Mommy Issues

My sister laments that her 19 month old son is “too attached”.  He often gets very distressed when she leaves the room, and rushes to her side as soon as she returns. She often wonders whether he really is as sweet and manageable as his babysitter claims he is while she’s at work. Since attachment patterns often stay pretty stable throughout development, she worries that his strong attachment to her may somehow create problems in his future.

            To comfort her about this, I’ve told her about the “Strange Situation”  experiment. Though I recognize her concerns – having to leave your child when he is clearly visibly upset is an understandably hard thing to get used to – I let her know that the good sign in all of this is that he is instantly comforted when she returns. This is a sign of a securely attached child – as opposed to an insecurely attached child, who will often not be comforted by his mother’s reappearance right away.

            I found the information on children’s attachment patterns across cultures to be really interesting. Particularly, I was surprised to read that there were issues discovered within the children of the Israeli kibbutz – that many of them seemed to be insecurely attached, and that it seemed to be a result of their mothers’ “communal” parenting styles.  Often as I read through our text and the articles we discuss, I wonder whether there are factors of certain cultures that they may be better off doing without – the adaptability of the children to whatever culture they are born into often surprised me to the point of being a bit skeptical. It was almost a relief to see an example where this wasn’t necessarily the case.

            Children bode well when they have a parent as a secure base to which they can attach themselves as they explore the world, and cultures around the world have different ways of creating secure bases for their children. When I look at how my nephew uses my sister as his “home base” while he explores my house, I can see exactly how this works. I can understand my sister’s worries – and if I hadn’t known what I currently do about child development, I may have had some fleeting concerns as well. I think that in our individualistic society, we see independence as a type of triumph, but we may sometimes forget that it’s not typical for someone at such a young age. I feel very relieved to have realized that, and to be able to tell my sister that her son’s behaviour is not unusual.