Childrearing
Attachment Parents Really Think They Are Doing It Better Than Everyone Else
Last night, Bravo’s Extreme Guide to Parenting continued it’s theme of showcasing parents who have gone off the rails with their parenting decisions because they feel they were wronged by one or both of their own parents. This week’s couple is practicing “Conscious Attachment Parenting,” mainly because mom was abandoned by her father as a child and now she refuses to put her baby down. I’m not making fun of abandonment issues, I have them, too. I just don’t take them out on my kid by forcing her to be attached to my boob 24/7, sleep in my bed, and live in a wrap attached to my bosom.
The show opens with the Axness family bed-sharing, of course, breastfeeding, of course, and talking about their daughter’s need to pee outside a diaper, of course. “I’m sure we’ll be able to catch one this morning,” Nate, the father, says. They mosey into the kitchen for breakfast, and their 16-month-old daughter, Eleanor, is sitting bare-bottomed in her highchair because her parents are waiting for elimination communication cues. Elimination communication is a potty-training style in which you teach your infant to use the bathroom way before all of her friends. It basically translates to staring at your kid all day, trying to run her to the bathroom before she has an accident. Seeing this couple in action did not change my opinion that it is a giant waste of time. They honestly think their daughter is giving them “cues” – she’s honestly being a 16-month-old who is going to pee where ever and whenever she feels like it.
“I was very proud of you for going in the potty yesterday!” Christian Axness, AP-mom extraordinaire, exclaims. Eleanor looks at her mom with a blank stare. A few minutes later, she pees in her high chair at the breakfast table. The parents are nonplussed. Dad explains that he bought medical gloves when they first started allowing her to defecate all over the house, but now he’s used to it — no big.
“Shit. I should have been watching!” Christian screams. They truly think their daughter is communicating. I truly think she’s just peeing whenever she wants. They are also signing with her — she’s not signing back. At all. Not even close to making a hand motion.
Scene two commences: enter placenta. Christian handles other women’s placentas as a side gig, it seems. She plops a giant one on her kitchen counter and brags about how big hers probably was. Nate mopes about not being able to actually take Christian’s home because someone else apparently encapsulated hers for her. Bummer. She’s really excited to be handling this other woman’s placenta. Their house is basically covered in bodily fluids.
