Daughterhood, sisterhood and attachment parenting

I got involved in a discussion about breastfeeding and early child care today. This is a subject that I can carry my end of the conversation with, despite not being a parent. I was around it all for years, and the babies in my family and our extended family/friends were breastfed for a really long time. I mean, the kids in our family were still breastfeeding when they were old enough to hold conversations about it. I agree with breastfeeding for as many years as the mother and child need, and I agree that women should be able to breastfeed in public.

This led to the topic of attachment parenting, as it’s all related. And I am writing this as a daughter and a sister, not as a mom. I know there are varying degrees of attachment parenting, but I didn’t even know until recently that there was a word for what that is. I only knew a general description. I knew that in many, many households, babies come into the home in carriers and sleep in cribs, and that in our household, the babies spent a lot of time in people’s arms. I knew that babies slept with their parents in our house, while in other households, the babies always seemed to sleep in another room. I knew that in our home, if it was warm, the baby would often be wearing just his or her diaper and maybe a little cotton t-shirt, and other than that there was a lot of skin on skin contact. I even slipped into these patterns quite naturally when I was a nanny for a six month old baby. Once the baby and I got used to each other, I would carry him a lot, in my arms. I even started carrying him in some pretty odd positions, that I had only seen in my own home, where you hold one leg and let the rest of the baby balance on your arm. I did this without thinking; I just realized I was doing it one day. I also remember, as a kid, watching my mom sit the sunny spot by the window and letting the baby crawl around without anything on, to let his or her body get fresh air. I remember how happy it made the baby, because most babies love being nudie. I remember the baby looking at the mommy and they were both so happy, having that little moment in their day to just bask in something so simple and wonderful. I also remember laying down a blanket in the living room or out in front of the house at sunset and hanging out, and all of our attention would end up going towards the baby or toddler because there was so much joy and energy coming from its little body. These were moments that, I’m sure, we all benefitted from. I knew that our household wasn’t the only one in the world that was like this, but when I talked about it with friends, I didn’t quite know how to describe it. I just understood that there was something very much non-assembly line going on in our household, and it the households of a lot of my parents’ friends. Along with this seemed to come a very extreme feeling that the child was being treated as an individual little person with its own individual personality, and not just a wearer of all things blue or pink. I’m sure it’s like this for most kids, but maybe since ours was OURS, it seemed like so much more than a baby. I’m sure the parenting had a lot to do with it though, affecting both the baby and my view of the baby.

When I was younger I assumed that I would have kids someday. This, of course, was before nannyhood changed me. The baby that I nannied for had an older sister who I also cared for, and she came out of hell and made my biological clock freeze over in a way that nothing has ever melted, not even those wonderful memories of my younger siblings. I used to stare at those parents that I worked for, and it hit me with such force that something so evil could come out of two perfectly normal people, and I knew then that it could happen to anyone, no matter how good your prenatal care was. Things like that just happen in nature. It’s a risk that other people take. These people took that risk, and I wanted to call in an exorcist for that poor little girl, with her head all spinning around and pea soup shooting out of her mouth.

Before all this, though, in the long long ago time, I used to really want kids. I also knew that it wouldn’t matter if I had children at the same time as my friends or not, because I would probably be raising them a lot differently than my peers. When pressed to describe this “different” way, I could only say that they’d probably get frustrated watching me parent my children. They’d probably think I was too lax and didn’t do things in a normal way. The breastfeeding would go on for years, and the offspring would be a high priority. I wouldn’t work, and that wouldn’t be because I think the mom belongs at home, it would just be because I belong at home, and wouldn’t want it any other way. I couldn’t have imagined anyone else raising me other than my mom. And I couldn’t imagine having to wait for her to come home, and only getting a bracketed amount of time to spend with her each day and each week. And, most importantly, I wouldn’t want to miss out on those precious years that go by so quickly. My sister had it the same way, in that she was able to raise her daughter without having to work full time, and it showed. Her daughter never felt like she was anything less than her mom’s highest priority. They were very much in tune with each other, especially in those very early years when a little kid’s mommy is the world to them.

Parenthood is a lot of work, and no matter what, people deserve a lot of props for what they go through in raising their little ones. Night terrors, trails of toys around the house, having to worry when they’re sick, having to make every decision knowing that it’s going to affect someone’s life; it’s a harder job than anything else you’ll ever do with your life. I’ll have to enjoy it from the sidelines, and believe me, I am watching in awe.

