Flowers Fall: July 2011

by Bethany Saltman, June 29, 2011

This month T and I are celebrating our 10th anniversary. I just looked through some pictures of our gorgeous, crazy Buddhist wedding at Opus 40. Man. I always used to say that marrying T was the best thing I ever did for my family, being the football-playing, normal, supernice guy that he is, a far cry from the moody bookworms of my past. But in fact, marrying T was the best thing I ever did for myself. For the same reasons, but more, too. Not the least of which is our life as parents, together. This wild road of self-study, of learning how to be bodhisattvas, of learning what it means to love—each other, our child, the whole catastrophe (as Daido Roshi used to say).

And so, as parents who, like most, feel deeply grateful for our lives, but stretched, too, we figured it would be nice to take a moment (a week to be exact) to be alone, to celebrate our 10 years of marriage. I’ve never been to Europe and was dying to go. So after much hemming and hawing, we decided to take the plunge.

By the time this hits the stands, T and I will be in Italy, and Azalea will be with T’s parents, her beloved Jean and Pop-Pop. It’s not like we have never been away from her before. We have stolen away for a few weekends over the last five years, done several retreats, and gone on many dates. However, traveling abroad, and for so long, feels pretty radical. We planned the trip last year, when Azalea was four, figuring that by the time she was five, she would be even more okay with a big separation than she was then. Unfortunately, this may not be so. In fact, maybe because of our impending trip, and kindergarten looming ahead, or some combination of it all, along with the inevitable mystery that is always guiding any human unfolding, Azalea is feeling more tender than usual, a little more fearful, actually less secure. Yikes. This morning when I asked her what she wanted to do today, she responded, “Be with mama.”

And so, when I randomly received Natural Life magazine in the mail, and then read the article called “Separation Anxiety?” by the well-known author and turbo-attachment-parenting advocate Naomi Aldort, I was in a perfect position to receive her teaching, such as it is.

“By nature, there is no such thing as ‘separation anxiety,’” Aldort writes. “Instead, there is a healthy need of a child to be with her mother [sic]. Only a deprivation of a need creates anxiety.…The concept ‘separation anxiety’ is the invention of a society that denies a baby and child’s need for uninterrupted connection. In this vein, we can deprive a child of food and describe her reaction as ‘hunger anxiety,’ or we can let her be cold and call her cries ‘temperature anxiety.’”

In another paragraph, Aldort writes, “We create anxiety when we deprive, manipulate, and try to stir the child with our expectation that she be what she is not.”

Reeling from the words deprivation, denies, uninterrupted connection, deprive (again), hunger, cold, deprive!!, manipulate, I felt a need to tell Aldort how I felt. So I wrote her an e-mail.