Does my baby actually know I’m mom?

[wadebayo30]

@teresamerica this anecdotal info isn’t indicative of actual overall trends in infant / caregiver relationships and is mentally harmful to parents that need or want to work.

 

[teresamerica]

@wadebayo30 It’s equally mentally harmful and dishonest to say that working wont have a negative effect on the parent child relationship. It’s not about trends, it’s about “can this happen”. The answer is yes. That was my point. Only that it can happen because I’ve seen it happen. If you can’t handle that then that’s on you.

 

[james127]

@teresamerica I’d hope that in a science based parenting sub people who comment would at least have a bit of humility when giving anecdotal evidence that contradicts the enormous amount of research done on a topic. I actually believe that anecdotal and experiential data is really important, but it needs to be put in context. I know people who’ve “seen” how vaccines cause autism. Take that analogy as you will.

I’m assuming you weren’t living with the neighbor day in and day out, and ultimately didn’t know everything (or even most things) about her parenting. You claim that the reason there was poor attachment (which I wouldn’t diagnose as a neighbor) was because she worked in general, and not because of the specific circumstances of the family, and thus you ignore all of the other variables that @wadebayo30 lucidly points out. You’re making a causal claim (poor attachment because mother was working), based on questionable observational anecdotal evidence, that is both unhelpful, and unilaterally unscientific.

 

[wadebayo30]

@teresamerica No it isn’t equally harmful, because that isn’t true that working has a universal (or even somewhat trending) negative influence on parenting. I’m a professor of child development, and the influence of parental working and caregiving/daycare on attachment is one of the most studied aspects of the field, and for the longest time.

We currently have more dual income households than ever in the US - meaning more parents working. We also spend MORE TIME with our children than previous generations have. And this time tends to be higher quality. So off the bat, the idea of working causing parental issues because of time is incorrect.

Now, in any given situation you of course can have parents with bad or good relationships with their kids. Stay at home moms who are depressed have poorer attachments to their children than those who aren’t (with good reason). Working mothers who spend 40+ hours away from their children can have excellent relationships with their children above and beyond any stay at home parent. What larger trends show you is that these relationships aren’t caused BECAUSE of things like just time, just food, just working or not - it’s about the quality of the caregiver-child relationship.

Covid has been a really interesting to think about with this framework because many families were together and locked down for very long periods of time, but this did not result in better outcomes across the board for kids OR parents.

In other words: your neighbor being a nurse didn’t CAUSE her to have a worse relationship with her child. But maybe being a working mom when she didn’t want to be in a high stress environment caused her anxiety that bled into her home life and caused her to be more emotionally distanced from her child - and THAT influenced the child to prefer the nanny (or any other similar scenario).

 

[teresamerica]

@wadebayo30 So you’re saying the only possibility for the scenario I put forth is that due to the mothers poor mental health, the child could not effectively bond with her? That it simply cannot be that the nanny lived in the home and spent the days and nights caring for this child because the mom was working long shifts? That being a consistent source of comfort, the nanny effectively took the place of the mother in that relationship? That the hours of work she chose to do as part of her career and gave up due to her poor relationship with her child had little to do with it? That seems improbable. At best it’s splitting hairs. She couldn’t be there, both physically and emotionally. The nanny could. The job was the cause and when the kid got older, she cut her hours. Once she had fewer hours, the nanny was there less and mom was there more. Their relationship improved.

What are your thoughts then on children who bond with their fathers and reject their mothers? Are they simply not emotionally available enough? Or do they have poor mental health?

What about all the studies that show that increased parental leave results in better outcomes for parent child relationships?

I also want to point out that I’m not speaking generally here. I’m speaking about a specific case of someone I know. A generalized study might show one thing or another but you and I both know that means nothing when it comes to real world parental experience. Studies are about the odds and averages. It doesn’t matter what 100 other parents are experiencing on average. It matters what can happen. I think it disingenuous to insist that being a working parent has zero negative impact on your relationship with your kids.

 

[wadebayo30]

@teresamerica No - what I said is that working and time BY ITSELF does not cause changes in attachment issues - all the other scenarios you put forth are totally plausible (eg, “consistent source of comfort”, which is why I said “similar scenarios”).

You’re totally right that parental leave helps many things - mostly for the parents wellbeing. These first few weeks are quite fundamentally different than the rest of infancy (OP is past this point), and is not simply about time alone. This very early time allows families to establish routines, increases rates of breastfeeding, allows for physically healing, and honestly just allows for sleep. If a parent took leave and just watched tv the whole time while making their partner parent, that leave time wouldn’t be doing anything for the parent-child interaction.

The silent generation hardly needed parental leave because wives stayed home full time, but they did not necessarily have better relationships with their children. Same for many non-western cultures.

The overall message is this: you cannot just be physically near your child for extended periods of time. That is not enough to establish a relationship. Similarly, NOT being near your child as much but using the time you are near them in high quality ways CAN be enough to establish a good relationship. There are always exceptions as you noted. But saying “oh yeah this neighbor had a nanny and so her baby didn’t like her as much” is unhelpful and damaging to a new mother who is worried about creating a bond with her child, particularly when everything suggests that this will turn out just fine, in part because the post itself suggests a desire for a strong relationship and awareness about the consequence of one’s actions. This last paragraph is particularly true for a SCIENCE based parenting sub.

 

[mjh29]

@angel898000 It sounds like you feel guilt or worry about the outcome of this arrangement and the amount of time you spend with her and how it’ll impact her bond with you. There’s not really any way to sugarcoat it and people will downplay it out of not wanting to mom shame or make you feel bad especially if it’s a situation you can’t financially change. But the reality is yes it will be different the bond won’t be the same compared to someone who for example is a stay at home mom with the child majority of the time. To say the bond would be identical or pretty similar would not only be untrue but wouldn’t really be fair to moms who want to know objectively if there is a difference? If you can try and make it work to spend more time together you should strive to. If it means working part time and living more simply and cutting back your overall cost of living than it would be worth it for your child.

 

[stellis03]

@mjh29 Can you share any data to support this assertion?

 

[deemstermaster]

@mjh29 Is there science that backs it up? I see how two different approaches will get a different result, but then for two SAHMs, if they treat their children differently, the bond could be different as well. Just trying to see how it was researched and confirmed

 

[mjh29]

@angel898000 Bond suffers when you aren’t around much and they tend to not really form a strong bond with anyone in particular but they miss that connection with the mother. They’ll probably be happy with anyone especially if the baby is cares for by multiple caregivers on rotation like daycare. They need to form attachment to one individual and that should be one of the parents. That’s what they developmentally need and seek to thrive. Attachment theory is just the tip of the iceberg.

 

[earp]

@mjh29 Source please.

Children around the world are cared for by extended family, the nuclear family and mom as the only caregiver is a relatively western and historically recent phenomenon.