I've been thinking about attachment parenting these days. In my consulting business I do quite a few consults with providers who are trying to integrate new babies and toddlers into care. There is a pattern in my little world of the providers describing the parents as parents who claim they practice attachment parenting. Obviously, the integration isn't going well. They wouldn't pay me to tell me how great the kids are fitting in.

I hear story after story and providers feel helpless that the only tools they get from the parents and their online support groups is to either term, carry the baby wrapped, hold during naps etc. That would solve the crying with any kid regardless of how they are being parented.

I also participate but mostly lurk on attachment parenting internet groups. It's again, a small population but the patterns of concern are the same and the solutions are the same.

One of the stories I heard recently was of a mom with a toddler and a newborn who is a sahm part time. She talks about how she is exhausted managing a newborn and a mobile one year old who both are being parented with breastfeeding, sling wearing, co sleeping, attached nipple suckling for comfort, motion consolation, etc. Typical garden variety methods to be immediately receptive and active in stopping or fending off crying.

So this Mom can't get the one year old to settle for a nap and the kid is going days at a time where he is up for all but a seven to eight hour night. He is not adjusting to not being able to comfort suckle all night because the newborn needs his time at the tap.

So nap times the only thing that works is to either drive the kids around in the car or take them for a stroller ride. They only own a single stroller so the toddler rides and the baby is in a wrap for the walk.

The mom, who is EXHAUSTED, takes them for a walk and the one year old passes out in the stroller. She heads back home to SIT and have a little time where she's got them both asleep. She sits on the front step and has to rock the stroller back and forth to keep the toddler asleep and because there isn't shade at her steps she has to hold an umbrella over her and the kids.

That's her naptime. Pushing a stroller forward and backward, sling carrying the baby, and holding an umbrella over their heads. All the while, just a few feet away is two empty cribs, cable tv, internet, and a couch. She doesn't put the two un their beds and plop herself down on the couch because.... she doesn't want them to cry.

I have this image in my head and all I can think of is "aren't you TIRED?". I'm exhausted thinking about this life of yours and I can think of something else. You live it.

I think about how labor intensive it is to parent this way. I deal with providers who, because the care that mimics their parental care is SO labor intensive, they are trying to figure out a way to keep the kid without going crazy or going broke. There's no money in one to one care in a group setting.

I think about the huge upfront investment of time and energy it takes to have SO much of the parenting time be physically attached in the purest sense of the word. Short of having them put back in the womb, I can't figure a way you COULD do more.

I wonder what the end game is? I read about attachment kids having higher IQ's and better health. I get that these core measurable outcomes are going to be promoted even if the research compares them to a group of Romanian orphans.

What I don't get is why, after a good long time of this style of parenting being popular and an ever increasing number of parents claiming it, is the outcomes not so apparent .... so unmistakable.... that school systems, developmental researchers, churches, doctors, and child cares spot the kids for their high quality outcomes.

I would think by now, a Kindergarten teacher could tell which kids were parented this way within a few weeks of having them in their classrooms. I would think their test scores would be significantly higher in every core area of studies. I would think their behavioral outcomes such as calm, focused, tolerant, empathetic, non violent would be easily seen in comparison to their peers who did not have the good fortune of being raised this way.

I expect those promoting it who make money off of it to be able to identify the excellent outcomes. I also would expect those who don't have a dog in the fight to be able to too. That's what I don't see.

I hold this style of parenting at a higher standard because the line has been drawn with the claim that crying causes brain damage. If these kids have the first five years with their needs and wants being quickly.met to avoid crying brain damage then they SHOULD stand out amongst the group where the brain damaged kids are sitting next to them in class.

Teachers especially should be able to spot them a mile away. Providers should be able to tell that their preschoolers had an infancy of this type of care. These kids should have OBVIOUS differences in the core areas of health, intelligence, behavior. The adults who don't make money off of them should be coming forward and going public with their findings. When something phenomenal is happening en masse the world finds out about it quicklike. The parents share it but where are the ones who benefit from it and are in awe of it coming forward?

I think of the newbie mom who most likely wants the best for her kid. I think about asking her about what she foresees as the end game for her VERY hard and selfless minute to minute. I know she believes what she is doing is right. I just fear that by the time she realizes that all of that effort didn't make a bit of difference or possibly hurt her child's first public experience... I wonder if she will think that she paid a heavy price to make sure her kids didn't cry.

The price on the providers is very high. Few are equipped to replicate this parenting style. I worry about the stress on the providers and the cumulative stress of getting nearly every baby with some version of a no cry home life.

I worry that this is a scam and in combination with the other things going on in the care and raising kids like screen addiction, poor diet, poor sleep, poor exercise, that we are going to see a decline in the quality of kids behavior and health at a rate we have never seen before in our country's history.

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