I am loving meetup.com and the attachment parenting group that I have joined. I did find out that it’s NOT FREE, which slowed my happy skip for about a day, but other than that, meetup has provided a very practical, useful structure for organizing a like-minded group of mothers. I predict that meetup.com and I will have a long happy relationship together.
After meeting with the group several times (and probably displaying an improper amount of enthusiasm for the whole thing), the group organizer made me one of the assistant organizers. Can you hear the prideful note in my voice? So I have begun “hosting” outdoor events once a week – which simply means that I write the event up on the calendar and then show up. So far, three beach days (Laguna) and one stroller walk in the wilderness park have happened, and this week I’m branching out with a car wash (we help eachother wash our own cars while the kidlings play) in my condo complex.
I’m also enjoying the message board feature. One of the moms asked two unrelated parenting questions which has begun to generate some interesting discussion. I’ve included my own responses below, but I’d be interested in hearing other responses as well. The second question made me wonder how much I really even knew about how I was parented as a baby…
“How old was/will your child(ren) be when you begin solid foods? What helped you decide when to start?
Were you attachment parented yourself?”
My responses:
“My daughter, Bella, didn’t start solids until she was nearly a year old. I think this is probably unusual, but she was not interested in solids – perhaps because her teeth came in very late, around 10-11 months I think. But when she did start, we just mashed up whatever steamed veggies we were having, and gradually added different things. We never had to buy baby food and she seemed very content to eat what we were eating. We tried to eat all organic.
So, I think her interest in eating solids was the most important factor for us.
Your attachment parenting question is very interesting: in Korea I think that attachment child-minding is normal, but not necessarily by the parent. My mom was a doctor and hired a nanny for me who wore me on her back for pretty much the first year of my life. My mom breastfed me for six weeks before she gave it up – she thought I had diarrhea because my poops were so loose. Strangely, she didn’t know how to recognize breastfed baby poop. I think this was because she was surrounded by the medical establishment (not her mom! or four sisters!) who all were formula feeding their babies. The doctors got free formula… Pretty crazy. And while it is normal in Korea for babies (and kids) to sleep with their parents, when we moved to the States, I was moved into a crib in the same room as my brother and then sister.
It’s interesting because I think that although attachment parenting is common and normal in Korea, my mom considered herself very forward-thinking and adopted the Western ideals of the time, and broke from the tradition of her family.
I’ll have to ask my mom more about this when she comes for Thanksgiving.”
