Flaunt Your Crunch!

Do you feel smothered by the mainstream? Are you embarrassed to admit that you are an attached parent or crunchy mom when surrounded by the formula-feeding, sleep training, SUV stroller pushing moms? Are you sick and tired of getting unsolicited advice that goes against everything you believe in and insults the parenting choices you have made? Have you had enough of people giving you a look of pity because of your parenting choices?

Then you need to learn how to flaunt your crunchiness!

Don't hide. Don't be embarrassed. Don't apologize for your choices. Instead use words and actions to show how confident you are in the choices you have made.

But how? I've put together some ideas to get you started.

• Smile and look confident. Do this as you wear your baby. As you nurse your child. As you apply gentle discipline techniques. Even if you are not 100% confident and if others are making you shy about your choices, don't let on. If you let down your guard, that is when you give them an opening to criticize your choices or to suggest alternatives that you might not like.


• Talk about your upcoming all inclusive resort vacation that was paid for entirely with the money you saved by breastfeeding (from $750 to $3200 for a year) and the money you saved by cloth diapering (savings of at least $1000 for one child, but much higher if you use the diapers for multiple children).


• Speaking of that vacation, don't forget to mention how effortless that travel will be since you won't be taking a bulky pack n' play and stroller with you and you don't need to worry about getting bottles warmed up and washed at the airport, on the plane, in the hotel, while touring cities, when hiking in the woods, when hanging out at the beach, etc.


• Brag about how healthy your kids are as a result of breastfeeding and how you're glad you'll be breastfeeding through the whole cold season. Neither of my kids has been sick enough to need to see a doctor while still breastfeeding and my son who weaned 1.5 years ago has only been sick once since weaning.


• If another parent complains about how tired she is, tell her how well rested you are as a result of co-sleeping. Let her know that your baby wakes up less often as a result of being next to you and that you hardly wake up at all when you do need to tend to her needs.


• Effortlessly glide through crowds, saunter across rough surfaces, navigate your way through doors and up and down stairs easily, because you are using a baby carrier instead of a stroller.


• When your friend mentions needing to go and find somewhere to warm up a bottle while you are out shopping at the mall, say "you go ahead, if you don't mind, I'll just keep browsing the books while my baby nurses in the sling".


• When people start complaining about high gas prices, tell them that you haven't really noticed the impact of the price change since you have a compact/hybrid car, take the bus, ride your bicycle or walk.


• If someone tells you how great you look, say "Thanks, the weight just keeps melting off. All those calories that breastfeeding and babywearing burn."


• If a woman says that she could never go through with natural child birth, tell her that it really wasn't that much worse that really bad menstrual cramps and that you were so glad to be up and walking around within minutes of giving birth, rather than being confined to the bed for another half day or so (for an epidural) or longer (for a c-section).


• Make sure that your facebook picture is a babywearing or breastfeeding picture, thereby visually spreading the message to your non-crunchy friends or to possible future parents that can benefit from seeing attachment parenting imagery to combat the mainstream imagery they see in the media and IRL.


• If someone compliments you on your child or your parenting, smile and say "Thank You". Don't try to downplay the compliment by saying something like "he isn't always this well behaved" or "if only you had been there when he was screaming his head off 2 hours ago".


• If someone says something critical, interpret it as a compliment. If they say "are you STILL breastfeeding" you should say "Yes, isn't it great. It looks like we're going to make it at least to the minimum 2 years recommended by the World Health Organization". If someone says "Wow, she's really clingy" you could respond "Thanks, but I wouldn't use the word clingy. I'm really proud of the close relationship that I have with my daughter."

Any other suggestions? How do you flaunt your crunch? Help me add to the list by dropping your suggestions into the comments.

Comments

[Anne]

While I agree one should be confident in their choices, I think this list is going about it all wrong. Heck, as an AP mom myself, reading this back when my daughter was born and I was in the throes of hormones, this list would have made me feel bad! I cosleep and I don't get great sleep still. I breastfeed and babywear (though I love my stroller for the mall because then I don't have to carry the diaper bag!), and it hasn't helped me lose weight. I don't have a ton of money in savings from not buying formula; the little money we did have went to cover the rent while my husband was out of work.

