the
psychological literature`` and that ``she owed it to herself to explore
other approaches to parenting``."
In my clinical training, I distinctly recall a clinical psychologist
stating as absolute fact that one of the first things that should be done
during therapy with the mother of a three-year-old boy was to "get that
child out of his mother's bed." (I did not follow this directive due to my
awareness of cultural differences.) I have read research in the
psychological literature analyzing (what I consider to be culturally
created) sleep disorders in children. The fact of the matter is that
Western psychology is inherently based on Western culture. This bias can be
found in theories, diagnoses, treatment, research, etc. (The impact of
culture and gender bias in psychology is even researched itself.) So it
doesn't surprise me at all that someone trained in a branch of Western
psychology might look askance at attachment parenting: it simply doesn't
match well with many of the modal cultural beliefs and practices of
Western, industrialized culture.
Attachment parenting is a new name for an extremely old set of behaviors,
though to many people it appears to be a radical new approach advocated by
Dr. Sears. Research in diverse fields provides evidence that the collective
general approaches that we call "attachment parenting" today are just a
collection of good survival techniques biologically speaking--and have been
so for countless generations. Read Kathy Dettwyler's comparative research
on weaning among primates. Review how non-industrialized peoples tend to
approach breastfeeding and sleep. Look at the composition of human milk and
gastric emptying time. Browse through James McKenna's sleep research, etc.
Responding to biologically based needs makes good survival sense. Sleep
sharing facilitates breastfeeding throughout the twenty-four hours of the
day--for this reason alone it has biological survival value.
Perhaps the psychologist and/or mother would be interested in reading
"Breastfeeding: Biocultural Perspectives" (edited by Stuart-Macadam &
Dettwyler), "Our Babies, Ourselves" (by Meredith Small) or my article, "The
Cultural Art of Breastfeeding," (Leaven, Vol. 36 No. 5, October-November
2000; pp. 87-91, on-line at:
http://www.lalecheleague.org/llleaderweb/LV/LVOctNov00p87.html). Teasing
apart culture and biology is no easy task, but it is not completely
impossible either. We have to be willing to ask: "If culture didn't tell us
otherwise, what might we be doing?"
Cynthia
Cynthia Good Mojab, MS Clinical Psychology
(Breastfeeding mother, advocate, independent [cross-cultural] researcher
and author; LLL Leader and Research Associate in the LLLI Publications
Department; and former psychotherapist currently busy nurturing her own
little one.)
Ammawell
Email: [log in to unmask]
Web site: http://members.home.net/ammawell
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