Post #7 Bonding/Attachment
I left the last entry hugging and kissing a child after knowing him three hours, aware tomorrow he would be our child. Whether the words ‘bonding’ or 'attachment' were in wide use at the time, or whether the pre-adoption seminars at the time used these words, I do not remember. Scanning my journal again, I don’t see the words on any of the pages I am now writing from (I later found we had been given information). Yet as we left, Yasik peeked through the banister to smile and wave. And we floated away into the evening on a happy cloud. I remember Dave and I going for a walk along the Volga in the evening still wrapped in this happy cloud. The journal says we felt Yasik was so much more than we could ever have hoped for.
This is why I ask: do people 'bond' or 'attach' in three hours? ‘Bonding’ is the word most people use rather than ‘attachment’ to describe the feeling they have as they fall in love with their children. Few would be surprised at my use of it as well. However, and yes here comes a big ‘But’, asking this question I have begun to discover stuff that may exclude Dave and me from the circle encompassing those who fit the scientific definition of the word. And whether it sounds like fluffy semantic nonsense or not, I want to respect the work of science because I want an explanation built on empirically accessed information to know if my understanding is as concrete as possible. To choose to use the word simply because of a feeling is not a stable explanation. Thus far my readings no longer allow me to use the word ‘bonding’, drawing a distinct line between it and ‘attachment’ which is where researchers want to go to explain those feelings, even though ‘attachment’ has a more clinical sound than the more passionate 'bonding' to explain the feelings Dave and I were sure were ours, and were just as certain cemented a love within us. So what is ‘bonding’? Why am I directed to use the word ‘attachment’ rather than ‘bonding’? Are the feelings we had that day merely the squirt of emotion needed to encourage the growth of attachment? Were they really sufficient to leave us with sense of commitment to Yasik as our son that has refused to wane right to the present? We have never questioned Yasik took his rightful place in our hearts then and there and has never been ousted.
With a question like this, I looked a several different articles to parse out a distinction between these two words. A variety of sources from work by John Bowlby and on into more current study suggests that 'bonding' is a parent's positive and protective feelings for a child, beginning in the womb. So far, other than the infant aspect, we can be included in the behaviour and irreversible shift in our emotional lives.
But ‘bonding’, suggests Jean Mercer in Understanding Attachment: parenting, child care, and emotional development (6), became a bit of a loosy-goosy term, referring to whatever sweet emotional moment one person shared with usually another person, animal, or even, thing. The science world was forced to abandon it, though it was supposed to be a word specific to what began to develop in utero via hormone changes and the head start the biological mother gets while her child is in the womb. Yet Mercer returns to the word on pages 70 to 75 as a needed identifier, including fathers and parents of adopted infants who have no hormonal changes, nonetheless, “show bonding to the same degree as biological mothers”. Not even the belief about breast-feeding being essential to bonding holds weight for Mercer. She relegates that idea to persistent myth. In Thinking Critically About CHILD DEVELOPMENT: Examining Myths & Misunderstandings (82), Jean Mercer talks about research looking at levels of oxytocin when asking if adoptive mothers bond with their adoptee. The research found mothers who produced more oxytocin when cuddling with their children showed more delight in their children but then concludes it is not easy to measure how bonding or loving occurs for it is still not clear how important early contact is. But there is no denial here that ‘bonding’ can be acknowledged for adoptive mothers (and fathers?) of infants. Julie Holland, MD, wrote Good Chemistry: the science of connection from soul to psychedelics in 2020 (Harper Collins Publishers). On page 120 she writes: "Yes, oxytocin works on father; however, these benefits don't extend to fathers who don't get involved."
There is, however, denial in Inside Transracial Adoption: strength-based, culture-sensitizing parenting strategies for inter-country or domestic adoptive families that don’t “Match”? (128) by Gail Steinberg & Beth Hall for they write,
By strict definition, adoptive parents can’t bond with their children. Bonding is a one-way process that begins in the birth mother during pregnancy and continues through the first few days of life. It is her instinctive desire to protect her baby.
Offering a tempered rebuttal, on page 75 of Understanding Attachment: parenting, child care, and emotional development, Mercer adds this: “Adoptive mothers…ordinarily experience bonding…if [their children] … have been adopted early in their lives.” And with that seven-word caveat, Dave and I presumably were pushed outside the realm of the word “bonding”.
But Yasik looked me directly in the eyes and smiled. Connection of some sort was made and emotions were exploding like a fireworks display within.