Bethany Saltman, STRANGE SITUATION
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[0:56]Bethany Sallman is the author of Strange Situation, a mother's journey into the science
[1:01]of attachment.
[1:02]She's also an award-winning editor and researcher.
[1:04]Her work can be seen in magazines like The New Yorker and New York Magazine, Atlantic
[1:08]Monthly, Parents and many others.
[1:11]Bethany is a graduate of Antioch College, where she was one of the architects of the nation's
[1:15]first affirmative consent policy and went on to receive her MFA in Poetry from Brooklyn
[1:20]College, where she studied with Alan Ginsburg, a longtime zen student, Bethany is devoted
[1:25]to the fine art and game-changing effects of paying attention.
[1:28]She lives in a small town in the Catskills with her family.
[1:31]Welcome, Bethany.
[1:32]Thanks so much for coming on my show.
[1:33]Thanks for having me.
[1:34]You were so nice to send me not only your book, but an awesome baseball cap with Strange
[1:39]Situation on it, which I know now.
[1:40]This is the second time we've done a virtual talk and I'm not wearing it, but I promise
[1:44]you I have been wearing it this summer and it's been reminding me of you all the time.
[1:48]Awesome.
[1:49]I love that.
[1:50]So, for listeners who have not read or who don't know much about Strange Situation,
[1:55]your book, a mother's journey into the science of attachment, can you give a little synopsis
[2:00]of what it's about?
[2:01]Sure.
[2:02]The book is a memoir woven in with the science of attachment.
[2:06]When my daughter, Azalea, was born, she's 14 years old now.
[2:10]I was confronted with some difficult feelings.
[2:13]I think like many of us thought that motherhood would wash over me like a blanket or some
[2:20]kind of comforting, you know, a soothing experience that would wipe away the edgy or aspects
[2:26]of my personality and lo and behold that did not happen.
[2:30]In fact, kind of the opposite occurred where I was stressed out, you know, worried about
[2:34]myself in relationship to this new motherhood business and ultimately worried about her
[2:40]because I didn't really, I didn't have problems bonding with her, so to speak.
[2:45]I loved her.
[2:46]I adored her.
[2:47]I found her gorgeous, beautiful, fun, you know, adorable, all those squishy feelings
[2:53]that a mother often has, a parent often has, but I also felt really stressed out.
[2:59]And I wasn't always very good at containing my feelings, which is part of my makeup.
[3:06]So that scared me and I knew enough to know that babies really need sensitive caregiving
[3:12]and I wasn't sure I was giving it.
[3:14]So at the time I'm a writer, so I was writing, I was writing a column about being a Buddhist
[3:19]mother, which I am.
[3:21]So that gave me an opportunity to do a lot of research into a parenthood, which I really
[3:25]considered, you know, humanhood.
[3:27]What does it mean to be a human being?
[3:29]And at that time I came across a lot of conversation around attachment from a scientific
[3:34]point of view.
[3:35]And particularly this thing called the strange situation.
[3:39]And just the words strange situation felt so resonant to me.
[3:43]And so I started to explore that and I discovered that there is this whole world of science
[3:50]of the relationship between parents and babies.
[3:54]And that's when I got hooked and I went on this 10-year journey to teach myself the
[3:58]science of attachment.
[3:59]I barely graduated from high school, but I was really determined to learn this science.
[4:05]And so I did my best.
[4:06]And that's what the book is about.
[4:07]It's about my journey into the science of attachment and what it taught me about myself
[4:11]as a mother and as a daughter and as a person.
[4:13]I would argue it's also about you're coming to terms with your own upbringing and the
[4:18]relationships you had within your own family and how that affected everything going forward.
[4:23]There was so much in the book about the way in which you process things at the time,
[4:29]the way in which you coped with things.
[4:31]There was a lot of, you know, there was talk of like you're bullying at home and in middle
[4:35]school even and some of the more kind of, you know, deviant behaviors you engaged in
[4:41]to cope with that.
