I did all the things that gentle parents do. I co-slept, breastfed forever, carried them everywhere. I never spanked, tried (and failed) not to raise my voice, and basically made parenting my end all and be all life’s purpose. I have no regrets for my choices but I do regret the fear that governed them. I wish I hadn’t punished myself so much when I didn’t get things exactly right. And I wish I’d remembered myself more.
Many of us are parenting so intensely because we’re trying to undo our own relational trauma. In our communities of attachment parents/gentle parents/instinctive parents, there is a pretty high number of traumatized former children desperately trying to undo that trauma through our own parenting. We confuse our experience with our children’s, thinking that taking a shower while the baby cries is the same thing as abandonment. We ignore our own