Worth noting the difference between attachment theory and attachment parenting. Attachment theory is a psychological model. It proposes that during early child

Worth noting the difference between attachment theory and attachment parenting. Attachment theory is a psychological model. It proposes that during early childhood, we learn how to respond "within relationships when hurt, separated from loved ones, or perceiving a threat." We learn this by modeling the behavior of our parents. Attachment parenting is a parenting philosophy (not a consistent theory) invented and spread to a popular audience in the 90's by evangelical christian pediatrician William Sears. It proposes that mothers should maximize physical contact with her infant by wearing the baby during the day, co-sleeping at night, breastfeeding, and responding immediately (or pre-emptively) to all crying. The philosophy recommends women stay in the home to focus on child rearing in this way for the first three years. After that, motherhood should be their "supreme career." After the philosophy was formulated, Sears made an ex post connection to attachment theory, but is otherwise unrelated. One of them is a respectable scientific theory; the other is a very lucrative fad of anti-woman, patriarchal bullshit with no basis in science.