"Why Love Matters" - has it terrified anyone else?

[BabCNesbitt]

I'm reading Why Love Matters (the Sue Gerhardt book) at the moment, and it's making me hellishly anxious! All that stuff about disordered attachment and permanent harm to the brain if you aren't sufficiently attuned to your baby's needs just gets me self-conscious about how I act with DD (3mo) - can she tell when I'm bored, does she know I'm faking the 'fun mum' stuff, will it fuck up her future relationships?

Context: I had a shitty relationship with my parents, who frankly should never have had kids, and have had depression myself as an adult. This book seems to suggest that there's no escaping that legacy and a high likelihood of passing it on to the next generation. Or am I misreading it?

Just throw it away.

Seriously.
Occassionally a horrible story will surface about a child being left in a cupboard all day, every day and growing up damaged. This is rare. Most other people are perfectly adequate parents most of the time and great at other times. Sometimes it can be really boring, but that doesn't make you a bad mum.

Agree with napluster. Look around you. How many people do you come across who are perfectly well adjusted adults, well balanced, cope pretty well with life on the whole etc? Now how many do you know who are completely detached from reality or emotionally/ socially inept? My guess is that for every 99 perfectly healthy, 'normal' people, there is perhaps one who isn't.

Stop over-thinking your parenting skills and just get on and enjoy it. There will be bad times, of course. But you will drive yourself mad by trying to be the 'perfect' parent. There is no such thing, yet most of us have turned out pretty normal.

I was the opposite. My whole family are screwed up, really - I was PND as well. I found it really reassuring that my own instincts (cuddle, respond to the baby asap, don't show it when you're feeling low) were good ones, because all my family were trying to make me do the whole rigid routine thing, and not to "spoil" him.

It's worth remembering that those studies are from severely deprived children. A mother who cares enough to buy a book like Why Love Matters, read it, and worry about whether she is doing right by her child is not one of the mothers in question. By definition you'll be attuned enough, I think. Motherhood is perpetual guilt, but I agree; if a book makes you feel demoralised, bin it. And babies do come with their own personalities. My DS is like a direct download of his father, to be honest, which makes for a calm, easy-going temperament. That's luck. My neighbour was the perfect mother to a baby, but her son wailed in misery all the damn time. I wasn't, and yet my son was a ray of sunshine. Albeit one that never slept....

I had a look at this at sis in law's house, expecting to agree and think it was marvellous but... well, I didn't and it wasn't. I think it's important to bear in mind that the author is a pschoanalytic psychotherapist and not a research scientist as such.

If you want a different take on how environment shapes babies' and children's brains, try The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker. It's primarily a book about neuroscience and how our behaviour is influenced by our genetic makeup, but has quite a lot to say on parenting in a roundabout way.

I read it and it terrified me - I chucked ds's place at nursery and booked him in with a childminder and made a permanent change to home-based childcare - ds remained with childminders/nanny-share until he went to preschool.

But even while I was reading and being terrified, i was somewhat at its use of evidence - every chapter seemed to be 'description of absolutely horrific extreme situation followed by EXTRAPOLATION TO ordinary situation, with no further supporting evidence'.

Totally agree, joanofarchitrave - actually, I thought it was scientifically illiterate. It reminded me of books by the psychologist Oliver James e.g., take the cortisol hypothesis and stretch it as far as it will go, throw in a pinch of ill-disguised distaste at working mothers and set against a backdrop of author's problematic childhood: hey presto - a top-seller and guilt-a-thon for parents.

Second what Joan and others have said. That book is the most appalling pile of badly researched hooey. Place in the 'round file' and follow your instincts. Children need love, structure and solidity, not parents who are feeling guilty, strung out and second guessing themselves at every verse end. My feeling about the book was that it was yet another example of the 'frighten the bum off mummy' industry that has proved so profitable in recent years and policed women's behaviour so well over the last century or so.

lionsandtigersandbears that is what I would have said if I was feeling more eloquent tonight!

oooh Oliver James . Let's just take a socially conservative construct that weds women to the home, throw some faux science at it and voila - a career entirely aimed at annoying margoandjerry.

OP, there's a really interesting bit in freakonomics (I think) where it demonstrates that what's in the parenting books is irrelevant to the outcome. What matters is that the parent cared enough to go out and buy the book, whether it is attachment parenting oriented or the other end of the spectrum. The techniques themselves don't matter - the care and attention by the parent matters. So the fact that you've bought the book (and are on MN) already means you care enough to think about it and that is more than half the battle.

