Bialik mayim is not your typical Hollywood TV star. They may be the only "celebrity" who speaks in favor of Attachment Parenting are. AP is known to back-to-nature style of parenting - "baby wearing" and "sleeping together" and literally at your child's needs by being connected to them as much as humanly possible.
She is still nursing her 3 1/2 years old, although she recently blogged about weaning him from three to four feedings he had every night. When I ask her how people react, she says: "I know that it is unusual, but if you surround yourself with other women who are intelligent, educated, loving, have incredible children she cared for also past three and a half, I can see that I do not get to say what is good for someone else. "
Mayim first rave reviews and won the young Bette Midler in "Beaches." She played in her own hit TV show "Blossom" as a teenager. Then at 19, she took the obvious next step and earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience at UCLA studying hormones and bonding and OCD.
After marrying her college sweetheart, her life took a real twist. They decided to send their children as an attachment Parents raise along with a mix of other eccentric styles and strategies: diaperless parenting - even newborns mayim informs me pee every 15 minutes, and unschooling, which she describes as "We homeschool, but we do not keep a rigorous curriculum and we let our children's interests and attention of a large part determine the course of what we do. "
You can see mayim not something half-way and do everything they there when it comes to education, too.
I met their adorable 6 - ½ year old son of Miles and their 3 - ½ year old son Fred. How he was raised diaper free? It's called elimination communication. Her husband was initially against it and told her that was crazy. But mayim said she set out and successfully adapted to her sons' arms flapping and other evidence and held them over jars (with a fair share of accidents, she adds). Every 15 minutes, and it still takes place at night.
But she is proud of the fact that she won for her husband and that her youngest son was sitting on a potty before he could walk or talk or do whatever. And she has years worth of diapers is not something to contribute to a landfill.
Her husband, a fellow student at UCLA when they met, is an at-home father who most of the dishes and laundry (mayim makes cleaning the bathrooms and kitchen).
They do not believe in consumerism and she puts her money where her mouth is savings. They live in a modest house. Her children playing Wii, but are not allowed to watch TV, except for occasional sports with his father. None of them owns more than a few pairs of shoes. They cook vegan and not going out to fancy dinners.
Ironically, the most controversial part of what they do seems most sweet and cuddly. They sleep in a large family room (two futons on the floor, if you're wondering).
I showed her a gruesome public service announcement from Milwaukee equate sleeping together with putting a baby in bed with a butcher knife. She named the Scare Mongering and felt that both the PSA and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation that babies sleep in cribs are not misled.
Infant mortality in co-sleeping situations, mayim says, are a socieo-economic problem that could be solved with better safety education. But while drinking and drugs and lack of safe sleeping equipment is part of the danger of sleeping with children, so too is sleep deprivation, mayim who admitted that he was in those early nursing months.
In her ample free time, mayim has succeeded in a new book about her adventures parenting name to write, "Beyond the Sling" and I interviewed her for "Good Morning America" and "Nightline." I loved doing the inevitable high school mid-term thing in my head: Compare and contrast, compare and contrast. In reading her book, I kept thinking about my own three boys and how proud they sleep trained at 4 months (they had slept 10 hours a night after the third night, no joke).
But sucked his thumb for years to come sooth themselves and the one still uses a pacifier. But my nerves were not worn by sleep-deprivation and they are excellent sleepers. I wound up caring for them for 12, 10 and seven months respectively (no, thank you Mom, I'm ready) ... But I had so much pain trouble the first time I almost nurse, that is why I hate the cultural pressures on women to quit breastfeeding to feel guilty if they stop. Oh, and all three of my boys wore diapers beyond their third birthday (way past).
I did not know whether to hate or envy the way mayim and her husband over. It's serious commitment. She had not left her house for the first 40 days of either the baby's life. After the first week I was out and about between nursing sessions with the help of babysitters.
I would be one of my older boys special time or I go to a quick lunch with friends (who tells me that Dr. Oz is literally good for my health). Mayim has not had a "date night" in seven years. At least I feel less guilty about neglecting my husband. They are not yet out to fancy restaurants, because she believes in life sober.
Some vocal feminists have taken to say that this philosophy of parenting addicted mothers (or stay-at-home dads) to their children. And although I think it makes sense when mayim says we are "wired" to parents in this way, because it is how primates and humans have parented for all times, I know not many primates that appear at the office or nursing job after nursing a toddler on demand all day and night with a baby sling.
We as parents know that's hard. It is parenting. I have certainly not enough to exercise and I have no "me" time. But as a full-time working mother, I often fantasize about what life would look like a full time parent. That said, I'm surprised by a woman (let's be honest, it's usually women) who go home to school an older child, while wearing a baby carrier and cook vegan while walking to the potty every 15 minutes and nursing on demand and keeping a clean house and sleeping with her children who do not sleep through the night, even a little.
Mayim emphasizes that parents are to sacrifice themselves or their marriage to their children. It is a wonderful concept, but it must be exhausting to say the least. Mayim is the first to admit that AP is not for everyone.
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