Heart, Mind & Strength - Blog Admin Panel

Great to hear from you! And congrats on your new book.

I appreciate your comments and have much respect for you. I'm not interested in converting anyone; "let him who has ears..." and all that. Regardless, please be assured it is not my intention to try to convince you of anything. I appreciate to opportunity to respond to the challenges you present to AP, many of which are based on common misunderstandings of what AP actually entails and some things that have nothing to do with AP at all. I hope some of my answers will make sense and I hope we can continue the discussion. Regardless of the outcome, I appreciate the opportunity to dialog with you. My comments are below yours in blue.

Danielle writes: To begin, I think I need to point out that no one is saying parents ought to do only what feels right or good. What we are saying is do what works best for your family, which is quite a different thing. It might feel good if I, as a homeschooling mother of 8, just sat around all day eating ice cream, but that would definitely not work best for my family.

Not really. No one sits around eating ice cream all day. We both know that. Every parent thinks they are working hard and doing their best--even those who aren't. In fact, I defy you to find me a person who will say, "Nope, I'm a lazy parent." Everyone thinks they're working their hardest and best. Unfortunately, too many people work very hard but not terrifically smart.

The reality is that everyone is inclined to do what they think feels right for them.

Within certain boundaries, of course, that's perfectly fine (for instance, while every AP family adheres to basic principles,how they live those out will vary widely from family to family). But on the larger scale to say, "do what works best for you" strikes me as simply well-intentioned relativism.

Here's why. If we can point to science--and we can--that says that something really is best for your child's physical, mental,and moral development then there is a positive obligation to at least try to give that to our child. Of course we can't always succeed, but saying, "I know what's objectively best, but I couldn't do it so I gave the best I could" (which is what we have had to do, for instance with our adopted baby whom we cannot nurse) is a very different thing than saying, "Whatever you can give is good enough." which, whether you intend it or not, is how your point comes across.

Do you see the difference?

I don't know the science as well as you do and I won't argue with you about cortisol levels. I will point out, however, that saints were raised for centuries before anyone even knew what a cortisol level was.

Of course you're right. Saints have come from all kinds of backgrounds and have had to overcome all kinds of adversity. That's not my point though (although why would parents intentionally choose to make their child's job harder? That couldn't be your point, could it?)

My point is that as a parent, I have an opportunity to give my child a greater capacity to cooperate with grace by parenting him according to the instruction manual God wrote in the very fabric of the child's body and being. JPII tells us that we have a moral imperative to consider the way the body is created and what that tells us about the proper ordering of Christian relationship. I don't understand why this notion bothers people so much. We want to give children a leg up in everything else, why not saintliness? Why is it so offensive to so many to ask parents to apply the theology of the body to parenting?

I also do wonder if anyone has bothered to study the cortisol levels (or any other symptoms) of older children in large families who who might be neglected, snapped at, or left to do too much for themselves too soon because their exhausted mother is focused on wearing, nursing, sleeping with, and otherwise bonding with the "baby" who needs her to keep his cortisol levels down.

Yes. Mothercare is extraordinarily important in AP (I'll deal with the issue of care of older children below). I discuss this extensively in Parenting with Grace, and Margot Sunderland discusses it at length in The Science of Parenting. It is certainly possible to do AP in a healthy manner. No one wants an attachment martyr.

But, incidentally, this is why AP helps marriages as well. As I write in my book, it is the the attachment husband's job to attend to his wife as fully as she is attending to her child. Take a look at the chapter on Attachment fathering or Bill Sears book on Fathering, you will see that AP encourages marriages to become exactly what the Church says they should be.

I am not trying to be flip here. I have read and re-read and re-read again dozens of books on AP and ecological breastfeeding. Time and again I come away with the thought that these are high ideals and great ideas, but that people who are dogmatic in their promotion of them as "right" or "best" for everyone, especially Catholics, are blind to an entire segment of the faithful Catholic population.

I'm asking honestly here. What section of the Catholic population are you referring to?

Personally speaking, if I had had a baby only every 3-5 years or so, I would probably feels lots differently about the practice of AP. I have often felt that AP proponents and others don't know what to do with families like mine, where, despite ecological breastfeeding, the babies come fast and furious and parents struggle to homeschool as well. They don't "get" our experiences because they are not their own. They don't "get" that AP might not work perfectly for different kinds of families because it has indeed worked very well for their own. "God does have a plan for our families!" I want to tell these leaders. "It's just a different one from yours!"

I see your point and there is some truth to this. However, Catholic AP proponents would respond that this is how AP helps families order their family lives for the common good of the health of the all the members--parents and children alike.