I've seen some of that research via work we did with Kids Company and I think it's really interesting but you have to remember that it's basically talking about drug addicted parents who never even see their baby, are completely chaotic and are incapable of bonding. For them, eye contact and all that stuff is completely missing. All it does for normal parents is make them feel they have to pick up their baby and stare at them like weirdos for hours on end.

And by the way, we're all faking the fun mum stuff! I had a very good upbringing (despite not being by the book - single parent, broken home blah blah) and I still have to fake the fun mum stuff. But I do have faith that I am a good enough mum despite my mistakes and my fake fun mum persona. You need the same faith - regardless of your upbringing you choose what you do now with your DC and what you've chosen so far is to care and to think about it. I think you need to own your own parenting - it's you, not your parents inhabiting your body.

OP, I've read it too and have a similar background to you, although perhaps not as bad. TBH I think my background and determination to not be that type of parent to my child is why I felt so anxious about attachment etc (ie not specifically down to what that book said, just the whole issue itself. We also have a lot of cancer in my family and I get similarly jumpy hearing or reading anything cancer inheritance).

I found it useful to hear that basic stuff - eye contact, chatting, holding, feeding, changing nappy had such a important role in creating trust between you and your child. I know lots of people will think "FFS of course that's all you need to do" but I really haven't met a lot of mothers and babies and my own mum was not a good example, plus he's a shite sleeper so I get a lot of "He needs to learn independence, put him down, you'll be carrying him round when he is 17" type advice.

On the other hand I felt she was a over worrying in some parts. Isn't there a bit about "Or does mother come to the baby in the night with a scowl on her face." So not only do I have to get up 4000 times a night, I have to look happy about it, anything else while you are there?

I have found having a baby has made me massively reflect on my own childhood and my parents' parenting. I have pnd and the counselling has really helped me get a lot of this stuff sorted in my head. My own take on it is that there probably is a high chance of passing it on if you don't try and take control of the situation and not repeat the stuff you didn't like to receive (in my case shouting, guilt-trippping and acting like you cba).

Well this thread isn't about Oliver James but...

What I took from his books was bascially, know yourself, if you aren't happy at home go and get a job but make sure the childcare is good. Similarly if you aren't happy at work, reorganise your life so you can be at home more. I do think he has some interesting stuff to say on affluence but having met my ds I'm not sure I buy the child's personality is dependant on parenting argument.

You should read What Mothers Do - Especially When It Looks Like Nothing. I think the author comes from a broadly attachment parenting perspective but it is very affirming and will really boost your confidence. It speaks very much of the realities of life with a baby, based on conversations with many women.

She's written another called How mothers love and how relationships are born which I've not read but I bet is brilliant.

I read the first few chapters as part of an assignment. I stopped reading when it got to the illness part. I think it stretched the theory a bit far.

Oh yes What Mothers Do is brill. Basically explains why mothers are amazing for doing what you do but goes into why it is difficult, because its so different from work, it changes your relationships etc. It has such a range of different women's voices in it that there will definately be some quotes you feel have been stolen from your own brain. Very interesting to hear other's experiences I think rather than just one author's interpretation.

"All it does for normal parents is make them feel they have to pick up their baby and stare at them like weirdos for hours on end." This is actually what I've been doing - poor DD must be slightly disconcerted!

I guess my concern is that I didn't learn from my own childhood how to be a good mother, so I'm just trying to make it up as I go along, while acknowledging that I might make mistakes and trying not to stress too much about that. This book's just doing my head in! I hate giving up on books halfway through, but I think for my sanity I might need to do that here. Thanks for the reassurances!

(I read What Mothers Do when I was first pregnant, but I think I might need to go back to it and have another look as much of it seems to have disappeared into the mush of pregnancy brain.)

I read this book when my dd was about 18 mo and came away thinking 'oh well I've screwed her up already then!!'

I did a bit of cc, took at least 3 months to feel a sense of attachment to dd rather than invasion and was basically clueless when it came to babies like all new mums

Am happy to say that dd is now nearly 6yrs and has seemingly survived is happy, bright and sociable so really wish I hadn't bothered with the book.

I think the bit about brain development is really only relevent in terms of how society views criminals ie if a baby has been abused or neglected then certain areas of the brain like empathy and compassion just don't get developed (at least I think that was what she was trying to say!)

