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Not that you’d know about this, but African and indigenous South American women have been wearing their babies in wraps on their backs, and breastfeeding their kids through early childhood for centuries. And many modern single moms, out of necessity, have been co-sleeping with their children through late childhood years since forever.

However, when a world renowned doctor and parenting expert Dr. Sears assembles those practices along with 6 other steps for growing confident children it is called “Attachment Parenting,” making news and going viral. It also gets a coveted TIME magazine cover.

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Hey, Time Magazine: I Am a Black Attachment Parent | Political News and Opinion from a Multicultural Point of View

KellyNaturally.com | What Attachment Parenting Is (and What It's Not) →

Connected Mom: Open Letter To Mainstream Media →

I am not being oppressed by my parenting style. Thanks for your concern but you are missing a key piece of the story. You see; I am not solely responsible for building and maintaining my child’s sense of attachment.

Exactly. Attachment parenting wasn’t meant to exist in a vacuum of one isolated mother and her children. It’s a natural child-raising culture, but it reflects the millennia of how parents raised their children only if the village is intact. On the one hand, having been plenty isolated myself, I totally sympathize with parents who find AP hard due to lack of support. On the other hand, refusing to acknowledge the role that other trusted caregivers have in AP (particularly partners, who I think get the shortest shrift in these conversations) just reinforces those silly modern stereotypes that parenting is meant to be done alone. 

More TIME Magazine links roundup

Well, seeing as it’s officially Sunday, I’ve run out of time to read and comment on the rest of the articles discussing the TIME article in my Reader. Herewith I will simply paste them all and leave you to it, if you want to delve further:

• Mom: Breastfeeding Kid, 3, “Not for Everybody” (interview with Jamie Lynne Grumet) — Hulu/NBC Today Show
• In Defense of My Friend Jamie Lynne Grumet — TIME’s Breastfeeding Cover Girl — Shannon Bradley-Colleary at Huffington Post
• Whipping It Out for Toddlers — MamaLady
• A Critical Response to Time Magazine — The Accidental Natural Mama
• Thanks for nothing, TIME magazine — A Gift Universe
• Breastfeeding: A Private and Sacred Act? — Dulce de leche
• What’s More Offensive Than TIME’s Breastfeeding Cover Story? This PR Pitch… — The Feminist Breeder
• TIME Widening the Gap — The Adventures of Lactating Girl
• Time — the bee in your bonnet
• Musing on the Time Cover and Attachment Parenting — Musing Mommy
• links: the Time magazine controversy. — boho mama
• Five Truths About Attachment Parenting — The Variegated Life
• breastfeeding is not norm — Organic Baby Atlanta
• TIME: Ask the RIGHT questions! — MomsRising
• Six misconceptions about “extended” breastfeeding — The Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog
• On Being Mom Enough — To Have The Conversation That TIME Started — Her Bad Mother
• Why I Am Loving Every Moment of the TIME Cover Debate — Jennifer James Online
• A Response to “The” Time Magazine Article — Our Muddy Boots
• Wouldn’t you rather be Mom AUTHENTIC? — Authentic Parenting
• I am enough: a Mother’s Day declaration — The Lone Home Ranger
• On contrived debates, strawmoms, and kyriarchy’s binds — Raising My Boychick
• Be The Best Mom That You Can Be — Mommy News & Views Blog
• urban attachment freak — grumbles and grunts
• Time Magazine Cover: Are You Mom Enough? Round-up of Responses — Real Child Development
• Yes, it’s for me — MammaCake.com

If I’ve missed any others, leave your links in the comments!

This is what extended breastfeeding really looks like | Kate Wicker →

Pictorial response to show the connection of breastfeeding beyond infancy. As Kate points out, connection is what attachment parenting is all about.

WaldenMommy, Part Two:: The AP'd child speaks out →

An adult who was raised by attachment parents (who were previously also raised by attachment parents) talks about the effects of having breastfed into toddlerhood, having coslept with her parents, and having been worn in carriers. Hint: She’s not a freak. ;)

"For our family, pursuing the principles of attachment parenting is something we do as a unit, all supporting each other and participating in creating a strong family bond. Even our children participate in modeling the principles in their relationship with each other and with their parents. Attachment parenting isn’t something I do to my child. Attachment parenting is something we practice as a family."

Are you MOM ENOUGH? Yes, you probably are. | Care2 Causes, written by Annie of PhD in Parenting

Mayim Bialik on CNN making perfect sense about the fact that attachment parenting is not in fact about how long you breastfeed or whether you cosleep, but that it’s about being responsive to our children. I really love her commonsense responses to this kerfuffle. It’s telling that the interviewer keeps insisting, “But how long are you going to breastfeed?” and Dr. Bialik (I like the sound of that) keeps deflecting it with the point she’s trying to make: that it doesn’t matter.

(Source: CNN)

"[I]f they are grubby from no more than good clean earth and comfortable, that you are enough. You are enough mom for your children. Because you are their mom, and that is enough."

True Confessions of a Real Mommy: Just Another Mom, and That is Enough.

KellyNaturally.com | Derision and Scorn: How Time Dropped the Ball on Attachment Parenting →

Kelly focuses on the fact that TIME got attachment parenting itself all wrong.