Attachment parenting and the Catholic concept of "Integral Procreation" go hand-in-hand. Integral Procreation is a corollary of responsible parenthood which asserts that being open to life requires parents to not simply say "yes" to conception, but mainly be willing to say "yes" to all the needs a child presents in every age and stage in order to give that child the best chance to become the saint he or she was created to become.

I would agree that you cannot do AP without going to the nuthouse if you have another child every year. But the AP response would be that, unless God has somehow specifically called a person to act in a manner that is contrary to what he created the child's body to need (which would be remarkable considering Pope Benedict's assertion at Ravensburg that the Christian God is a God of order and reason who does not contradict the laws of his own creation) then it is imperative to the bonding process and the health of the mother that children be spaced about 2.5 to 3 years apart (give or take).

Some have said this would be a Catholic argument against AP because it would allegedly limit the size of the family. But a healthy couple who married in their 20's and practiced AP could easily have and properly form a family of 8 or more children before the woman's fertility ends. The Sears' did.

AP parents are just as open to life as others, they just seek to expand their families in a manner that is respectful both to the health of the mother and the well-being of their children. People who are doing Catholic AP correctly don't put themselves in the position of having to choose whose needs get met (the parent's or the children's). They adhere to the Catholic teaching on the common good which requires that each member of a community has a right to have his or her needs met but only in a manner that is respectful of the needs of everyone else in the community.

Critics of AP who have larger families with closely spaced children often argue against this notion of integral procreation and AP with the challenge, "Oh yeah? Which of my kids shouldn't I have had?" But this is really the wrong question. Of course, they should have had all of the children they do. BUT God is the source of each child a family has, not mere timing. If it is truly God's plan for a family to have those particular children (and that particular number of children), then that family will have those children whether they are spaced closer or further apart. God gives us the kids we need to grow in holiness and vice versa--not the calendar. The family has the right and responsibility to discern when they are ready to receive the next gift, but if they are open to God's will and the actions of his grace in their lives, they will receive ultimately receive all the gifts he wants to give them--and they will do so in a manner that allows them to be fully responsive to each child's needs as well as their own.

By the way, I do not mean to imply anything about your particular circumstances in these comments. As I say, I have no doubt God has a plan for your family and it isn't my place to question how he is working in your life.

That said, if someone was coming to me as a client and said, "Greg! I do AP and have three kids under 4 and I'm cracking up!" The issue would not primarily be AP--which is simply the effort of a parent to respond to the invitation God has written on the heart of the child. Rather, the issue would most likely be confusion about what responsible parenthood entails. If I were working with such a person, I might advise them to back off on some of the more intense aspects of AP (so the kids could get as many of their attachment needs met as possible while still giving the mother some room to breathe) but then I would ask some detailed questions regarding the couple's understanding and use of NFP, their understanding of integral procreation and the authentic understanding of responsible parenthood (instead of conventional wisdom on the subject), and I would help them evaluate the kind of support the husband, extended family and friends provide.

My ultimate goal would be teaching the couple how to get everyone's needs met as best as was possible in a way that was ecological (i.e., respectful of the common good).

You say: "More often than not, however, 'Doing what is best for your family' just means, 'Do what comes naturally and feels right to you' which is a perfect way to raise kids who exhibit the same sins and sinful tendencies that you do. I think you are underestimating motherly instincts and inclinations here. It has been my experience that a mother's instincts or "feelings" do not naturally lead her toward selfishness and taking the "easy way out." A mother's natural inclinations are toward generosity and nurturing care for her offspring.

I wonder what your point of reference for this statements is. I'm sure that is true of you, and maybe even some of your friends. But I'm in a bit of a unique position here since moms tend to be a little more honest with me in session than they are in their moms-days-out gatherings.

Maternal instinct is a lovely notion, and many women have it, but I have met many women who don't. Theologically speaking you may be correct that femininity is expressed though generosity and nurturance, but practically speaking feminity is often impaired in a person. In fact, a very high number of women have very little maternal instinct, often because they themselves were raised in unaffirming environments. I refer you to the work of Conrad Baars.

Babies need to be touched, and mothers love to touch and hold their babies. Babies need to be responded to promptly, and every mother I know jumps at the sound of her baby's cry or an older child's "Mama!" Every mother I know wants to do what is best for her child, even if it costs her emotionally and physically.

Not the Ezzos and their disciples (who state the because God the Father did not respond to Jesus' cries on the cross parents should not respond to their children's cries and instead let them work through their own pain).

Not those who Ferberize (the method of sleep-training that teaches parents to let babies cry themselves to sleep. A method, by the way that has been since shown to be associated with sleep problems and high cortisol levels even once the child has stopped crying).