The funny thing is you don't realise how attuned you are to your kid, I think. I remember my cousin visiting, who was baby mad but childless, and she'd sit there and have in depth adult conversations and be nonplussed that I had half my attention on my 6 month old, involving him in what I said and interacting, while she talked across him. At the time I had PND and thought I was a shite mother.

I really agree that a loving, engaged parent will be a good enough one, whatever they do. I think a book is good if it comforts because it reinforces that you're doing okay - sounds like Albrecht and I had similar experiences. There are lots of ways to parent, and as long as the parenting is mostly-sane, the child will be okay. I like a vaguely hippy attachment style, but I know people who go the full Gina Thingie and their kids are fine, too, because their mother and father dote on them and are consistent. So I don't actually think it matters over much as long as the love and attention are constant. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Oh and I HATED "What Mothers Do". It read to me like a bollocks self-help book. I couldn't get on with it at all, yet I bought it because Mumsnetters raved. It really is horses for courses.

Trust yourself. Trust that if your baby's needs are met you are doing well: clean, fed, cuddled, stimulated for some of the day by you or others. If more than needs are met then you are doing very well.

You are allowed to be bored. Babies will survive and thrive despite learning they are not all consumingly fascinating 24/7. Ditch any crapola book that tells you otherwise. And never spend a farthing on misogynist Oliver James - his fury at his mother shines through in every line. If he hasn't reached emotional maturity and forgiven her by now for whatever she did that he found so wrong, then he's not fit to dish out advice to others, especially when it's advice he has no need to take himself, being that advanced version of our species: A Man.

I have beat myself up endlessly with these ideological books, which after all are out to make money by preying on disatisfaction, guilt and vulnerability

op the very fact that you recognise you had an abusive childhood and want to stop the cycle means you have an insight that your parents never had. no one can be the perfect mother, but then that very notion is what causes most damage and keeps the mummy market going.

bin the books. follow your instincts, take advice from people you trust. admit you will get it wrong at times and be able to say sorry. love your children for who they are.

if you want to talk to a counsellor about your childhood it may help. your post shines with love and warmness. don't worry too much

Well, I loved Why love matters! I don't think it's intending to suggest that a mum who cares (enough to read a childcare book) isn't doing enough unless they have their baby with them in a sling all day - although it does suggest cc may well be detrimental before a baby hits 6ms. What it did for me was counter the chorus from all my older female relatives that I should be bottle-feeding rather than bfing, leaving my baby to cry it out from an early age, etc. I wanted to be allowed to trust my instincts, which were to mother my child with affection and pick him up when he was upset, and be able to say that far from turning my child into a manipulative little monster I would be setting him up for a secure and happy adulthood. I needed some research-based ammunition for this, not necessarily to quote back at them but to reassure myself that I was doing a great job by loving my baby and trusting him.

I'm not the sort of person who reads judgment or criticism into an account of someone doing something differently. Perhaps I was unconsciously taking it all with a pinch of salt, as I know adults whose childhoods weren't great but who are pretty well-adjusted. But I do think it's worth knowing the stuff about cortisol etc if you have a baby and want it to be happy, as there are plenty of people out there telling you that by cuddling it and cosleeping you're actually making it miserable. I know it's bks, but when you're a new mum it's a difficult time as you know so little. Bab, you obviously love your baby and show it, so no need to worry. And re faking the fun mum stuff, my dad recently told me that a lot of parenting is acting, and he really was a fantastic - and very fun - dad.

I really liked that book.

The one that panicked me was GF; 8.20 open curtains 8.21 start feed 8.23 wash clothes...

"What it did for me was counter the chorus from all my older female relatives that I should be bottle-feeding rather than bfing, leaving my baby to cry it out from an early age, etc. I wanted to be allowed to trust my instincts, which were to mother my child with affection and pick him up when he was upset, and be able to say that far from turning my child into a manipulative little monster I would be setting him up for a secure and happy adulthood. I needed some research-based ammunition for this, not necessarily to quote back at them but to reassure myself that I was doing a great job by loving my baby and trusting him."

Yep. This. It gave me permission to trust my own instincts, and mother as I wanted to, and ignore jeers and scoffing that it was "hysterical" and "anxiety-related" to think, for example, that I knew when my baby was hungry BEFORE he was crying. (He'd chew his fists, it wasn't rocket science) and that no, leaving him till he was sobbing so he'd "go longer between feeds" wasn't how I wanted to do things. Really helped me feel more confident.