Attachment
First is the original post from a little over a year ago.
We went to a get together of our china travel group this weekend. Seven girls adopted from china all about 20 months old now and our daughter adopted here as a newborn, now 11+ months old. What got me thinking was the fact that our daughter is now very similar in age to what all the other girls were at the time they were adopted. All seven girls clearly knew who their moms and dads were…none seem to have had any major “attachment” problems that I know of and to me as an outsider they all appeared to be happy little girls no different than our little girl.
Are they though? Are they the same as my daughter despite the very different experience they have had to this point?
It is a wierd feeling to visualize another set of parents taking over from us right now…to imagine in 8 or 9 months our daughter calling two other people mommy and daddy. Would she have totally forgotten us? What sort of imprint has the time we have spent with her left? Countless hours of holding her, singing to her, playing with her…
The analytical me knows that the answer to this question is a venture into the unknowable. My understanding of the research is that very young children who have bonded well have an easier time of transferring the bond than those who don’t bond with anyone as an infant. The emotional side of me of course wants to think something very different. Ultimately we just can’t say.
So what is my point here?
Well I guess what I concluded is that what I think doesn’t really matter…and since our children aren’t really capable of expressing themselves on this subject until they are much much older I have reached the following conclusions:
1, Attachment parenting is critical in those first weeks and months yes, but I don’t think it ever really ends.
2. The impact of up to a year or more in an institution may or may not have an impact on the child. The impact may or may not be large.
3. No matter what, you need to be vigilant for signs of problems. Anxiety, stress, etc…
4. You need to start early to make sure the lines of communication are as open as possible and is likely to be hard work at times.
As we have been with our daughter since hour 1 we may have it a bit easier, but as time goes on the challenges will be similar i think especially when it comes to the fourth point.
Ok so that is what I wrote a bit over a year ago. Our daughter is now 2 and it was an experience I had last night on the subject of attachment that brought this to mind.
My daughter went through a “daddy phase” about 6 months ago but at the moment mommy rules. Last night my wife had a meeting in our house that went right through our daughters bedtime so I was in charge of the full bed time routine. A few months ago that wouldn’t have been a problem but now…well lets just say that it was one of the hardest hours of parenting I have done to date. It is incredibly discouraging when you aren’t able to console your child, listening to them cry and cry for the other parent. The thoughts that ran through my head were not at all pleasant. My wife and I believe in equality of parenting (within practical limits) so I stuck it out and eventually she calmed down enough that I was able to leave her to go to sleep.
I confess to being in a pretty grim mood for the rest of the evening and when my daughter unusually woke in the middle of the night I thought things were going to get worse. I got up and went into her room to find her standing in her crib crying. I picked her up, changed her wet diaper and pj’s and we settled into the glider together. She never once called for mom and seemed quite content to be with me. Eventually she let me know she was prepared to go back into her crib and I settled her down and stood over the crib for a while. She would just calmly look up at me and after a bit I thought she was going to fall asleep. She just kept looking at me though and eventually she was back to sitting up and looking at me. Moving in the wrong direction so I told her I was going to leave…got her laying down again and then left her. She cried out twice for Daddy right after I left and then started chattering to herself and eventually things went quiet and she was asleep.
Now getting up in the middle of the night is never fun, but I was a much happier dad afterwards. Being able to meet the needs of your child is an incredibly fulfilling act and I will take that anytime over a bit of sleep.
How does this relate to the subject of attachment? Well I guess to me it just illustrates that work on attachment is an ongoing thing for all parents, both for bio parents and for adoptive parents no matter at what stage your child joined your family. It also showed me that attachment is hard to define, it isn’t a yes or no switch in a child’s head, it is just so much more complex than that and as parents we will often need to be patient and trust that we are doing the right thing.
Tags: Hard Thinking Series by Windthrow
2 Comments »
) I am not suggesting that he shouldn’t be entitled to live his life like that, but if I was the king of all adoption matching and I had a choice between lots and lots of couples/singles with all sorts of different attitudes about parenting, I think that sort of philosophy would never make it close to the top of the pile. 