I would, in fact, eat Green Eggs and Ham

Ian, Lisa and I were born in hospitals. The other 2 sibs were born at home. We moved to California because our cabin burned down while we were spending the summer in Mt. Shasta. There are very few baby pics of Chad and me, because most of them burned in the fire. I feel like I came into the world while Chad and I were running out of the house, in Lompoc, with the subject of “bath time” hovering in the air. I don’t know if we were prepped for the bath, but I just remember looking down at little bare toes. Something important was happening: I was beginning to remember. And I didn’t have the words at my disposal to describe it to my parents. I just had “dark before, not dark now”. I have an obnoxiously good memory, for some things. Not for everything. I met my sister Lisa when I was three. She was 9, and Chad was 4. I don’t remember the act of meeting her, but her face was etched into my memory and I recognized her on our second visit. I guess the first couple of homes I lived in had outhouses instead of a bathroom. I still get excited when I hear the sound of a tent being unzipped. It’s the sound of waking up outdoors, and it’s the sound of the beginning of a great day. I space out like nobody’s business. Like I’m in a trance. It has taken most of my life to figure out how to try to work with this, since it is both a handicap and an aid to my creative endeavors. I met Brad when I was five, and we are still friends to this day. We talk or text at least a couple times a month. Ian came into our lives when I was five, and I started loving him on the way to the hospital to meet him. We used to pick up hitchhikers all the time when I was a kid. Dad always addressed them as, “Brother”, and, when I was really young, I used to think it really was his brother, because I mean, we were pulling over for him and letting him into our car with us. We camped a LOT when I was a kid. It was more than just camping; it was our way of life. I have a very vivid memory of riding in a VW van and watching mom and dad switch seats without pulling over. We moved into our permanent home in 1977, and mom and dad still live there. I stuck my foot into a shoe with a baby scorpion in it when I was around 7, and laced my shoes up before the pain kicked in. I learned to read when I was five, and as I recall, it was inspired by Lisa changing the words while reading to me, to mess with me (she would just throw my name into stories). Asia was born at home when I was 8, and I helped with the birth. I knew she was a girl before she was born, and I finally got a little sister that I could mess with too. She puked on my face once while I was lying in a hammock. She was just a baby. But I guess the messin goes both ways. When I was 7, I met Angela. We are still friends and talk all the time. We lived in Oregon for five months while I was 9. I picked blackberries and had mosquito bites and poison oak all summer long. My other summers as a kid were excruciatingly hot. My dad used to tell us that the stickers on the bananas were for putting on your forehead. I stopped doing that about five years ago. There were a lot of chuckawallas in the desert around our house when I was a kid, and they scared the shit out of me. Even lizards in cages scared me, if they were big enough. Because I was little, and they were like dinosaurs to me. My hips used to get red and irritated all the time from carrying Asia while wearing corduroys. It was worth it. I was home-schooled for most of 4th grade and all of 5th. My favorite memory of my dog, Katy, was when she peed on me when she met a horse for the first time. It was very hard to get used to public school when I went back. But I did adjust. I used to check the bathtub every single morning, because of that scene in “The Shining”. My day couldn’t start until I knew for sure that there wasn’t a dead body in our tub. And I was fourteen. I met Steph Fowler in Jr. High school. We worked together for two summers at the Kid’s Club in Joshua Tree. We are still friends to this day and we get together twice a week for exercise. We bonded over our common interest in art. In the summer of 88 I flew off of the handlebars of my friend Shawn’s bicycle and acquired several permanent scars. I was in crutches for a month, and Shawn and I dated for 3 ½ years. Shawn was the most fun person I have ever known. And I have known a lot of fun people. I fell off of a horse once because I fell asleep while riding bareback. I moved into the basement of my sister Lisa’s house in January of 1992 and lived there for 5 months. This was the first of 24 moves in the last fifteen years. I was told I wouldn’t like living in Orange County and L.A., “The City”, because of traffic. Driving on freeways was the first thing I fell in love with. I could tell my niece was an old soul, even when she was an infant. I took up rock climbing for a while when I was 22. That hobby didn’t stick. I wrecked my car in Sausalito when I was 21. I still don’t trust my depth perception. It’s probably fine, but I don’t trust it. I can put my leg behind my head. But don’t ask me to. I love taking off from John Wayne airport, because it has one of the steepest take-offs of any airport. I love driving behind LAX, because the airplanes fly over me so low. I met Chrystine, Sandra, and Janae all about ten years ago. I can talk to them about anything. Even if I don’t know what I’m talking about, they do. I would in fact eat green eggs and ham. I wouldn’t need any further coercing. Just give it here. I fell in love with painting in pre-school, when I was fingerpainting and crying at the same time and it made me feel better. If it weren’t for Dr. Pepper, I’d never drink soda. But I love that stuff. Sometimes I wish I was gay, and it’s not because I’m sick of men. It’s because if you’re gay, you are kindof guaranteed to not have an ordinary life. Plus, I mean, boobs are fun for everybody. For a while, when I was living in Santa Barbara, I had no driver’s license, no registration, and no insurance. I got so stressed every time I saw a CHP, I finally started riding my bike everywhere. I highly recommend the bike trails in Santa Barbara. There’s a ton of them, and they’re beautiful. Sometimes I start dancing and singing when I’m alone in elevators. Okay, I do that everywhere.