Dear attachment parents,
I’m beginning to wonder if you love your children as much as I love mine.
Why? Lots of reasons:
As I wrote last week, natural childbirth advocates seem to have a very difficult time bonding to their own babies. That’s the message that I take away from your endless whining about how epidurals, C-sections and bottlefeeding undermine the mother-infant bond. Why do you have so much trouble doing what every other woman does naturally?
I also wrote that I don’t understand why lactivists, who insist that letting a baby cry it out (CIO) causes brain damage if you are trying to convince that baby to go to sleep, appear to have no problems letting a hungry breastfed baby CIO rather than supplement with formula.
But there are other reasons, too. For example, why do natural childbirth advocates insist that a healthy baby “isn’t enough”? It was more than enough for me and for most women who really love our babies. Don’t you love your babies that much, too?
And why do you joke about the “dead baby card”? Is it really a joke if your baby dies during childbirth?
Who in the world cares so little about their babies that they take immunology advice from Jenny McCarthy instead of from a pediatrician, immunologist or public health official? I love my children enough to be sure I get medical advice from medical professionals. Why don’t you care about your babies enough to do the same?
My four children are grown up now, but I love them enough that I would have given my right arm to spare them serious pain or illness, and my very life to save theirs. I still would. It’s not something I planned or sought. It just happened naturally when they were born. So it truly baffles me that you apparently don’t feel the same.
Don’t bother telling me that my words makes you angry. That’s what happens when you feel guilty and defensive about the fact that I am a better mother than you, and you know it.
Wait, what? I’m making you feel guilty? Puh-leese!! No one can make you feel guilty unless you truly are guilty.
I’m not trying to make you feel guilty. I’m just stating the obvious. You clearly don’t love your children as much as I love mine, and if that makes you feel bad, you have only yourself to blame.
*****
Have I gotten your attention, attachment parents? Is your blood boiling at my insinuations?
It ought to be, because those insinuations are deliberately nasty, vicious, and meant to wound in the worst possible way. So why did I write it?
Simple. I wanted to show you what the bilge you spew in your blogs, websites and message boards feels like to those you target. It doesn’t feel good to be targeted in this (highly effective) way, does it? So why are you doing it to everyone who doesn’t mirror your own choices back to you.
Why do natural childbirth advocates insinuate or state that women who choose pain relief in labor are “drugging” their babies?
Why do lactivists imply or state that women who don’t breastfeed are lazy and selfish?
Why do attachment parents muse that the peace would reign across the land if only everyone else were an attachment parent, too?
And, why, in the ultimate irony, do the uneducated fools who are vaccine rejectionists insist that denying their children life saving vaccines is an educated and loving choice, when it is the exact opposite?
Why? Because they want to wound other mothers in the worst possible way. And, much to their glee and self-satisfaction, it works just as intended.
*****
I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt here. Perhaps you didn’t know. Or maybe you didn’t truly understand what it feels like to have your love for your children questioned. If so, you can always apologize.
Remove the snarky illustrations and language from your websites. Stop insinuating on message boards that everyone who doesn’t mirror your own choices is lazy and selfish. Stop accusing women who tell you that they were wounded by the memes you posted on Facebook that they feel bad because they feel guilty.
Are you capable of that? Are you able to acknowledge that women who make different choices love their children just as fiercely as you love yours?
I have my doubts. Prove me wrong.
