Bethany Saltman, STRANGE SITUATION: A Mother's Journey into the Science of Attachment

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[0:37]Bethany Saltman is the author of Strange Situation, a mother's journey into the science of attachment.

[0:43]The paperback for this book just came out, and we originally did this as an Instagram Live.

[0:48]Bethany is an author, award-winning editor, and researcher.

[0:51]Her work has been seen in magazines, such as The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, Parents, and many others.

[0:57]Her first book, Strange Situation, A Mother's Journey Into the Science of Attachment, was published in April 2020 by Random House.

[1:04]Bethany also works as a best-selling book coach, a communications director, and an in-demand mindfulness mentor, consulting writers and entrepreneurs at all stages of the creative process.

[1:14]She helps her clients envision and execute projects from book proposals to content development and messaging to big ideas and more.

[1:21]In 1992, Bethany graduated from Antioch College, where she was one of the architects of the nation's first affirmative consent policy.

[1:28]She went on to receive her MFA in Poetry from Brooklyn College in 1994, where she studied with Ellen Ginsburg.

[1:34]In 2020, Antioch awarded Bethany the Rebecca Rice Award for Achievement in Profession, a long-time student of Zen.

[1:40]Bethany is devoted to the fine art and game-changing effects of paying attention.

[1:44]She lives in a small town in the Catskills with her family.

[1:47]Hey! Hi, how are you? How are you?

[1:50]I'm good, thank you.

[1:52]Your book is so good. I read it until I passed out last night, and it's really, really great.

[1:58]So, I'm so glad you sent it to me and that we're talking.

[2:01]Yes, me too.

[2:02]I love the hat. I left it upstairs. I should be all be dazzled in your swag, and I'm sorry.

[2:10]But the hat is great too.

[2:13]So, tell everybody what strange situation is about.

[2:16]Yes, well, strange situation is a book about how when my daughter was born 14 years ago, she's in the next room at school.

[2:24]At school, I loved her dearly. I felt all that squishy love and affection, and I still felt like myself.

[2:32]And so, I was really taken aback by that.

[2:35]I had this idea that once the maternal love glow set in, it would eclipse everything else about me, things that I wasn't so crazy about.

[2:44]The fact that I'm impatient can be angry, can be harsh.

[2:48]I grew up in not the most loving home, and so a lot of that came out.

[2:52]And it surprised and frightened me, frankly, and made me feel like there was really something wrong with me.

[2:57]So, I went on this 10 year journey trying to understand what the nature of maternal parental love is, and that took me into laboratories of attachment and into the life of Mary Ainsworth, the developer of the strange situation, and one of the Mavericks of attachment theory on song.

[3:17]And I love how you like track down her letters and you traveled all over and like a costed some white hair person for all of her stuff.

[3:26]This is like true passion that you have for this project. It's awesome.

[3:29]Obsession, yes. Obsession, okay.

[3:32]You know, one of the things that I thought was so interesting and different about your book was that you talked so much about your relationship with your siblings growing up, and essentially the abuse that you with stood with your two older brothers.

[3:43]People don't really talk about that. People don't talk about the effects of sibling rivalry. It's always kind of shoved under the carpet, almost like your mother did, where, you know, it'll be okay or your father, it's going to toughen you up.

[3:55]And it's just one of those things. But in actuality, it has a huge impact.

[3:59]So, it's not only the attachment with your mother and your father, but the effect of your whole core unit growing up. So, I just was hoping you would talk a little more about that.

[4:09]Yeah, sure. Yeah, you know, I did a lot of research, as you can imagine, writing the book, looking at attachment in sibling relationships. And there's very little out there.

[4:18]And it's something that I'm obviously really interested in. Yeah, my, my really, I was just talking to a friend on a socially distant walk this morning about this very topic.

[4:27]My relationship with my brothers is a real source of shame and embarrassment for me because I grew up in a house with two older siblings who really didn't like me.

[4:37]And they told me all the time. And, and this is not your typical, you know, you've read the book and you can imagine it's very cherry picked in the book. My brothers are alive.

[4:48]My, you know, so, so I'm not getting into, there's a lot I did not say this is not the typical, you know, mixed experience of most siblings where there's a lot of fighting and a lot of, as you said rivalry.