[4:42]And anyway, I feel like it was also like a coming of age in a way into being a mother,
[4:47]not just.
[4:48]And the science stuff was really interesting of course, but I really felt like this was
[4:52]like a, I don't know, a deep dive into how you became the mother you were or something.
[4:56]I don't know.
[4:57]Nothing.
[4:58]Nothing.
[4:59]Nothing.
[5:00]Nothing.
[5:01]That's my two cents.
[5:02]Thank you.
[5:03]I appreciate that.
[5:04]There's a quote from the beginning.
[5:05]I hope you don't mind if I read.
[5:06]I had always feared I was a damaged person, the victim of an unloving and maybe even dangerous
[5:10]childhood crippled by something I couldn't name.
[5:13]I believed I was broken, unable to truly give or receive love.
[5:17]It was no surprise.
[5:18]I told myself that I was a terrible mother, especially since my own mother was so cold
[5:22]and rejecting.
[5:23]She and my dad threw me to the wolves, my two older brothers who never loved me.
[5:27]And when I was 13, as early as age as I write this, my parents divorced and my dad moved
[5:31]across the country, which didn't bother me at all because I had always felt alone.
[5:35]Wow.
[5:36]First of all, so well written.
[5:38]Second of all, what, what an introduction to how you feel about yourself and like this sort
[5:43]of self-determination that you were going to fail as a mother no matter what.
[5:48]Yeah.
[5:49]Yeah.
[5:50]Yeah.
[5:51]It was heavy.
[5:52]It was heavy.
[5:53]I'm not going to lie.
[5:55]And then later on, I'm sorry to be just like reading your words here, but I'll stop and
[6:00]let you talk after this, but they're just so good.
[6:02]When you're talking about your decision to write about this whole thing, which I really
[6:06]would like to talk to you about, you said, it had never before occurred to me to erase
[6:10]something I had written because my words had always been my periscope and to cross
[6:14]something out would have submerged me into darkness until I became a mother.
[6:19]Then I was writing as a prayer to save my life and my daughters.
[6:23]That's how much I loved her.
[6:24]I was willing to risk facing a dark truth because I knew even then at the beginning of
[6:28]this journey that in order to save her, I had to save myself.
[6:33]So good.
[6:34]So good.
[6:35]Thank you.
[6:36]Oh, I love hearing it from your feelings.
[6:40]I feel it.
[6:41]I knew it's nice.
[6:42]Thank you.
[6:43]So tell me about your decision to write this book and to even face everything in the
[6:48]past and write it down in general.
[6:50]Yeah.
[6:51]I've been asked that a lot and I've written about how when people read the book or the
[6:54]manuscript, they would say to me, wow, you're so brave.
[6:57]And I thought, oh my God, stop scared me because it made me see how scary this is.
[7:05]And I was so in it that I felt like I had no choice.
[7:08]You know, it was one of those stories and people asked me a lot, you know, how do I know
[7:12]what I should write about or how do I stay on course?
[7:16]And I tell people what I told myself, I had to assume nobody was ever going to read this
[7:21]because I had to tell the truth.
[7:24]And the only way I could do it was to take the audience including my daughter out of
[7:30]my mind because this was a story I had no choice but to tell because my whole life depended
[7:36]on it.
[7:37]You know, one of the things that I've learned through my journey into the science of attachment
[7:41]is something that I always had a strong feeling about.
[7:44]And that's that being honest with myself is pretty much all I have.
[7:49]And if I can't be honest with myself, then I don't stand a chance at being honest with
[7:55]anybody else.
[7:56]And it's not about, you know, some kind of unedited, you know, quote honesty, like telling
[8:01]the truth, it's a much deeper experience, you know.
[8:06]I knew that in order to be the mother that I wanted to be because I loved my daughter
[8:12]so much, I had no choice but to look at the dark recesses and the demons that I was
[8:18]caring because and the science has borne this out to be true.
[8:21]And so I began to really trust something, you know, there's so many ironies in this whole
[8:27]experience.
