Time magazine cover suggests attachment parenting has gone too far
Time magazine cover: TV networks blur breast image
Time magazine cover shows mom breast-feeding young son; Jamie Lynn Grumet practices ‘attachment parenting’
Time magazine cover suggests attachment parenting has gone too far
Time magazine’s latest cover photo has created quite a buzz: A super-trim, blonde 26-year-old mother standing in skinny jeans and a tank top, hand on hip, chest thrust out with an exposed breast -- affixed to which is the mouth of her 3-year-old son, who’s standing on a stool to reach it. The magazine is marking the 20-year anniversary of “attachment parenting”, a phrase coined by Dr. Bill Sears and his wife Martha in The Baby Book, a best-seller that came out in 1992.
Attachment parenting advocates for keeping your baby as close to your body as possible -- at pretty much all times. Parents are supposed to wear their babies in slings, instead of pushing them in strollers. Mothers breastfeed their toddlers, some through nursery school. And parents co-sleep with their kids in the same room, with babies in attached bassinets and older kids in the bed.
“The essence of attachment parenting is about forming and nurturing strong connections between parents and their children,” reads the website of Attachment Parenting International. “It is to raise children who will become adults with a highly developed capacity for empathy and connection. It eliminates violence as a means for raising children, and ultimately helps to prevent violence in society as a whole.”
I’m curious, though, whether that’s been validated in research studies. A quick Medline search of the term “attachment parenting” yielded many studies showing that kids who don’t form strong attachments to their parents are worse off than those who do, but none that I saw that actually tested the precepts of attachment parenting like co-sleeping and prolonged breastfeeding.
Sears claims on his website that the latest research reveals that infants’ brains are “hardwired with strong needs to be nurtured and to remain physically close to the primary caregiver, usually the mother, during the first few years of life.”
That’s most likely true, but does that mean mothers need to give up their professional lives for several years to keep baby close to them at all times? Also, what happens to a couple’s sex life when baby makes three in bed? And where’s the fine line between being an attached parent and becoming one of those nuisance helicopter parents that kids try to escape by heading across country to college?
I’d like to know what you think of Time’s cover and attachment parenting in general.
http://www.boston.com/Boston/dailydose/2012/05/has-attachment-parenting-gone-too-far-time-magazine-cover-says-yes/euGWReA98P8yRCUnjFklbO/story.html
Time magazine cover: TV networks blur breast image
TV programs love talking about the controversial new Time magazine cover. They're just a little shy about showing the whole thing.
For a story about "attachment parenting" — whose leading proponent, Dr. Bill Sears, advocates such extreme parenting techniques as "extended breast-feeding" — the magazine photographed 3-year-old Adam Grumet with his mouth over the partly exposed breast of his mom, Jamie Lynn Grumet.
Time editors have made no apologies, arguing that the point of a magazine cover is to get attention. And attention it got across the TV dial on Thursday — although the image proved a little too much for many.
"I'll tell you why that bothers me," said Mika Brzezinski, cohost of "Morning Joe" on MSNBC, who appeared irritated by the image. "It's a profile of Bill Sears, and that's a young, attractive woman." The cable news network — which has a weekly segment with Time to talk about stories — blurred out Grumet's breast and showed the entire cover only from a distance.
ABC's "The View" likewise lavished attention on the cover but felt compelled to cover up Grument's breast with a black circle.
But not everyone is following that approach. A Fox News spokeswoman told Show Tracker the network — which hasn't yet covered, so to speak, the story — doesn't plan to restrict the image if a segment does materialize. A spokeswoman for CNN did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
Time magazine cover shows mom breast-feeding young son; Jamie Lynn Grumet practices ‘attachment parenting’
For Jamie Lynn Grumet, breast-feeding goes beyond newborn nutrition.
It’s love and comfort that should be extended until whenever the mother and child are ready to wean.
Grumet, a 26 year-old parenting blogger who is seen offering her nipple to her nearly 4 year-old year-old son Aram on the cover of this week’s Time magazine, is happy to be the newest face of attachment parenting.
Attachment parenting is the theory supported by Dr. William Sears, based on the notion that the strong emotional bond forged during early childhood has lifelong benefits.
Grumet told Time magazine that she was breast-fed until she was six years-old.
