Read When: Your Family Don't Like Your Parenting Choices

Parenting against social norms is possibly the hardest thing anyone can do. Especially if you’re also breaking cycles of abuse. One of the major reasons it is so hard is because you encounter push back everywhere you go. From people at the supermarket, your boss to friends and family.

While it’s easy enough to ignore some people, and roll your eyes in private at your boss, you probably actually want to keep your friends and family! And that’s what can make your parenting choices all the more difficult. Advocating for your beliefs, and living your decisions confidently and loudly in the wake of family and friends who feel your choices reflect badly on them, or who simply haven’t thought about the way parenting shapes society is no mean feat.

Here are some articles to help you through.

Against the Grain: When Your Family Thinks Your Parenting Style is Wrong - Mothering Magazine

How do you handle it when you and your spouse disagree on your parenting style? - Attachment Parenting International

When Your Partner Isn’t On the Bedsharing Train - Tracy Cassells Evolutionary Parenting

Guest Post: Going Against the Tide of Mainstream Parenting - Fiona Griffin

When You Don’t Agree With Your Partner’s Parenting Lori Petro at Teach Through Love

Breaking Tradition: When Others Disapprove Of Your Parenting Lori Petro @ Teach Through Love

Guest Post - Attachment Intellectual Parenting - Bridget McGann

In myview, and in the author’s view it seems, popular criticism of Attachment Parenting isn’t based on science so much as on cultural constructions about what the “goals” of parenting should be, and scientific illiteracy in terms of how those goals can be achieved…That is to say, the general population is poorly educated in the psychological and evolutionary sciences that form the foundation of Attachment Parenting ideas. And that’s not to say that proponents of Attachment Parenting are even all that educated in science; most of API-accredited Leaders that I have met have very minimal background in the relevant sciences and are prone to logical fallacies when arguing for it. Nevertheless, even when implemented by a scientifically illiterate parent, the principles of Attachment Parenting have less risk associated with them than conventional Western parenting approaches such as spanking, cry-it-out, unnecessarily interventionist childbirth models, and forced early weaning. Within the scientific community, there is no debate over the role that breastfeeding plays in optimal infant development. There is no debate over the benefits of a positive, democratic approach to the discipline of older children. There is no debate over the need to reduce c-section rates in the United Sates. There is a debate over bed-sharing within the medical community, but not really in the scientific community. But even the medical community agrees that same-room cosleeping is preferable to separate-room sleep in early infancy, and that is still not consistent with the cultural norm. Which begs the question: What, exactly, is the problem you have with Attachment Parenting?