[8:28]I began because I didn't trust myself and as a mother and as a person, ultimately.
[8:34]And I set out on this path to understand the science of how that works, how parental love
[8:40]functions, why it functions, how it came to be.
[8:44]And understanding this laboratory procedure, the strange situation in the process, I began
[8:50]to actually trust myself.
[8:52]What I had been feeling was true.
[8:54]I did need to take care of business.
[8:56]I did need to be held accountable.
[8:58]I did need to think about my past and I did need to do some healing.
[9:01]I was right.
[9:02]Ultimately, that was a sign of my security.
[9:05]That was a sign of the fact that I actually did have what I needed as a child, I think,
[9:10]and ultimately as a parent that, you know, I had these questions and I had the capacity
[9:14]to ask them and I think I've passed that down to my daughter.
[9:17]It's an interesting story.
[9:20]A lot of this really does have to do with perception and interpretation.
[9:23]I feel like people call this re-parenting.
[9:24]Isn't that what it is?
[9:25]Like when you have to re-parent yourself emotionally before you can be a parent to somebody
[9:30]else.
[9:31]Exactly.
[9:32]I mean, that helps.
[9:33]But, you know, I think that I did have what I needed from the beginning, but I didn't
[9:37]believe it.
[9:38]And I think that's true for so many of us.
[9:40]We're riddled with self-doubt.
[9:41]We have a lot of shame.
[9:43]We have a lot of concern about our abilities and our capacities and we look back at our
[9:47]past and we see all kinds of good reasons to doubt ourselves.
[9:50]You know, we maybe didn't have the best childhood.
[9:53]We didn't have the perfect upbringing.
[9:55]But the fact of the matter is most of us have kind of a good enough experience.
[10:00]and certainly good enough to come back to ourselves
[10:03]and do some of the work that we might need to do
[10:06]to be more available for our children.
[10:09]You had a scene in the beginning of the book
[10:11]where your father was coming in, you were in the bath,
[10:13]and you were like, you know, get mom,
[10:16]you know, you didn't want him in there,
[10:17]and then you have another chapter all about that later.
[10:20]And then you even were sort of questioning,
[10:22]you know, why was I like that?
[10:24]Is it possible that I was abused?
[10:26]Like you had all these questions about your family.
[10:28]Do you feel like you came to some sort of resolution
[10:30]having written the book?
[10:32]Yeah, I do.
[10:33]I came to a resolution that I came from a pretty messed up family.
[10:37]And, you know, I don't believe that my father
[10:39]abused me sexually, so that's a relief.
[10:43]But there was a lot of boundary violation for sure.
[10:47]I wasn't cherished the way that I cherish my daughter
[10:51]and that I wished that I had been cherished.
[10:54]And that's true.
[10:56]And I was given a lot of encouragement to be strong
[11:01]and I became very strong.
[11:03]I was less alone, which I think in this day and age
[11:07]is a gift that many parents would do well to give their children.
[11:10]You know, that's sort of the beauty of the benign neglect
[11:13]of the 1970s families, right?
[11:15]Like, you know, they didn't really know
[11:17]what was going on with me.
[11:18]And in a lot of ways, that was a gift.
[11:19]That was a good thing.
[11:20]I was less alone to develop an internal life,
[11:23]which I'm grateful for.
[11:25]And I was supported when push came to shove
[11:28]when there was a difficult situation.
[11:30]When I was sick, when I was really hurt,
[11:32]when I needed my mother, she was really there for me.
[11:36]And that's what this experience has taught me
[11:39]of writing this book and learning
[11:40]where those critical situations of attachment really are.
[11:44]When a child is under stress and reaches out
[11:46]to the parent, does the parent come to their own senses?
[11:50]Can they manage the stress of being in the presence
[11:53]of a stressed baby or child or teenager
[11:56]to be able to offer some kind of soothing?
[11:59]You know, we don't need that much.
[12:01]It's kind of amazing how little we can go on
[12:05]and how that works.