[5:00]There's also love and affection and protection. That part didn't really exist. And, and I think, you know, part of it is that one of my brothers, I believe has some undiagnosed mental health issues and, and I feel very badly for him, frankly.

[5:15]The other brother has, and who's in the book has expressed his sorrow and his sadness about having grown up that way. And he interestingly has raised very close siblings.

[5:28]So, you know, do what you will with that. So, but I did grow up in a house where people didn't like me and they told me all the time and they were really hard on me.

[5:37]And, you know, the parents, you know, 1970s said it'll make you tough and that matters. I'm tough. But I don't always want to be tough. And so that's, you know, that's my fish to fry.

[5:48]But you said in the book, you know, yeah, I made you tough, but it made you so angry. Right. It wasn't, it wasn't just the toughness made you hurt and made you angry and so many other things.

[5:58]You know, I'm glad you said that about your siblings having an undiagnosed disorder because I was sort of thinking that as I read it, not that I'm any sort of expert on this, but I was thinking, how is that even possible that the brothers could be like that.

[6:09]Like, there's no reason, there's no reason for that. And, you know, I mean, not like if I got an Instagram live and I didn't like you, I'd be like, oh yeah, it's justified.

[6:18]But I just mean in any sort of family, you did like that, period, period, a lot of compassion for my brother, my middle brother, who was obviously suffering.

[6:29]Because I knew as much as he hurt me, I wasn't suffering at the level that he was, even then I knew that. And so that is really the heart of the matter as far as the attachment is concerned.

[6:42]You know, my mother, even though she was, you know, maybe not as hands on as we would have liked her to have been. And she also feels regret about this.

[6:50]This has been a difficult process for her to read these reviews of people saying, you know, saltons cold and distant mother.

[6:57]She's just like, oh my God, you know, it hurts her so much.

[7:01]It's a testament to the fact that we actually do have a securely attached relationship that a I could notice these things about myself and my brother growing up.

[7:12]I mean, you need to be curious about it, try to understand it, metabolize it, get to the heart of it, wrestle with it, and that I can be talking to my mom about it now, you know.

[7:22]And so that's why this attachment work is such a surprise and it is not what Dr. Sears says it's the opposite.

[7:30]And so that's something to do is a checklist of behaviors. I really want everybody to hear that. It's about what's going on in the inside of us and we learn how to manage ourselves by the way our parents know how to manage themselves.

[7:43]And so it's genera generation after generation of this capacity to reflect.

[7:50]That whole relationship and extrapolated and you dove deep into this research you had these alternating chapters.

[7:57]Did you always know you wanted like where did this where do the impetus for this project come from did you know already that you wanted to include all the research.

[8:05]Did you want to get your own story off your chest in a way. Yeah, did that come later. Like how did this all sort of germinate and become this book.

[8:14]I want to write a memoir. I, as you said, I'm in love with Mary Einsworth, the developer of the strange situation. So I really wanted to celebrate her.

[8:21]I have been a personal essayist for many years and a poet. That's my training. And so the idea of writing a book was just totally overwhelming.

[8:30]My editor at Random House insisted that there was a memoir component. The book came out of a piece I wrote in New York magazine several years ago that went viral or whatever.

[8:42]And it was about myself, but it was in service to this idea of attachment. And that's how I positioned it all along and that's what I really want the book to be not so much about me, but about my story as like you know just as a way of understanding attachment as an example.

[8:59]You know, tell that to my family. They don't necessarily feel that way, but that was that's the intention.

[9:05]So how are you doing what they're feelings about this book? You know, I'm dealing with a head on. That's what I do. That's how else are you going to do it. Bring it.

[9:15]I'm, I'm letting it in. I'm listening to my mom. She's, you know, she's hurt. And she's read many, many, many drafts. And so many people who read the books say that my mom is the hero.

[9:26]And that's how I meant it. Which part for her to see it that way because she gets really caught on like, what do you mean I didn't pack you good lunches or what do you mean, you know, and that's, that's the least of it.

[9:37]And, and I keep reminding her, you know, mom, there's a lot I could have said that I didn't say. So let's just remember that.

[9:45]I kind of like, you know, I don't know if my kid said that about me, how I would feel about that. I don't know like it's hard, but you know people have said to me, you're so brave for writing this book. I don't experience it that way. I feel so.

