Well, I’m setting aside my exploration of the possible answers for a while because I have too much other stuff running around in my head right now. We went for out first session of therapy today and I have to say I am now a little scared, for two reasons. One, S- sees things in a much worse light that I thought. And I’m not really seeing that he sees a lot of hope in things improving. Two, we have inadvertently landed on a very anti-AP therapist. Right now I need to deal with the AP part because the S- part would be better addresses in my thoughts about reasons we are going. Plus I need to get my thoughts out in order to “fight back.”
Problem 1 with having an anti-AP therapist is that DH has never been on board 100% on the whole thing. To be honest, I wish I had never mentioned the term Attachment Parenting to him, because that is not really what we are doing, at least not in the dogmatic way of most people who identify themselves with attachment parenting. We don’t co-sleep and never really did, I weaned my son in a very parent-led manner, it was gentle but it was decidedly not his choice, I work outside the home nearly 25 hours a week, purely by choice, I use time outs (though we call it chair time and I sit near him) , and I use the threat and follow-through of separation to get him to go to sleep at night. However, I firmly believe in the absolute importance of the relationship of mother and child, and that a close, attached relationship early in life is THE BEST foundation for the child’s future life.*
But S- has latched onto the idea of attachment parenting as the sole root cause of G-‘s sleep problems. He fails to realize how far from attachment parenting we really are and insists that I have some kind of “agenda” in my parenting and that I’m following some system regardless for wether it works for our child. But we are not following some of the base tennents of AP specifically because I found they did not work for our child. Co-sleeping is a prime example. He is also convince I spend hours comparing notes with other attachment parents and that all the tiem I spend on-line, “chatting with my girlfriends” as he says, is some way in furherence of this AP agenda. He has a fair gripe that I spend to much time on line, but in fact, almost none of it is spent in AP communities as I have long since been ostrisised for my un-AP practices. I actually spend more time in infertility circles than AP ones, and most of my time is spent with a first time moms group that is very mixed to the point of including some folks following Ezzo.**
So S- brings up the idea of AP in our session today and we spent a lot of time focusing on the differences in our views on parenting and how this is impacting our marriage. By the end of the session, the therapist was convince that G- runs our house and it is completely because of him that we are having marital problems. She had S- nearly convinced that this was our main problem, until we left and were discussing it. And eventually I got him back to what I see as the real problem: the intimacy issues. He agrees, of course, and since we had some of these problems before G-, it can’t be all because of him. But I am afraid that the therapist will be able to divert attention away from the real issues and convince S- that my parenting choises are the problem. Or at the very least, create more friction between us due to parenting issues, when I really believe that while those issues may be exacerbating the problem, the root is something else entirely.
Problem 2 with having an anti-AP therapist is that I think it will likely color her counseling. I think she may not be able to accept that it is possible to do some version of AP and still have a healthy marriage. And this is where my real disagreement with her begins. She drew a little diagram of what she says is the healthy parent child relationship. The parents are parallel on top and the child is below. She said we need to put our own individual needs first and then our needs as a couple and then the needs of the child. And the more I think about it, the more I realize I just fundamentally disagree with that analysis. I absolutely agree that it is very important to have a strong marriage, that we need to make the health of our marriage more of a priority. I also agree that it is important for each of us to take care of our own needs. However, I simply do not accept that the needs of the child should come last. In my mind, all people in all relationships should be of equal importance.
For any relationship to be healthy, I believe the needs of all the individuals in the relationship need to be considered equally. Just because one of those individuals is a child should not automatically render his needs less important. In fact I believe there is a period of time, from birth to about, say, 2 years, that the needs of the child absolutely should come first, by simple virtue of the fact that the child cannot see to his own needs. I also think the fact that a child under two has no comprehension of the needs of others has to play into the treatment of young children. They simply do not understand that the world does not exist for them, and a parent ignoring the needs of a child or putting their own needs first is teaching the child that his needs are not important and will not be met. Somewhere around 2 years old, they begin to gain the capability to recognize that others have needs as well.
If we accept that all people need to take care of their own needs first, we have to consider the fact that an infant or young child cannot really take care his own needs as he has no way of enforcing what he needs. That means it is up to the parents to make sure the child’s needs receive equal consideration. This, in my mind is one of the sacrifices of parenting. I chose to have a child and he is now my responsibility. I do not get to continue living my life as if he did not exist. Nor do I want to. His childhood is a very short time in both my life and the life of our marriage and we should be able to make that temporary sacrifice without it destroying our relationship.
Where I see common ground with our therapist is that I do believe it is possible for the parents to continue to put the needs of the child first when it is time to be transitioning to a place that everyone’s needs are equal. I think we have reached that point, and she is absolutely right that we need to begin to help G- respect that his parents have needs that are equally important to his. I do not believe that this will require a fundamental change in parenting style. He has come a long way in the past few months, learning to play by himself for longer periods and sleeping much longer periods. I see no reason that we cannot continue to make improvement with out ignoring him when he calls.
She asked what I would say if she told me that the more gradual transition I was suggesting would result in more distance in the marriage. I answered that I saw no reason we couldn’t work on the two things simultaneously. And I still don’t. As I said before, I think it is possible that some aspects of our disagreement over parenting are probably contributing to marital stress, but the actual fact of the way we are parenting, is not the problem. After all, G- is in bed on most nights by 8pm and we do not go to bed until 10 or 11. That should be plenty of time for us to connect as a couple but we aren’t. Being able to put William in his room and have him put himself to sleep would not really affect that. In fact, if it meant listening to him cry for me, it would totally ruin any chance of us enjoying one another and it would make me very resentful. It might help if he slept a little bit later but I can’t see that forcing him into it with a week of sleep training would help the marriage that much more than taking a month or two to work on it with him gently.
So why, you might ask, do I want to continue to see this therapist? Well, she comes highly recommended from sources I trust, S- likes her and this therapy thing is really his deal, and in the end, I believe having to defend my parenting choices to her will both strengthen my own resolve and help explain to S- why I feel the way I do. Also, I agree with much of what she said about what the endpoint needs to be, I just don’t agree with her recommendations of how to get there. But I think there is a lot to be gained from hearing the other side because I know in my heart it is possible to have exactly the same healthy relationship between parents even while practicing some form of attachment parenting. If it weren’t possible, AP parents would be getting divorced all over the place and they are not. At least not any more than anyone else. SO hearing where she thinks we need to be, and getting there, still being true to my own parenting beliefs, will go a long way in reinforcing for me, for S- and maybe even for the therapist, that AP ideas are OK and can still allow for a good marriage.
*Interestingly, I heard a lecture today by an emergency medicine physician on the relationship of poverty to health. His specific area of study is health trends in populations and the relationship of wealth and health. Among other truly fascinating things, he said that the single greatest factor in determining a child’s future health is the secure, early attachment of the child to his mother. He also commented in passing that people in Nepal, though desperately poor by our standards are generally healthier and happier, and they never let their children cry. I have much more to say about this lecture but it will be a whole post unto itself.
**Who I have to agree with Jo (I think?) is pure evil.
I think that what you wrote on why you want to continue to see this therapist is good. Especially if you have to defend your beliefs because it will help you see what is important to you and help your husband to see how you feel and why it is important to you. Good luck. I hope things work out well for you.
Posted by: -A- | July 14, 2005 at 10:06 AM