March 9, 2008 8:52 AM
A tribute to Dr. Bill and Martha Sears - #!
Dear Dr. Bill & Martha,
(May I call you that? We’ve never met, but I feel like we have just from the wisdom that I’ve read in your books.)
When we were surprised with the pregnancy of our first child over 13 years ago, we knew nothing about babies. I had never even changed a diaper. We had been doing youth ministry for about 8 years, and we knew the teen/young adult mind and body. I was truly a little scared! So, I read everything that anyone gave me and some stuff that I bought, giving my husband the abridged version of most of it. The OB's office gave me a prenatal packet with all sorts of wonderful materials, including back issues of a baby magazine. I read every word of those magazines, sorting though the fluff and garbage and retaining the good stuff. I kept reading these articles by a Dr. William Sears. You really seemed to know your stuff; you made sense; it sounded as though you actually liked children. Eventually, I read an article you wrote about playing with your baby. What? I'd never heard of such. I had to have the book, The Baby Book: Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby—From Birth to Age Two, that both of you wrote.
I was so delighted to learn that you were/are Godly people and the parents of 8(!) children. I remember being so impressed that you would have a baby with Down syndrome and adopt yet another child. This spoke to me of selflessness and sacrifice and love for children.
My husband and I had heard a lot of good things on Christian radio for years prior to our first child, and we've used a lot of this information in teaching and training our children, but I really give a lot of credit to you, Dr. Bill & Martha, for your selfless, honoring approach to child rearing. I truly believe I would have not been close to my children, even pushing them away, had I not read your books. My husband and I would have fallen back on the way that we were parented and I think we would have taught, trained, and disciplined our children in such a way that they would become pretty miserable adults. No matter what other parents did, or advised, or what the pediatrician recommended, God really spoke to me through your kindness.
The title of that first book that I bought said it all—it really was everything I needed to know. I can still hear some of the words in my head—your words of wisdom that really shaped our parenting. We shared sleep, wore our babies/toddlers in a sling, ate grow food—saving fun food for special occasions, let them “cling” to us when they wanted or needed to, built trust by telling our toddlers “Good bye” when leaving them, and all sorts of other Sears’ wisdom. In the end, we bought three or four books that the two of you wrote and we've been serious attachment parents ever since. I have felt like you gave us the tools to teach and train our children in such a way that we like them (in all the stages) and doing so with such respect that they like us, too.
We even put our babies in the bed with us and let them stay until they were ready to leave. And I cried when the first one was ready to go, too. At one point, we had a 1 ½ yr. old (that, by the way, I nursed while I was pregnant with baby number three) and a long-legged 4 yr. old in our king-sized bed (that we bought just for all of us) with us at the same time. It was crowded and resulted in some less than ideal nights of sleep, but we had pure delight every morning when we woke up and one of the children would raise up to look over me to see their sibling. I could cry right now, just thinking of this!!! When others would talk about their objections to or failed attempts at successfully sharing sleep with their babies and/or children, I had conquered these; you had taught me well by writing about sleep discipline. And it worked.
Early in my second pregnancy when the doctor’s office called with the results of my AFP blood work, telling me that I had double the chances of having a baby with Down syndrome and, once again (I was an older mother), offering me an amniocentesis, it was you that provided a sound voice of reason. In The Baby Book you told me that most doctors call with the negative side of those results, never telling the positive. It was you who firmly said that if the baby has downs, then performing a potentially dangerous and risky amino wouldn’t change that, but could cause me to abort. I really wanted to know if my baby had downs (he didn’t)—I wanted to be prepared—but I didn’t want to harm or put my child at risk. Your words, and knowing that you had a child with downs syndrome, gave me the courage to confidently refuse what the OB doctor was pushing for.
I was not raised to get along with my brother (although we do have a good relationship now), so when I became pregnant with our second child, I knew I wanted something different. I wanted them to be friends; I wanted them to treat each other with respect; I wanted them to have a connection after they left our home. As I looked for help in how to create this, where did I find it? It was right there in your book, The Discipline Book, where you taught me how to deal with sibling rivalry and promote harmony. When people now occasionally comment on my three children's relationship of friendship, I tell them that I was deliberate and quote some of your stuff that you wrote about how you trained your children to treat each other.
I truly thank God that He brought your books to us! God took the words of wisdom in your books and grew it into so much more by turning us into parents who have really tried to embrace all that parenting is.
As my children have grown, they have not struggled with some of the emotional insecurities that I noticed other children dealing with, especially during the toddler and pre-school years. Often times, these other children's parents had a lot of similarities to us, except for attachment parenting. I've always wondered if that was the difference that I was seeing.
Two of our children will have birthdays in the next few months; then our children will be 14, 11 ½, and 9 years old. Every day, in the midst of the good and the bad, I just can’t imagine my life without my children. And I can’t imagine what our start in parenting would have been like without your kind, respectful, deliberate way of parenting.
Thank you for being people who have encouraged us to take the time to teach, train, and discipline our children in a firm, kind, yet loving manner—the best manner. Thank you for helping us to embrace our children, understand them, and appreciate them in all of the stages they go through. Thank you for helping me to enjoy this more!
And, one day, when they are old enough to understand, I’m sure our children will thank you, too!
Blessings to you and your family,
Yvonne Slate,
Winston Salem, NC
If you would like to join in expressing your appreciation to the Sears, you can read how here.
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Comments
That's a beautiful tribute. :)
Posted by: Summer | March 14, 2008 8:32 PM
