My introduction to the internet and to the whole “online” thing was through message boards…. I have always loved being able to talk to people in other parts of the world, or even people close to me… I would have loved to have a penpal when I was young… and I did try, but we moved too much and too often….

Message boards were like getting my wish….

When I was pregnant with Xavier, message boards took on a whole new meaning… a whole new way to make connections with people that had simular interests as me… a way to learn things from others also. However, with the community, especially a public one like Babycenter attitudes clash, trolls come in just to make trouble, people post about things that I would rather not read and tentions soar high at times…. I started this rant because things were too hard to read… people making their kids CIO, people not even trying to breastfeed and then spreading bad info about breastfeeding. People talking about Circ and just other things that just make me mad…. I would find myself writing long and heartfelt posts only to not send them because I would have been attacked…. So I decided to start this blog…. my place to rant when reading the boards…. the more I came here though, the less I went on the boards, the less I needed to rant, but then this blog became more then just a place to rant (though it still serves its purpose!)

I stopped going to the birthboard on Babycenter a few months ago because it just made me mad… and now I have stopped going to the AP board (or I am i the process of stopping) for the same reason… I tried to post a bit on the Mothering forums but they are just too big with o many member and it is easy to get kind of lost…. So I decided to start my own 😉

On the Babycenter AP board people talk about moving on to “Greener Pastures” when they talk about moving on to better AP boards… so I decided to use the name… making my own Greener Pastures

Everyone is invited if they are interested in talking about natural living, breastfeeding, positive parenting etc…. and even if you are not yet a parent please join in if you have questions… of course, for now we are only 3 member and there are only 4 posts… but I hope it will become a small comfortable community…

I’m a mom….

I always knew I wanted to be a mom, I would have loved to me a mom earlier then it happened but it didn’t work out that way… I had to finish school, work a bit etc etc… the things that people do because they are expected to do them … what for though… I could have saved me a lot of dept…. especially since I knew that I would never work if I had kids at home…

It is amazing when I think that Simon and I created these beings… just me and him, no one else involved…. these two little boys are a product of our love… (i know, i know…”Cliché”….but it is true!!)

It is amazing to think of how perfect nature can be… these two little boys were created inside me, each cell knew where to go… everything falling into place perfectly….

When I was pregnant with Xavier I had a few weird dreams… most of the time I would dream that things were in the wrong place… an ear on his tummy, his nose in the back of his head… (hey they were dreams!)… once I even dreamed that I gave birth to a litter of cats… (wonder if that is in the dream books?)

I was just sitting on the couch, the boys watching TV, eating a strawberry that I had just given each of them… Xavier was taking tiny little bites and answering questions that Dora was asking… Colin was wrinkling up his nose at each bite and doing his scrunchy face…. then it just hit me… these two little perfect boys are mine, I am their mom, Simon and I created them, we made them and they are perfect….

It just plays over and over again how amazing that truly is….

And it feels really good… it feels like weight has been lifted….
I used a lot of my post I did a few days ago about the Label of AP since I had wrote it when I made my decision to resign… I just organised it differently and changed the wording a bit…

Here is what I wrote…

I am going to use part of a post on my blog to explain why…Sorry if you have read it before…
and I warn you that it may be long…

I have been getting the impression more and more lately that people have been adopting the AP label because they believe that to do so they

1) have to be simply be “attached” to their child;

2) attend to their child’s “needs”

Many people seems to call themselves AP when they don’t even agree that the Sears’s 7 B’s are Ideals and seem to only believe that there is only one important one which is “Balance” (therefore giving them the permission to forgo all of the rest in order to maintain balance even if it means CIO, sleeping in a different room, formula feeding, never wearing baby, and just simply ignoring certain needs etc)

I think the problem is that the label “attachment parenting” automatically makes us assume that the opposite of AP is being “detached” which is simply not the case… All children are attached to their parents and parents do what they think is best for their children…

Most parents, AP or NOT believe that they are responding to what they think are their baby’s needs… What it comes down to is what they think their child needs, if they are really listening to their child (or hearing what they want to hear) and also what they expect or don’t expect from their child…(expecting them to sleep through the night before they are ready to do so by themselves, expecting them to obey us 100% of the time, expecting them to not need our comfort when it is not convenient for us etc…)

It is true that you do not have to do all of the 7 b’s to practice Attachment Parenting but they do remain the ideals and they should be considered and tried as much (and even more) then anything else and they should be the first step and be the natural step when responding to the needs of a child…

However, though the term “Attachment Parenting” started with Dr Sears, it has grown beyond that in most AP communities and has become a philosophy of its own… AP is a return to the roots of what parenting has always been, or what it was before… a return to what comes naturally instead of what is culturally sanctioned… and there are many cultures that still have AP as the normal and culturally expected way of parenting…

So why does AP work easily for some and not for others? Why are there are people that struggle in trying to be AP and fail or people that just can’t understand AP at all…

I really think it has to do with what we expect of our children… If you really believe that a child should be sleeping through the night at a certain age, If you believe that nursing to sleep, rocking to sleep etc are bad habits, if you believe that a child should not be held too much or should no longer be held much after a certain age, if you believe that breastfeeding shouldn’t be continued after a certain age, or that formula is just as good as breastfeeding and shouldn’t even be tried, if you believe that some children just need to be trained to sleep, if you believe that their cries mean nothing at certain times of the day, if you don’t think that the simple need for comfort in the middle of the night is as important as a physical need after a certain month of age, if you believe that there are just some times that a baby really cries for no reason and that there are times that it is best to leave them alone when they do, If you don’t think you have the time to listen and to respond to your child’s every cue… then the parenting path named Attachment Parenting may be more of a struggle then anything else.

As much as you may want to work, and believe in the ideas and philosophy, it will not work for you easily if you don’t put aside these cultural expectations…

That doesn’t mean that you can’t use the tools that are often associated with Attachment Parenting (such as wearing, co-sleeping etc) and that they won’t work for you throughout stages of your parental life…

However, If you are not only willing, but able, to let go of what society tells us is the “normal” and “healthy” way to parent, and truly listen to your child and give your child all of the benefits of the doubt, then not only will Attachment Parenting work but it will be far from the struggle and will become as easy and natural as breathing.

Of course, there are times that we are bombarded with messages or advice from others that are not AP, or we can’t help but fall back on the ideas that we have been fed all of our lives, and it is in these times that we need the support of other Attachment Parents and it is why it is important to be able to use the label of Attachment Parenting… Which comes to where I am now…

This board was a source of support for quite a few years, which is why I became host, but this is no longer true, at least on my behalf… I know that if I come here to ask for advice or complain about something such as sleep, breastfeeding etc… I will more likely get “permission” to take care of myself and permission to do something that I would never do instead of the support and advice I need..

All of this to say.. I just can’t see myself as host of this board anymore…

There are feelings that I just can’t put aside and though I know that as host I am allowed to express those feelings but they attract too much attention… which is why I don’t post on as many posts as I would like… I don’t think I will leave the board as a whole, there are many women here that I have grown to know and respect and I don’t want to lose those contacts… I just can’t be host…

I am honestly not pointing fingers in this post… and I am honestly not looking to debate… this is just the way I feel and I felt that I needed to explain it with my resignation…

I wanted to do this a few weeks ago but wanted to wait to see if my feelings changed a bit… they didn’t….

I think there are other places where I will feel a lot more comfortable… like here…