“She wasn’t a hippie. Everyone thinks she must have been because we lived in Northern California,” she said. “My dad did go to Berkeley, but he was a nutritional scientist. My parents were really into nutrition, that’s why.”
She said she remembers the being breast-fed and the positive feelings associated with it.
“It’s really warm. It’s like embracing your mother, like a hug. You feel comforted, nurtured and really, really loved,” she said. “I had so much self-confidence as a child, and I know it’s from that. I never felt like she would ever leave me. I felt that security.”
Grumet, who is also the mother to an adopted son, said breast-feeding him helped ease the trauma of bringing him home.
“I didn’t realize how much it would help my attachment to him,” she said. “When his English improved, because the connection was there, he didn’t do it as much. So now he’ll do it maybe once a month.”
The idea of attachment parenting and extended breast-feeding isn’t new.
Dr. Sears made waves on the subject when he wrote “The Baby Book” in 1992. Earlier this year, actress Mayim Bialik penned her own book on the subject called “Beyond the Sling.”
She still breast-feeds her own son, who is nearly four years old.
There’s no real rule on when to stop breast-feeding.
About 75% of American moms nurse their babies, yet only 44% are still doing it by the time the child is 6 months old, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.
The World Health Organization encourages all mothers to breastfeed until the age of two, along with appropriate foods.
Grumet is aware that the photos she posts to her blog as well as her cover photo are shocking to some.
“There are people who tell me they’re going to call social services on me or that it’s child molestation,” she said. “People have to realize this is biologically normal. It’s not socially normal. The more people see it, the more it’ll become normal in our culture.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/time-magazine-cover-shows-mom-breast-feeding-young-son-jamie-lynn-grumet-practices-attachment-parenting-article-1.1075654#ixzz1uVt3kEEq
Time magazine cover shows mom breast-feeding young son; Jamie Lynn Grumet practices ‘attachment parenting’
For Jamie Lynn Grumet, breast-feeding goes beyond newborn nutrition.
It’s love and comfort that should be extended until whenever the mother and child are ready to wean.
Grumet, a 26 year-old parenting blogger who is seen offering her nipple to her nearly 4 year-old year-old son Aram on the cover of this week’s Time magazine, is happy to be the newest face of attachment parenting.
Attachment parenting is the theory supported by Dr. William Sears, based on the notion that the strong emotional bond forged during early childhood has lifelong benefits.
Grumet told Time magazine that she was breast-fed until she was six years-old.
“She wasn’t a hippie. Everyone thinks she must have been because we lived in Northern California,” she said. “My dad did go to Berkeley, but he was a nutritional scientist. My parents were really into nutrition, that’s why.”
She said she remembers the being breast-fed and the positive feelings associated with it.
“It’s really warm. It’s like embracing your mother, like a hug. You feel comforted, nurtured and really, really loved,” she said. “I had so much self-confidence as a child, and I know it’s from that. I never felt like she would ever leave me. I felt that security.”
Grumet, who is also the mother to an adopted son, said breast-feeding him helped ease the trauma of bringing him home.
“I didn’t realize how much it would help my attachment to him,” she said. “When his English improved, because the connection was there, he didn’t do it as much. So now he’ll do it maybe once a month.”
The idea of attachment parenting and extended breast-feeding isn’t new.
Dr. Sears made waves on the subject when he wrote “The Baby Book” in 1992. Earlier this year, actress Mayim Bialik penned her own book on the subject called “Beyond the Sling.”
She still breast-feeds her own son, who is nearly four years old.
There’s no real rule on when to stop breast-feeding.
About 75% of American moms nurse their babies, yet only 44% are still doing it by the time the child is 6 months old, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.
The World Health Organization encourages all mothers to breastfeed until the age of two, along with appropriate foods.
Grumet is aware that the photos she posts to her blog as well as her cover photo are shocking to some.
“There are people who tell me they’re going to call social services on me or that it’s child molestation,” she said. “People have to realize this is biologically normal. It’s not socially normal. The more people see it, the more it’ll become normal in our culture.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/time-magazine-cover-shows-mom-breast-feeding-young-son-jamie-lynn-grumet-practices-attachment-parenting-article-1.1075654#ixzz1uVw5YS7Y
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