[12:06]And it's that quality of attention that just enough.
[12:10]You know, just tell the child it's okay
[12:12]and that you see them and that you love them
[12:14]and that you get it.
[12:16]And they can move on and keep going.
[12:18]But when we don't receive the most basic care,
[12:22]or the most basic attention,
[12:23]we keep asking for it and we keep clamoring for it.
[12:26]And that's what our attachment system is built to do.
[12:29]We are determined to feel felt
[12:32]and if we don't get it, we're just gonna keep looking.
[12:34]And that's how we, you know, that's how we lose our way.
[12:37]And how did you end up going from being Jewish to being Buddhist?
[12:41]Ha ha.
[12:42]You'll do the process.
[12:44]Yeah, that's a great question.
[12:45]So I was raised Jewish and I was not given about medicine.
[12:49]My parents gave me a choice because I was a girl
[12:52]which I resent.
[12:53]But, you know, that's the way that they saw it.
[12:56]But I was now, I didn't really associate my spiritual.
[12:59]I didn't think of myself as a spiritual person.
[13:01]I didn't associate any of my questions or my concerns
[13:04]or my struggles with a religious
[13:06]or a spiritual path at all.
[13:08]It wasn't until I had a lot of emotional upheaval
[13:13]in my 20s with a really toxic relationship
[13:15]or really powerful experience for me.
[13:19]And I really felt like I was on my knees.
[13:21]I couldn't work.
[13:22]I was totally addicted to this person.
[13:25]It was very, very painful.
[13:27]And it was in this moment when I was, you know,
[13:30]near suicide really, I just felt like I didn't know how to go on.
[13:34]And this voice in my head kind of led me to a Barnes and Noble
[13:38]on the Upper West Side of Manhattan
[13:40]and up the escalator, you know,
[13:42]it's one of those I'll never forget at moments
[13:43]and up to the self-help section.
[13:45]And I thought, oh my God, this is really it.
[13:47]Like I have hit rock bottom me, you know,
[13:50]I really fancied myself a feminist, a poet.
[13:53]I never, an intellectual, I never,
[13:55]in a million years thought I'd go to the self-help section
[13:58]for anything.
[13:58]So I went up there and I, and it was faced with all these books.
[14:01]And then to my left, I saw this book peeking out on a shelf.
[14:05]And it was, this was, you know, so long ago.
[14:07]I'm dating myself that there wasn't even a Buddhist section.
[14:10]It was the Eastern thought section.
[14:12]And there was this book facing out.
[14:15]And it was really pretty.
[14:16]And it was called Nothing Special Living Then
[14:19]by Charlotte Joko back.
[14:21]And the whole thing just like drew me.
[14:23]And I went over to this book and sat down
[14:25]and started reading it.
[14:27]And I thought, this is it.
[14:28]This will, this will save me.
[14:30]This will help me.
[14:31]This will heal me.
[14:32]I will, this will help me understand who I am
[14:35]and why I am struggling so mightily right now.
[14:38]And then I never, I never thought that I would actually
[14:41]meditate or do anything remotely religious or spiritual.
[14:45]But I thought the words of having to really face yourself
[14:49]and sit in stillness that resonated for me.
[14:52]And I knew that that would help.
[14:53]And, you know, eventually I did end up going to a monastery
[14:57]and moving at a monastery in fact, I met my husband there.
[15:00]And so yeah, so that's, that's how that happened.
[15:02]I'm still 100% Jewish, but practice then.
[15:05]Well, I feel like I kind of laughed
[15:07]when you were on the escalator thing.
[15:09]You would hit bottom by going in self-help section.
[15:11]Not because I hope you know that wasn't because of the pain
[15:14]that you were in, but that your, your beautiful body now.
[15:17]The self-help was like the bottom of the barrel wind.
[15:19]In fact, self-help authors are also amazing
[15:22]and have like clots of it.