While the intent of this article was probably good (be confident in your crunchy choices), it comes off as better than you and could serve to make even other crunchy moms feel bad for not measuring up. (I don't consider myself crunchy, by the way.)

Incidentally...after a C-section they try to get you up and hobbling around as soon as possible. I was showering within 14 hours after my 1 am C-section.

[phdinparenting]

I don't know where all the visits to this old post are coming from all of a sudden. I wrote this five years ago. I think what that time has given me, more than anything, is an ability to not be made to feel insecure by other people's comments or other people's parenting choices.

This post was intended to use humour to help a friend lift her chin up and not feel so judged. I'd wish the same for any mom, regardless of her choices. I'd wish the same for any of you who are reading this and somehow feel irate about it instead of being able to laugh at it.

If we all listened and laughed a little more instead of judging and feeling judged, we'd be much better off.

[Lynnette]

Count me in as another AP mom who feel disgusted at the idea of flaunting from anyone. If someone criticized me for co-sleeping, I hope I would have the presence of mind not to get defensive and start boasting about how awesome my choices are (and by implication how substandard her parenting is). People who criticize do it because they are desperately insecure and need to put others down to feel better about themselves.

[Michelle]

phdinparenting, maybe you could write an update to this post about how your feelings on the subject have changed over the years. I agree that we should all listen and laugh a little more instead of judging and feeling judged, and that is precisely why I didn't care for this article. Take my criticism for what it is - an opinion on how another person reads your tone and subject, and change it or don't change it according to your own standards. At the end of the day I do what I do because I want to, just like everyone else out there, and I find no need for snark to back up my choices. That's all I'm putting out there.

[Itzybellababy]

I think we just need to all accept that there are more ways to be a parent than the ones our parents used. I will say, I love my stroller too, but we always bring our Babyhawk Meitai so when baby needs it, we have it. Strollers are great for carrying a bunch of bags and such too.. lol. We really just go with what baby needs at the moment. Most of our parenting has been that way really. She needs us at night? We cosleep. She wants to nurse 3 times a night at 14 months, ok. She wants to nap at a different time? ok. She is intelligent, very loving, and accepting of others, quiet and thoughtful. We all win.

[emily]

I'm just reading this now, too, as a new mum who loves your blog and has gained tons from your wisdom, and is now scouring your archives for more insight.

I breastfeed, babywear most of the time, cosleep, cloth diaper, and do many things on the "crunchy" end of the spectrum. I've had an intervention (really) from well-meaning family members about how my partner and I are supposedly going to kill my daughter in her sleep. So I get this. Reading it made me laugh but also cringe.

Here's my problem: conceptualizing all of these choices as a singular ideology like attachment parenting removes the element of choice from all of us as mothers. There's this idea that you're either AP/crunchy/whatever or you're not, based on incredibly personal decisions that are based in social/economic privilege. Take breastfeeding: successful nursing often depends on your access to breastfeeding support from health-care professionals (which, if you're from a working class background in a non-urban setting, like where I'm from, is pretty much nonexistent), social support (do people around you breastfeed?), your mental health, and your physical ability to breastfeed.

I know you know this. But posts like this only reinforce ideological boundaries around parenting. A lot of us don't neatly fit in the "crunchy mom" category. And we shouldn't. So long as our choices are made with love and a desire for deep connection with our babies, as well as care for ourselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually, we're all OK.

As for me, I had an epidural after many, many hours of horrific back labour and it was the best freaking thing ever. No pitocin, no stalled labour, no breastfeeding problems, no lingering pain, nothing. I felt every contraction, every movement of my daughter down the birth canal, felt her crowning. Felt her leave my body. And got up to dress myself two hours later, after we snuggled and I fed her as long as we wanted.

And far too many times I told someone from my general circle of mom friends and acquaintances I had an epidural I got a stupid comment about how amazing it is to experience "natural" birth or one similar to the one you mentioned here.