Detached from reality

I LIKE to consider myself a fairly modern and with-it mammy. I've read enough parenting books to know how to get through the next couple of years hopefully without scarring my child emotionally or physically for life.

I know about quality time and I love the hour between finishing work and packing my wee man up to bed for our sleepy-time cuddles. I love how he comes toddling into our bedroom in the middle of the night, pulls the covers off, climbs in, and asks me to "close the bed" over him.
For the most part, when I'm not trying to get 101 odd jobs done around the house, I love my days off and spending time doing all those things mammies and sons should do. (Like wandering around Tesco avoiding the toy aisle, and hurtling myself down slides at Bananas.)
I think I can say with a degree of confidence that I'm a good parent. My boy often tells me I'm the best (sometimes, he even does it unprompted) and that he loves me.
However, according to a certain parenting movement gaining increasing popularity in America and the UK, I'm a terrible, terrible mammy who does not deserve the child I love so much.
For those who didn't see the Channel 5 documentary 'Honey, I Suckle the Kids', let me explain to you about the philosophy of 'Attached Parenting'.
According to followers of this movement a child should be a parent's be all and end all from the moment of conception until adulthood. They don't hold court with any of that nasty pain relieving medication during labour malarkey, arguing that if you don't feel the pain you won't appreciate the end product as much - or some other such nonsense.
Once baby has arrived, the attached parent should spend 24 hours a day, seven days a wee devoting themselves to raising their children. This includes 'Baby-wearing', which means they shun buggies, bouncy chairs and cribs in favour of slings to carry their children (some as old as five) everywhere. This 24 hour attachment to junior extends to bed time when baby becomes the third person in the bed until they are old enough to want choose to sleep in their own bed.
Attached parents believe in extended breast-feeding, again choosing to feed their children until the age of five or beyond. To add to this they don't believe in dummies and will happily allow their children to spend as much time as possible on the breast if it keeps them calm.

Elimination communication
The most bizarre thing that attached parents practice however is 'Elimination Communication' which, in layman's terms, is allowing your baby to roam about without a nappy and teaching them to pee upon hearing a cue sound from their parents.
This starts with new-borns until the baby eventually toilet trains him or herself at around two years of age.
One mother admitted encouraging her child to go 'pee pee' or 'poo poo' up to forty times a day and she frequently whipped down his pants exposing his poor wee bum to the outside world whenever the need arose.
Now call me close minded if you will, but I could not help but feel these parents were three scoops short of a box of formula powder.
When it came to labour, I have to say effective pain relief would probably have helped me bond with my son rather than damage our relationship. As it stood when he finally arrived I was so sore and tired that I had no inclination to jump straight into the super mammy role. I wanted to sleep and not, as the Attached Parents in the programme did, invite my friends over for chips and dips to watch my perineum tearing on a home video.
As regards 'wearing your baby'- well I have to admit that I loved skin to skin contact with my son. That said, I had a life to lead, washing to be done, floors to be hoovered etc and not all of that was easy carrying a baby around strapped to my person continually. I carried him for nine months- I think I paid my dues. Carrying him about now would no doubt give me a hernia, as it would necessitate bringing Scoop, Muck and Dizzy and Rolly too along.
When it came to breast-feeding I'll maintain to this day that breast is undoubtedly best (and I say this as a bottle-feeder) there is something disturbing about a four year old whipping out her mammy's boob looking for a drink. That's why God made taps.
And so we come to the concept of 'Elimination Communication'. Personally, I see few merits in allowing your new-born to poop and pee freely in public and from what I could tell from the programme it doesn't necessarily mean your child will be independently potty trained any earlier.
As a mother who is trying (and failing) to potty train a particularly independent minded two-years-old and who has already spent several days cleaning up pee and changing Thomas the Tank Engine Pants, I can think of nothing less appealing that trying the same process on a younger child knowing that they have neither the physical or mental know how to learn from the experience.
I'm pretty sure these parents love their children, just as much as I'm pretty sure I love my son. If giving up your life to be there as a servant and general dogsbody for your children floats your boat then by all means go for it- but please don't tell the rest of us we are doing a lousy job.