60 Minutes Australia can fuck off!

I'm not kidding, they really can. I told them as much in an email. I may have used the phrase "yellow journalism" as well. Fuckers.

I'm pissed because they featured a story on their October 22nd broadcast called, "Being there". No, I don't watch 60 Minutes Australia. Someone on the parenting listserv back in Lawrence that I still belong to posted about it. It's supposed to be a story about Attachment Parenting, but it ends up making AP parents looks like radical, permissive kooks. Attachment Parenting, in case you don't know, is a parenting philosophy that advocates building a strong bond with your baby through things like breastfeeding, co-sleeping, and "baby-wearing" (using a carrier as much as is practical so the baby gets the benefit of lots of physical contact), along with "gentle" or "positive" discipline (which in practice means a lot of things, but primarily non-violent). The idea is that if you establish this strong attachment, your kids will develop into secure, emotionally-healthy, peaceful people.

Before I even knew I had a parenting "philosophy", I knew that these things made sense to me and described the kind of approach I intened to take to parenting an infant, at least. This parenting group back in Lawrence (I've written a bit about them before and how much I miss their support) is an Attachment Parenting group. We're not affiliated with the international organization - mostly we're a bunch like-minded parents. I got in touch with the group initially because I didn't know anyone, apart from far-flung family, that had small kids and I felt like I needed to make friends with other parents. Critical! It was only later that I realized I'd happened into the right group for me, and felt lucky to be surrounded by people who fully supported, and could give informed advice about, the choices I was making as a parent. Hell, I don't even like to refer to a "parenting philosophy" - sounds a little like I'm in est, or a scientologist or something. We don't have a secret handshake or anything. I think some parents tend to gravitate together because what we're doing is not particularly well-represented in the mainstream media or popular culture.

Ok, back to the 60 Minutes story - so, they misrepresent AP parents from the begining. They chose to profile parents who go waaaaay beyond any AP parent I've ever met. They open with an image of a woman with big ol' boobies tandem nursing her daughters. They totally play on people's squicky response to breastfeeding in general, and especially breastfeeding toddlers and young children (apparently there are many cultural similarities between Australia and the United States on this subject). Also, they misrepresent AP as taking a "no discipline" approach and they lump a bunch of other random shit under the AP rubric which doesn't belong there at all. Notice that I've said nothing thus far about home-schooling, home-birth, and Elimination Communication ("EC" - not using diapers, essentially) among other things. Now, it's true that some AP parents are also home-schoolers, or had home births, or only wear Birkenstocks, or drive fucking Volvos, or only name their children after natural features of the landscape, but that doesn't mean that those are AP principles simply by association!

AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaagh!

They even go as far as showing the tandem-nurser mom expressing some breast milk and applying it to some sort of rash on one of her kids. Wtf?! What can that POSSIBLY have to do with AP?! It may be a perfectly fine idea, I don't know, that's not the point. The point was, I can guess, to show how far-out and nutty that family is. In fact, that women's breasts get more airplay than anything else in this story. They also have a midwife on who practices AP with her kids, and she actually does a fairly good job of talking about her parenting philosophy in the face of what I would characterize as derision from the "journalist", but every time she talks about her approach to discipline, they cut to a shot of her 3 year old crying, or screaming, or generally melting down. Please! I don't care what parenting approach you take, if you have a toddler, you're going to have to deal with crying and screaming. But they were doing it in a way that made it look like her kid was completely out of control.

Then to top it all off, they have on a child psychologist (Dr. John Irvine) who makes the claim that AP parents are actually subjecting their children to "emotional abuse". I'm not kidding, that's a direct quote. Now, I don't know anything about this guy, I've never heard of him before, but he's totally off his nut if he really believes that. Now, I suspect that what he's really refering to are those parents who don't set any limits with their kids. I suppose that would be "no discipline", and I'm sure that does lead to insecure, entitled assholes. You'll get no argument from me about that. If that's the case then, he needs to get his fucking story straight about what he's actually talking about, rather than talking out of his ass. There are many child development experts and pediatricians who endorse an AP approach, by the way (Drs. Sears and Jay Gordon are two of the most well-known), NONE of whom were interviewed in this piece. AND, they don't even mention that there's an international organization, let alone interview a representative. No! That would potentially put AP in a positive light. Asswipes!

Why am I so upset about this? I don't know exactly - part of it's because it's such a crappy, distorted, bullshit piece of "journalism", and part of it's because I feel personally slighted. It's just so frustrating. I know a lot of parents who could be characterized as AP, and most of them are smart, sane, nice folks. None of them are strident about it. They represent a broad spectrum of choices: some breastfed for 2 months, some for 4+ years. Some co-sleep, some don't. Most all of them have used a sling or other baby carrier for some period of time, but they also use strollers. Many of them have caught grief from family or friends (or even complete strangers!) for some of the choices they've made. Like most parents, they're just trying to do right by their kids without completely screwing them up.

That's my goal, anyway.

Now, any parent can choose whatever approach works for them, I don't care. Oh, I'll probably judge you IN MY MIND, but that's because I'm that way. I'd never actually SAY anything to you unsolicited. Actually, I'm quite sympathetic to the plight of most parents. All it takes is your first toddler meltdown in a public place to knock the smug right out of you. I'm also happy to explain at length why I've made the choices I have, because you know they're well-informed at least. If you know me at all you know I've approached parenting the same way I approach just about anything - research, research, RESEARCH. Why didn't you call ME, 60 MINUTES?!? Too boring?! Not willing to wag my boobies on TV?! Oh HO! Little do you know.

Phew! I feel better now. Thanks for letting me get that hot lump of screed out.