(A quick note about the sound editing: I have edited Rose’s voice to perserve her anonymity. I’ve since learned how to record the conversation to facilitate editing and eliminate the disconcerting drops in my voice in future episodes.)
Welcome to Attachment Matters.
A series of conversations between two moms who love to nerd out on the subject of attachment. We’ll dive into what it is, what it isn’t, what it relates to, what it can mean for parenting, and how it can help us explain the current state of things
Rose was introduced to Dr. Gordon Neufeld’s attachment-based developmental model when her two sons were very young, and it has significantly shaped her life. She brings a depth of knowledge from the work of Dr. Gordon Neufeld, having taken a number of courses at the Neufeld Institute. This series offers her the opportunity to share insights from this model with parents who are trying to make sense of their trans-identified children.
As a mom of two teens and a former classroom educator, StoicMom has an intense interest in attachment and development. She’s done some serious dabbling into the Neufeld bank of knowledge but also has a knack for scanning the environment for frameworks to discover where they overlap and where they diverge. In her work supporting parents of trans-identified kids, she’s committed to making sense of how we find ourselves grappling with things like gender identity and the other ways that our kids are struggling to find their place in this world.
Both of us found ourselves entangled in the world of gender ideology, following very different routes to get here. We share a passion for the attachment framework as a way to understand and fulfill our roles and responsibilities as mothers in these oh-so-strange times.
In this episode, we talk about how we got here, both in conversation together, and in our stories with this material. We also begin to talk about how attachment factors into the larger picture of how we all got here.
You can discover more detail about Rose’s story by reading her (viral) PITT submission: True Believer or listen to her interviews on Gender: A Wider Lens and on Triggernometry.
Resources to deepen understanding of the concepts discussed:
The Invincible Vulnerability of the Mature Heart Stoicmom references this article a couple times when we’re discussing grief’s connection to futility and adaptation.
Roots of Attachment: Six Stages of Relationship (We’ll be diving into this model developed and presented by Dr. Gordon Neufeld in our next conversation.)
We invite you to share what this first Attachment Matters conversation made you think and feel. Your comments will help us know what stood out for you in this introduction and what we need to explore more deeply, as we all do our best to make sense of how we find ourselves here.
Ep 1 of Attachment Matters: How we got here