Reply-turned-post style. I think I’m giving it its own post half because I may have done a better job explaining myself in the reply (mixed metaphors and bad Titanic reference withstanding) than in the original post, and half because I feel weird having a comment that’s longer than many of my posts. Plus, I can correct all the little things I wanted to change right after I posted it, but couldn’t because damned Blogger won’t let me edit comments. And yes, I am crazy enough to care.
Anyway, Summer (who kicks ass and just had a beautiful baby and for whose bloggy babymoon I really thought about submitting a guest post but was far too procrastinatey and perfectionist to actually do it in time), wrote:
The check list can be a great way to break the ice and start the conversation, but like you said you have to go deeper than the superficial on the surface crap.
To which my reply is:
Yes, the superficialities can absolutely be great icebreakers, and are useful in that they might lead to uncovering whole underwater glaciers of similarities and compatibilities (or was that the wrong metaphor?). But, because what’s underneath the water might or might not be accurately reflected by what’s on the surface, relying on those external indicators — the checklist boxes — can lead us into making colossal (Titanic, if you will) errors, writing off people who might be perfect for us (or getting into fights with our kids over things we should be happy for them about), or having us cling to groups that aren’t really good for us (or ignoring that our straight-A student is also an anti-feminist selfish weanie).
So yea, absolutely if I see someone at the park with a wee baby on her back in a wrap (or lovely pit hair peeking out from under her tie-dyed tank top, or a rainbow bumper sticker on her bio-diesel volvo), I’m going to sidle over to her and strike up a conversation in a way that I wouldn’t with someone bottle-feeding a pink-clad girl-child in a baby-bucket. And I might even be “right” to write off the bottle feeder, because unless there’s an underlying story there (special needs infant and the mom’s on chemo, as an example), we probably don’t have much in common, at least in parenting philosophies.
But the point is more that, well, you can’t judge a book by its cover, I guess. I really do look for friends who value breastfeeding, and attachment, and environmentalism, and women’s rights, and that’s not going to stop anytime soon, so this isn’t an exhortation to just love everyone kumbaya (although, y’know, do); rather, it’s just a reminder that I can’t tell who cares about attachment just by checking off a list of what they did with their kids. One of the most attachment-minded women I know almost never used a carrier, did use a bucket in a stroller, had her breastfed, pacifier-addicted baby on a nursing schedule, and bought both a crib and a bassinet before her child was born (in a hospital!). She’s an AP-checklist fail. But I swear to high holy heathen heaven, she is a better, more attached mom than I am, even if I could get a near-perfect score on stupid crunchy quizzes and she couldn’t. The fact that she’s attachment-minded matters to me, so it’s not a matter of “who cares about how we treat our kids, let’s hang out anyway!” Rather, I’ve learned to toss out the snap judgment comparisons because the attachment level of our parenting isn’t easily quantifiable by snappy checklist bullet points.
And I can think of a dozen more examples, for every label you care to name. People might surprise you. They regularly shock the shit out of me, mostly in fabulously awesome ways.
That’s my point.
Arwyn
In my bathroom hangs a plaque with a picture of a yin yang and the word BALANCE. I can never get it to hang straight. This probably says something deep and meaningful about my life.
And I might even be “right” to write off the bottle feeder, because unless there’s an underlying story there (special needs infant and the mom’s on chemo, as an example), we probably don’t have much in common, at least in parenting philosophies.Not necessarily true, that. I was that bottle feeder! I fed my son formula from when he was about a week and a half old for various reasons, but I’m still a huge breastfeeding advocate. A person’s actions and the way their life has gone, do not always reflect their feelings and opinions.
Exactly my point! I’m a big believer in giving the benefit of the doubt for just that reason, and that’s exactly what I’m talking about here (your last line perfectly sums up what I was trying to say in both these posts–maybe I should just replace them with that :p).
So yea, I don’t pretend to know someone’s opinions on breastfeeding or babywearing based solely on seeing them with a bottle or baby bucket. Maybe she has a good reason, and is really a huge lactivist and could teach me a thing or two about wrapping (on the other side, maybe the super cool looking sling wearing hippie mama is an anti-feminist homophobic white supremacist — true story). But what I meant with what you quoted is that sometimes what looks like a spade really is just a spade, and she’s using a bottle because breastfeeding is disgusting and not worth it, and using a bucket because holding babies spoils them. Which doesn’t make her a bad mom, of course, just not what I’m looking for in a friend at the moment.
I can’t know just by looking, and so I strive to avoid snap judgments. But /sometimes/, what we discover with further information is that our snap judgments were “correct”, and the more social signals there are pointing one way (bottle feeding AND bucket use AND gender typed clothing), the more likely that is to be true.
But it’s still wrong enough often enough that it isn’t worth it to write people off just for not meeting a checklist of superficialities, and it’s always worth getting the full story because real people are far more interesting than stereotypes. Like I said, people will surprise you.
[...] More on checklists [...]
I think you just put your finger on a huge reason why I’ve never been keen on the whole AP movement. Somehow there always ends up being a lot more emphasis on checklists than I’m comfortable with.
Anyway, please satisfy my curiosity on one thing: In your comment on the first post, you used the initials ‘GD’. I can’t for the life of me work out what that acronym stands for – can you tell me? (And what’s the betting I then slap my forehead and groan that of , I should have realised…)
I don’t think the problem is inherent in the “AP movement”, but a tendency of all humans, especially in groups. Checklists, while superficial and so often erroneous, are easy, and we reach for them rather than for deeper connection regularly, in every circumstance.
GD stands for gentle discipline.