Attachment Parenting

No pictures, I'm gonna talk for a little bit.

While I know that we are very fortunate to have loving, supportive parents and extended family that encourage us to parent however we feel is the best way, I know that some of our choices (probably most of them) depart from traditional parenting, and many of them are traditional parenting no-no's, or may sometimes appear, for lack of a better word, neglectful. While it is great to know that we will have support no matter what, I feel like everyone might breathe a little easier if they knew why we are taking the approach that we are.

Now, I postponed writing this post for a long time because I really didn't want anyone to think that our choices reflect on any negative feelings we feel toward our parents. Guys, WE LOVE YOU. We love you to the moon and back. And, now that we're parents, WE TOTALLY GET IT. You guys did an AWESOME JOB, and we have no doubt that you guys busted your butts for us day and night for YEARS. (Sorry for the yelling, I just want to make sure that you understand that we really mean it. You kick serious butt. I can't hand you trophies through the computer, so please stop and pat yourself on the back, or hug each other or something.)

Ahem. So like I said, we've made this choice because it feels natural to us, and it makes a heck of a lot of sense, even if it's very different from how we thought we were going to parent.

So the name of what we're doing (loosely, it's not like we're going to follow a rulebook to the letter) is Attachment Parenting, or sometimes Unconditional Parenting. I've tried to write a synopsis of what it's all about several times now, and failed miserably, so I scrapped it. I do, however, have some great links, should you like to check out what it is.

Attachment Parenting => Aha! Parenting
This website does the best job of explaining it. It's written by a child psychologist.

Unconditional Parenting: A Radical Parenting Style of Loving Unconditionally
Another good one, but it gets a little preachy (as in, we're the best and all the other parents are bad, which we DON'T believe).

If you don't feel like reading up on it, that's totally cool, because I really wrote this post to reassure everyone that we've really thought this through, and although it might look like we're spoiling Jackson, or failing to "teach" him (for lack of a better term), it's all part of the plan. The end result is an emotionally secure and mature child who develops empathy much earlier.