mention of children who were attached to their fathers, as well as to other caregivers, including aunts and sisters. Sarah Hrdy, a well-known primatologist, writes that it was Mary who influenced Bowlby to broaden his attachment-figure horizons:
Bowlby assumed that the mother was the primary, typically exclusive, caretaker…[Later,] Bowlby (influenced by Ainsworth and others) mentioned the possibility of multiple caretakers, but he nevertheless continued to center his model on a Victorian division of labor within a pair bond where a sexually monandrous mother nurtured offspring provisioned by their father.
Bowlby’s Victorian ways run through his description of monotropy, which, as promised, I will describe, as it’s key to understanding the way fathers have been understood in the history of attachment theory. I’ll quote from Bowlby’s revolutionary 1958 paper—the same one that introduced the concept of social releasers—as he waxes poetic and loyal to the maternal queen and her rather unglamorous substitutes—a bottle, a rag. A baby tender? A father?
Although I have described these five responses [attachment behaviors] as mother-oriented, it is evident that at first this is so only potentially. From what we know of other species it seems probable that each one of them has the potential to become focused on some other object [italics mine]. The clearest examples of this in real life are where sucking becomes directed towards a bottle and not to the mother’s breast, and clinging is directed to a rag and not to the mother’s body…No matter for what reason he is crying—cold, hunger, fear, or plain loneliness—his crying is usually terminated through the agency of the mother. Again, when he wants to cling or follow or to find a haven of safety when he is frightened, she is the figure who commonly provides the needed object. It is for this reason that the mother becomes so central a figure in the infant’s life. For in healthy development it is towards her that each of the several responses becomes directed, much as each of the subjects of the realm comes to direct his loyalty towards the Queen; and it is in relation to the mother that the several responses become integrated into the complex behaviour which I have termed “attachment behaviour,” much as it is in relation to the Sovereign that the components of our constitution become integrated into a working whole…
Good mothering from any kind woman ceases to satisfy him—only his own mother will do…
Naturally such a general statement needs amplification and qualification, but the tendency for instinctual responses to be directed towards a particular individual or group of individuals and not promiscuously towards many is one which I believe to be so important and so neglected that it deserves a special term. I propose to call it “monotropy.”
At the heart of this quaint, culturally specific, and pretty outrageous description is a concept central to attachment. To update the language: Good caretaking from any kind person ceases to satisfy the infant—only his own primary caregiver will do. This is that mutual delight between the baby and her special other that Ainsworth first saw in Uganda—so intrinsic to patterns of security, and developed only through intimate contact.
At first blush, this notion sounds like a prison sentence for parents, especially mothers, à la Dr. Sears. However, this idea that nobody else “will do” doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t enlist the help of others; it’s just to say that we do get attached to one person and come to depend upon contact with him or her, as Mary made clear with Theresa and M in Case 18. This is what Kabat-Zinn was telling me when he reminded me that Azalea didn’t ask to be born. All we have to do is stay connected.
But that’s a lot, I said.
And it is.
At the same time, since Bowlby’s first formulation, recent studies on a variety of relationship types have been instrumental in showing just how flexible monotropy is. Over time, children—even those who have been exposed to painfully insensitive parenting, neglect, and abuse—can and absolutely do form secure attachments with new special others. The best pathway for raising a child with a secure attachment is simply to