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Thanks Mom...Understanding Attachment Theory

Jan 09, 2017


Maggie had a baby boy, Alexander Stone Carr. Here they are on day 1...learning to love and totally attached to one another.

Lately, I’ve been appreciating my mother and father who have both been dead for years, especially my mom who was calm, loving, fair and very smart. Not many of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren know that she skipped ahead two grades in school and then ended up working for the Federal Reserve Bank in Philadelphia without benefit of a college degree and during the depression when so many were out of work.

All families have their own distinctive styles of conversation, love, interaction, and attachment behavior. The New York Times ran a story recently, titled “Yes It’s Your Parents’ Fault,” by Kate Murphy, describing a 50-year-old concept known as attachment theory, which is having a “breakout moment.” Psychoanalyst John Bowlby first explained that the quality of our early attachments “profoundly influences how we behave as adults,” Murphy writes. Caregivers, (not just mothers), who are “distracted, overbearing, dismissive, unreliable, absent or perhaps threatening,” according to Murphy, can create flawed individuals who subconsciously act in ways that set themselves up for difficulty later in life. “By the end of the first year, we have stamped on our baby brains a pretty indelible template of how we think relationships work, based on how our parents or other caregivers treat us,” Murphy says.

For months now, when I see individuals behaving badly, my mantra has been is: They are doing the best they possibly can with the tools they learned in childhood. Dr. Amir Levine, a Columbia University psychiatrist and author of the book, Attached,  links our behavior right into the neurochemistry of the brain, learned from our earliest experiences. Self-destructive or sabotaging impulses can be changed, of course, and there are attachment-oriented psychotherapies and training available. You can even find out your dominant attachment style by taking a self-administered quiz. In the meantime, I’m thanking my parents for being so normal.

18 Jul, 2017
Alexander Stone Carr was born on Dec. 16, 2016 and I met this newest – my fifth! – grandchild moments after his birth in the middle of a long night. He stared intently, wide-awake and alert, into his mother’s eyes and actually grabbed for a necklace Maggie was wearing. Both wore falling-in-love-at-first-sight facial expressions that were absolutely priceless. And since then, Alex has only grown even more expansive in the way he can speak volumes with his little face using every muscle available, even his eyebrows going up and down in what looks like real wisdom. I mean, honestly, how did he know how to smile and make eye contact at the perfect moments? He’s also talking baby gibberish, chatting seriously about what’s on his mind…though we don’t understand a word he is saying as yet. His pure joy at being here is apparent to all, even complete strangers who engage with him.
20 Oct, 2016
My daughter Maggie is going to have a little boy on or about December 22 of this year. She is absolutely thrilled and absolutely caught up in nesting instinct imperatives. Please don’t knock them. “Maternal nest-building is regulated by the hormonal actions of estradiol, progesterone and prolactin,” according to Wikipedia which references a study in the Journal of Neuroendocrinology .
15 Sep, 2016
This morning one of my siblings sent an exasperating “dig” my way. I’m one of six children and right in the middle of the pack. I should be used to family dynamics by now – after all, I’m 67 – but of course, I’m not. What is absolutely extraordinary in this ordinary world of family life, is that sibling rivalry never grows old.
11 Aug, 2016
My grandchildren are incapable of lying. Even if I have broken unwritten rules while babysitting and allowed them to pick anything they want to eat at the Red Store, Finn and Charlotte will share the news of their secret treats immediately with their mother. “Guess what Grammy let us have?!”
13 Jul, 2016
I’ve had generations of experience with what society likes to call “picky eaters.” My father had very touchy taste buds, for instance, and would carefully separate the miniscule pieces of minced onion my mother had chopped so finely into her beef stroganoff. That little pile on the side of his plate after he had finished his meal was a dead giveaway. We six children grew up knowing that dad would only eat certain foods. So when my son Zach – even as an infant – showed picky-eater tendencies, I was alarmed at first. Advice-givers, medical professionals, well-meaning relatives as well as total strangers, were everywhere. It took some research to be able to withstand the onslaught from all sides. Zach is healthy, happy and brilliant. He didn’t eat his peas. So what.
29 Jun, 2016
I cry easily at happy, sad or any kind of emotional occasion. Last Monday, all three of my grandchildren cried at different points during what was actually a wonderful day. From a sibling squabble between Finn, 5, and Charlotte, almost 4, to the emotional frustration experienced by their cousin Evie at 2, the tears fell. I often beat myself up about how easily my tears show up. My older sister reminds me that when I cry I lose all my power. Damn those tears! Or maybe not?
03 May, 2016
Watching my grandchildren at play on Saturday sent me on a quest to research just how powerful happy playfulness can be. Finn, 5, Charlotte, 3 and Evie, 2, were having so much fun that I overheard Ev say, “I love playing.” I expected to find research that supported the importance of play for growing children but stumbled upon the brilliant work of social psychologist Barbara L. Fredrickson, PhD, now at the University of North Carolina. Play and the positive emotions accompanying it, are critical for adults’ physical health and intellectual well-being.
01 Oct, 2015
I’ve been doing a lot of babysitting the last few months and there is nothing more rewarding and exhausting. There is certainly a biological reason for motherhood being reserved for the younger generation. Don’t even try to talk to me after a 12-hour day with a toddler. I am so tired that I can hardly think straight. But I wouldn’t want it any other way. Not only am I growing closer and more in love with all three of my grandchildren but it turns out that my natural instinct as a grandmother to want to help my children raise their children has evolutionary rewards for all.
14 Jul, 2015
Buy this book! Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ by Giula Enders, a 25-year-old doctoral student at the Institute for Medical Microbiology in Frankfurt, Germany, is absolutely wonderful. I know. I know. Who really wants to read about Charming Bowels (or Darm mit Charme the title of her book before it was translated and marketed for U.S. readers)? We all should.
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