I had an interesting exchange about parenting via Twitter last night.  One person I follow sent out a “tweet” about trying to get his 6-month old to sleep.  Another person I follow responded with something to the effect of: “…Ferber is your friend.”  I challenged him on that, and an interesting “twitversation” ensued.

I’m sure most of you are familiar with what I’ll simply refer to as the Sleep Wars.  In education, we have the Reading Wars between supporters of whole language instruction and supporters of phonics-based instruction.  In parenting, I find a similar dichtoomy.  When it comes to facilitating sleep for children, there are those that support and/or practice the “cry it out” method widely attributed to Dr. Ferber (many, in fact, refer to this method as “Ferberizing” your child).  Then there are those that don’t “Ferberize.”  There are certainly variants of the “cry it out” method, and even Dr. Ferber has softened his stance a bit.

My wife and I have never let our son cry for more than a minute or two without comforting him in some way.  That’s a fairly unusual approach, and that was reinforced last night as other Twitterers mentioned their “success” with the Ferber method.  One of my followers did offer his allegiance to my stance, and that was nice.  But, overall, this was another reminder of how marginal my wife and I are with respect to our parenting orientation.  Beyond just the sleep issue, there are many aspects of parenting where we think and act differently than the vast majority of parents.  That sort of marginalization can be isolating and frustrating; loneliness is not an uncommon feeling.  In one of my final “tweets” last night, I suggested that I would stop tweeting and go back to my natural and attachment parenting island.

Marginalized feelings notwithstanding, an amazing thing (or series of things) has happened for my wife (and, therefore, for me and my son).  When we moved to Virginia, we imagined it would be especially hard for her to find like-minded mothers with whom she could socialize and from whom she could find support.  After all, this was the heart of the Confederacy and a “red state.”  However, in the month or so before we moved here, my wife did a little Internet research and found a Richmond-based support group through Attachment Parenting International.  She contacted the coordinator of that group, started meeting others in the group after we moved here, and remains friendly with the coordinator still.  Then, shortly after moving down here, she learned of a Richmond-based “natural and attachment parenting” (NAP) group that maintains a very active online forum.  There are over 100 members of the forum, at least a dozen or so of whom are regular contributors to the forum.  My wife is reading or posting to the forum nearly every free moment she has, and she (and my son) attend a lot of playdates and events arranged through the forum.  Real friendships with like-minded mothers are developing as a result.

I’ve written about the power of hybrid (virtual + face-to-face) communities in the education contexts (see e.g. this blog post).  For my wife, this hybrid natural and attachment parenting (NAP) community has comforted her in so many ways.  She is a happier and more confident person now that she has the support and collegiality of these women.

In his book on Unconditional Parenting, Alfie Kohn jokes that instead of using “brain surgery” as the standard bearer of all things difficult, when trying to suggest that he is doing something that is easy or simple, he’ll say, “it’s not like I’m parenting or anything.”  Parenting IS incredibly difficult, but like most things in life, it can be so much easier when you have support from a community.  I would also add that for those who feel marginalized in any way, the community-building capacity of the Internet is an extraordinary development.  It has been amazing for us.

In September of 2007, Jon, Jacqui and Drew Becker (and their two cats Willie and Ubie) left the familial comforts of New York and relocated to Richmond, Virginia. There, Jon works as an assistant professor of educational leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU); Jacqui maintains a small, private psychotherapy practice. Jon also blogs at Educational Insanity. Read more about Jon on the Dads page…

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