[15:23]But no, no, but no, I know that back in the day,
[15:26]especially then I feel like it had a totally different
[15:29]kind of branding than it does now,
[15:31]which is like very mainstream.
[15:33]All the books were left and there like a different font.
[15:36]And, you know, it was like a whole thing.
[15:38]Yeah, and I just didn't associate myself in that way.
[15:41]I really identified as this like kind of bulldogs,
[15:45]strong, anti-oxone, which I was.
[15:48]And so it was just a real identity crisis for me.
[15:51]And I'm glad I went back.
[15:52]But you got what you needed.
[15:53]I mean, that's like, this all just goes to the power
[15:57]of books really is like sometimes it's exactly what you need.
[16:00]And sometimes there's nothing better than,
[16:02]than the advice you can get or the perspective you can get
[16:05]or I mean, think about people out there
[16:07]who are going through right now what you're going through
[16:09]or like feeling like because of their childhoods,
[16:12]maybe they're not parenting the way they want
[16:14]or they want to be different or they need to revisit
[16:16]or I don't know.
[16:17]And now they have you as a guide.
[16:18]I don't know.
[16:19]It's very cool.
[16:20]It's like full circle really, right?
[16:22]Yeah, yeah, I hope so.
[16:23]So back to your original question of why did I write this book?
[16:28]And you know, how did I think about my daughter
[16:30]and, you know, that question about this role, writing.
[16:33]And it was for that.
[16:34]I'm willing and I stand by this even though, you know,
[16:37]I've gotten certainly some pushback
[16:39]and some criticism, but I am so determined
[16:43]to help de-shame the process of feeling
[16:46]like you don't have what it takes for parents
[16:49]because it is so important for us as people
[16:52]and for our kids because we did bring them
[16:55]into this world, you know, and they deserve our best selves
[16:59]and it's so available, you know.
[17:03]I mean, all we have to do is turn toward it.
[17:05]We don't have to buy anything.
[17:07]We don't have to do anything differently.
[17:08]I mean, you know, yeah, certainly we want to try to, you know,
[17:12]be kind and patient and all of that.
[17:14]And I work on that every single day and fail.
[17:17]But it's what's going on on the inside of us.
[17:20]And that's what this work has taught me
[17:23]and really confirmed for me.
[17:25]You know, my internal experience of myself
[17:28]is what is going to really matter for my daughter.
[17:32]If I am, you know, trying to put on a smile
[17:36]and do the right thing and give her all these amazing experiences
[17:40]and, you know, feed her all the right food
[17:42]and make sure she's off of her screens
[17:43]and make sure she's exercising and doing, you know,
[17:46]SAT prep and, you know, all that stuff, which is fine.
[17:49]But on the inside, I'm seething or I'm depressed
[17:54]or I'm hating myself.
[17:56]Those experiences are only going to go so far
[17:59]because what our children really need
[18:01]and what they're queuing into is an attunement
[18:04]and is a delight.
[18:06]That's what Mary, that's Mary Ainsworth's word.
[18:08]They can only come when we are able to delight in ourselves.
[18:12]That's just the way that works.
[18:15]And so it sounds sort of, you know, like new-agey
[18:19]or, you know, back into the like lavender book self-helpy world
[18:24]but that's what the science is telling us.
[18:27]So I feel very affirmed by that.
[18:29]And, you know, the desire to meditate, the desire
[18:32]to become more mindful of the desire
[18:34]to take care of ourselves is worth it
[18:37]and we're not being selfish.
[18:39]Totally. You're absolutely right.
[18:40]So what is coming next for you?
[18:42]You've written this book, you're in a better place yourself.
[18:45]What's coming next?
[18:46]Yeah. Oh, gosh.
[18:47]I am trying to teach myself how to write a novel.
[18:50]Wow. How's that going?
[18:52]It's so fun. It's so fun.
[18:55]I'm loving it. I'm taking master classes, I'm reading.
[18:58]I mean, because I was so in this world for so long
[19:02]this book took me 10 years.
