This summer, quite by accident, I became an attached parent. I mean, I was always “attached” to my children in the old-fashioned sense, meaning exceedingly fond. But over the course of the summer holidays, I discovered what it would be like to follow the actual doctrine of attachment parenting.
This is the idea that, in order to grow up emotionally healthy, children need the closest possible contact with their parents.
Babies should be carried everywhere in slings and breastfed immediately on demand. Children should be allowed to sleep in the marital bed (ominously renamed the “family bed”) for as long as they see fit. The job of parents — and mothers in particular — is to focus all their attention on their young, “tuning in” to their feelings so as to achieve a state of perfect emotional harmony.
I can’t claim to have ticked the last box (it’s hard to be perfectly in tune with people who care so much about Lego), but I tried.
My husband and I, after years of being stapled to our desks, decided to take the whole of the summer holidays off work in order to be with the children while they’re still young enough to care. We gave them the sort of holiday that, one hopes, will supply sepia-tinted memories for later life. They swam in the sea, learnt to sail, fish and snorkel, chased butterflies and lizards, and turned blond under the fierce Greek sun.
The Edwardian family routine that had served us so well in London — early supper and bedtime for the children, while Mummy and Daddy get ready to go out — was gradually replaced by the sort of ancient tribal timetable to which attached parents aspire.
Tenderest pleasures
We all ate supper together under the stars, fell asleep together and woke up late. The sleeping arrangements were fluid, bodies piling up in one bed and then another throughout the night, but with one constant: My husband and I were not permitted to spend a single night alone together.
And, for the most part, I loved it. Falling asleep with a child pressed adoringly against your back, or waking up to a small hand stroking your cheek — these are among the tenderest pleasures that middle age allows. Spending all your time with your children, hugger-mugger in the metaphorical cave, does start to feel more “natural” after a while. At least, until the holiday’s are over.
Back in London, my children have apparently forgotten how to be detached. They won’t be babysat, or indeed looked after by anyone but their nearest kin. They can’t go to sleep before 11pm, and then only if they have a parent lying beside them pretending to snore.
For the first time ever, they are frightened of being alone. A sudden infestation of monsters has bloomed under their beds. Last night, as I conducted yet another sweep of my daughter’s room, ushering out imaginary trolls, it occurred to me that I might never again be able to leave the house after dark.
The inevitable guilt of the working mother is now exacerbated by three pairs of baleful eyes. What will happen to my social life, my marriage and my career if my children refuse to be left on their own?
The entire structure of modern society depends on families being able to go their separate ways for large parts of the day. It may be an unnatural way of life, but I find I’m rather attached to it.
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London, 2018
Jemima Lewis writes with wit, insight and sense about Britain today, questioning social mores and the cult of celebrity.