[10:00]passionate about helping other parents

[10:03]de-shame the experience of being human.

[10:07]That is my goal in life.

[10:09]And so, you know, I have taken so much care

[10:13]with my mom, with my family.

[10:15]I've offered everybody, many opportunities to read it,

[10:18]to tell me how they feel.

[10:20]I've changed lots and lots of details,

[10:22]to protect them, to help them feel comfortable.

[10:25]I feel like it's worth it.

[10:27]And that, you know, I'm sorry,

[10:29]and my mom isn't, she's really proud.

[10:31]She's ridiculously happy.

[10:32]But, you know, there is a hurt heart in there,

[10:34]which I am trying really hard to help her heal.

[10:38]We're healing together.

[10:39]And so, to me, that's a beautiful thing.

[10:41]Am I prepared for, you know, all kinds of hurt later

[10:46]when Azalea and my daughter reads this

[10:47]and has her reactions, as well as I can be, you know,

[10:51]but I'm willing to give it a go, because why not?

[10:54]Well, you know, one thing that really stuck with me,

[10:56]well, not really stuck with me,

[10:57]and I just read it, but you were talking to your mom,

[11:01]and you said how you wished that she had spent less time

[11:04]taking care of things and more time taking care of you.

[11:07]And that, like, flashed, like, a warning light to me,

[11:11]as I, you know, I'm spinning around the house all the time,

[11:14]picking up and putting away and wiping down

[11:17]and throwing in the laundry, and, like,

[11:18]I'm, like, feeling like a whirling,

[11:19]derivish half the time.

[11:21]Yeah.

[11:21]That, like, is there enough time where I just, like,

[11:24]who cares about the house, right?

[11:25]Like, is there enough time to just sit down and look eye to eye

[11:29]and just forget about, and how do you balance that

[11:31]without the house becoming, like, a disaster and all the rest?

[11:34]So, especially these days when our home is, you know,

[11:37]we're sharing our home with our kids

[11:39]and the new puppy if you're in my family,

[11:41]and, you know, I'm going bananas.

[11:43]So I really hope that people can get from this book

[11:47]that, yeah, I wish that she had spent more time with me,

[11:49]but I'm actually okay.

[11:52]And that's really the point.

[11:53]And I'm sure your kids are okay too.

[11:55]And as Ellie is okay too, even in securely attached

[11:58]kids are okay.

[12:00]You know, that's what Mary Ains were said,

[12:02]by and large, most of us do just fine.

[12:05]Not withstanding, you know, all the neurosis in the world,

[12:08]all the chaos, all the hurt.

[12:10]You have to be securely attached,

[12:12]means to appreciate the hurt,

[12:15]to feel the hurt, to feel our pain,

[12:18]and to recognize that that's okay too,

[12:21]and that we value love, we value attachment,

[12:23]we value relationships.

[12:25]And if we aren't able to do that,

[12:27]we can move ourselves in that direction,

[12:29]simply by trying to build more awareness into our lives.

[12:34]You know, it's free, it's accessible,

[12:35]it's always here and at the ready for us.

[12:39]So, you know, yes, I get it, it's scary,

[12:42]it can be really scary.

[12:43]Like, oh no, you know, saltman said this

[12:45]and I'm doing this, but if we can, you know,

[12:47]move away from that as much as possible into like,

[12:51]okay, you know, so there's gonna be something.

[12:54]My kids are gonna be, you know,

[12:56]I'm gonna screw them up somehow,

[12:57]if it's because I'm so busy with the house,

[13:00]you know, it could be worse.

[13:01]And I'm sure you spend lots of time.

[13:03]No, I do.

[13:03]I, I, I are securely attached.

[13:05]They are, I was just saying as an example.

[13:08]Well, can you hold your book up one more time

[13:10]and then to be continued for a more in-depth conversation,

[13:13]but in the meantime, strange situation

[13:15]by Bethany saltman.

[13:16]So, thank you so much for coming on

[13:17]and discussing it with me.

[13:19]All right, thank you so much.

[13:21]Bye.

[13:23]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms.

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[13:38]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan,

[13:40]at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing.

[13:42]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions

[13:44]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.