[19:03]And I couldn't really read fiction very well.
[19:05]I couldn't read much non-fiction either
[19:07]because I was, you know, I had to just stick with my,
[19:11]I had to try to listen to my own voice and it was difficult.
[19:14]So now I feel like I'm so liberated
[19:17]and reading all kinds of stuff
[19:19]and trying to really learn the building blocks of narrative
[19:23]in a different way. You know, I certainly,
[19:24]there's a narrative in this book for sure
[19:27]but how to sort of write a suspenseful book.
[19:29]I'm really having a blast.
[19:31]That's great. I don't always hear that it's such a blast
[19:33]from different authors.
[19:34]So that's great. I'm glad you're having fun
[19:36]because that's the whole point is like, you know,
[19:38]no one has a good idea to go into your head to do it.
[19:40]So you might as well enjoy it.
[19:42]Well, and especially in during this time, you know,
[19:44]which is so heavy, so hard.
[19:47]And, you know, I will also say that a lot of this
[19:49]attachment work is very relevant to what we're all going through
[19:52]right now first with code and being in quarantine
[19:55]and, you know, all the feelings that come up around
[19:57]being with our family. There's a lot to learn.
[20:00]And also with the pain of looking at cultural trauma and how important it is that we do
[20:08]look deeply inside of ourselves and at all the details, all the feelings that arise in any circumstance,
[20:17]whoever we are, whatever kind of position we're in, looking at ourselves is the greatest gift
[20:23]to other people and taking care of ourselves. Not in a, you know, many petty kind of way,
[20:29]although I love that too, but in a really taking ourselves seriously and not shying away
[20:35]from the trenches of our inner life. So I think that, you know, I'm falling back a lot on what I've
[20:42]learned in the attachment work in this moment of reckoning, which is, you know, very, very welcome.
[20:48]Well, you've essentially just answered this, but do you have any other advice to aspiring authors
[20:53]having spent 10 years on this memoir? And what advice would you have? I would say tell the story
[21:00]that you have no choice, but to tell and figure out, spend some time cultivating that, you know,
[21:05]what is that story? Ask yourself those questions and really stick to your guns. There's lots of
[21:12]time to get beta readers and to get editors and to try to sell it, but that, that, you know, really
[21:18]important work of self-study. And it doesn't have to mean, it doesn't mean you have to write a
[21:23]book about yourself, but to learn to listen to yourself, because that's what writers do,
[21:28]they listen to themselves, even if it's about characters that have nothing to do with them,
[21:31]we have to, we write through our own senses. And so the, the biggest challenge is becoming
[21:38]in touch with our voice that comes in through the senses. So that's, that would be my advice.
[21:43]And a sitting practice is always great. A meditation practice is like a portal into that,
[21:48]even, you know, two minutes, five minutes of stillness and opening the senses is incredibly helpful.
[21:55]And healing, and it puts you in such a good mood. Love it. Well, thank you, Bethany.
[21:59]Thank you for this. Thanks for your Instagram live. And we talked more than about, you know,
[22:04]what it's like to have brothers who aren't particularly nice to you and more about your
[22:08]parents. And so I just wanted to hear different stuff this time, but that was also
[22:12]to be part and parcel of this conversation. So thank you for both. Well, thank you.
[22:16]Thank you, baby, for doing all the work that you do. I'm, I'm inspired by you and by your
[22:22]championing of books. And it's been a pleasure to get to know you and your work. So I,
[22:27]I thank you very much. Thank you too. Thanks, Bethany. Take care. Okay, bye. Bye.
[22:34]Thanks for listening to momstone. Have time to read books. Please don't forget,
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[22:45]Thanks so much for listening. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much to Jiggy Puzzles for sponsoring
[22:49]today's episode of momstone. Have time to read books. Get 10% off with code zibi at jiggypuzzles.com.
[22:55]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at texture sound for the sound editing. And thank you to
[22:59]Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music. Thanks for listening.
[23:04]You could always email me at zibi at zibiowins.com.