These are methods that intentionally train a mother out of her nurturing instinct. But many families believe that these methods are best and feel quite strongly that these techniques represent the best they can give their children. I hope this doesn't come off as challenging, but I'm honestly wondering how your "Do what's best for your family" motto would apply to those families who were using methods that directly contradicted the nurturing maternal impulse?

But most mothers I know want what is best for all of their children, even the ones who have moved beyond the baby stage. A mother is only one person. She might have an infinite supply of love for her children, but I can attest to the fact that she does indeed have a finite supply of energy and patience, particularly when pregnant, and as a result she must balance her children's needs -- the older ones, the babies, the toddlers, and the unborn ones too. I think it is short-sighted to imply that this kind of "balancing" as it plays out in a faithful, large family is un-Catholic.

Catholic teaching states that the virtue of justice requires that those who have the greatest needs and the least ability to meet those needs for themselves have a right to first dibs on the available resources.

Catholic teaching also states, appealing to the doctrine of responsible parenthood, that families must be careful that they not add new members to the family if they are not confident that they can fully respond to the needs of the children they already have (although they should certainly work to expand those resources as best they can in hopes of adding whatever members they can appropriately add). I refer you to Gaudium et Spes #50 for more on this.

In short, integral procreation asserts that the expansion of the family must be done in a manner that is respectful of the common good of the family.

In addition to this point, I absolutely agree that parents need to attend to their older children as well, of course. AP is not just about babies. If you co-sleep, nurse, and wear a kid until he is three and then make him fend for himself while you are doing these things with the next baby, then you are not only offending the principles of AP (which extend into adulthood--see Gordon Neufeld's work Hold on To Your Kids as well as Parenting With Grace which examines AP from an appropriate developmental framework) but you are offending the principle of integral procreation.

But I would suggest your last point has less to do with parenting style than it does with the importance of cultivating a proper understanding of responsible parenthood and integral procreation and how to expand one's family in a manner that is respectful of the common good of the family.

You say: "There are a million ways to raise a basically decent, grow up, get a job, and function in society kids. Personally, I think Catholic parents are called to do more than that. We called to raise (and be) saints. "

Here I think you are implying that parents who don't use AP are just shooting for the "bare minimum" and aiming to "get by" and I find that an unfair assessment. Good Catholics who do not use AP are aiming to raise and be saints every bit as much as the AP parents are.They are just called to do it in a different way -- to imply that their way is less "Catholic" is wrong-headed, and I cringe at the thought of young, vulnerable mothers reading words like these and then beating themselves up in the future when they wind up doing what actually is best for their families.

I really don't intend to imply anything of the sort. I agree that all Catholic parents are aiming to raise saints. I would simply argue that those who do not use AP are aiming with a gun that doesn't shoot straight. Of course, you can still hit the target, but it takes a heck of a lot more (unproductive and pointless) work to get there.

At the end of the day, the truth is that the degree to which parents do manage to hit the target at all is directly related to how many of the principles of AP they apply (and not just with their babies) whether they are aware of it or not. Attachment leads to saintliness while detachment is the atomic unit of the culture of death. Both theology and science assert this.

That said, no where in any of my writings to I ever suggest that non-AP parents are "less Catholic" than AP parents. People say I say that, but it isn't true. In fact, it's a downright lie.

It is however true to say that other methods of parenting (in particular the pragmatic/behaviorist approaches a la' Guarendi and Rosemond, or Calvinist approaches like Dobson, or in the extreme, the Ezzos) are demonstrably less consistent with Catholic anthropological assumptions of the human person than AP. This is not the same as saying other parents are "un-Catholic."

You rightly point out that Catholic teaching on contraception might not "feel" good or right to some, but the fact is the Church's teaching on contraception is clear and incontrovertible. Our Church, in her wisdom, has not given us such clear directives on co-sleeping, baby-wearing, bottles, or even homeschooling. There is lots of room for different styles of good parenting within Catholicism. To tout the benefits of AP is one thing, and to promote its use for the benefits of Catholic families is a very good thing indeed. We must be cautious, however, about placing a burden on all Catholic parents that the Church herself does not.

Yup. I fully agree. I was only illustrating how feelings are a lousy guide for discerning right from wrong. But with that, we're back to the point on prudential judgment, which is not the same as saying, "Do what you think is best." Rather, exercising prudential judgment means investigating and applying the best theological insights and science (natural law) that you have access to and allowing yourself to be consistently challenged by them. That said, I completely agree that parents are free to make their own call as long as they do it using the process the Church describes for conscience formation.

It was a pleasure discussing this with you. If you have any further comments, questions, or insights, I'd be happy to read them. Thank you for your charity and thoughtfulness.