PHILIPPINES: Proudly “Pinoy” Views on Attachment Parenting
Photo of the author and her then 5-month old son
I won’t go into the old news that is Time’s controversial “mom enough” mid-May issue. We all know they sold enough copies on that matter.
Instead, I wanted to share some views on attachment parenting and breastfeeding expressed by fellow Filipino moms.
To begin, let me say that I am a babywearing, formerly nursing mom (my son recently weaned after being breastfed for two years and six months). In fact, here’s a photo of me a year and a half ago, when my son was just five months old.
Here in the Philippines, we are not new to the concept of babywearing and breastfeeding.
Velvet Escario‐Roxas, a breastfeeding counselor and representative of Arugaan (ah-roo-ga-an), a non-governmental, WHO-funded organization that conducts breastfeeding training for the Philippine Department of Health, gave a good picture of this when she posted a recent Facebook status update on the fan page of the popular breastfeeding blog, Chronicles of a Nursing Mom:
“Our Pinoy [colloquialism for “Filipino] ancestors have been doing these things since the beginning of time. We call it the Filipino way of living or raising of children. They on the other hand modernized it and called it attachment parenting. Look at the indigenous folks of the mountain provinces. (more…)
