The Truth is… Parents Need Doulas too!
I love nothing more than connecting with other doulas and anyone else who does advocacy work, especially when it relates to parenting and reproductive health. It’s especially exciting when you meet one who lives in your neighborhood and is ready to collaborate! Friends, meet Jillian Best Adler, parenting and postpartum doula and expert in early childhood development. Jillian’s bio is long and impressive, but beyond her degrees and expertise, she is down to earth, nonjudgemental, and comes with a broad spectrum of real life experience that a classroom could never offer. She and I are also launching a Parents’ Happy Hour support group for parents of new babies on Tuesdays at 11am beginning April 11th, so if you’re a new parent, please join us by registering here! As a hyper-local resource, I am so honored to share Jill and her wealth of knowledge with the Lawrence community and beyond!
So Jill, you’re a postpartum doula and a parenting doula, can you explain what a parenting doula is and some of the services you provide in this role?
Jillian Best Adler, Parenting & Postpartum Doula
You can think of a parenting doula as a cross between a parenting coach and a doula. I use my knowledge of child development, as well as my personal and professional experiences, to provide parents with nurturing support as they move through some of the more challenging parts of raising young children. Just as a postpartum doula provides information on caring for a newborn AND supports the parents through the transition, I do the same as a parenting doula, except the information that I’m providing is tailored to the age and developmental stage of older children. I recently worked with a family, through a series of phone calls and group texts, who were struggling with getting their three year old to bed at a time that felt comfortable for them. Rather than focus on how to manage the child’s behavior, as might be the case in a traditional parent coaching model, I took all factors of the environment and relationships into account while helping the parents design some new practices to work towards new outcomes.
How did your career/life path lead you to this profession and was there one thing or experience that inspired you to become a doula, specifically for postpartum and parenting needs?
I’ve always been interested in working with young children. I had experience as a nanny in my early 20s and my observations of a particular infant-parent dynamic led me to wonder what was behind those critical relationships. That led me to a graduate program in Child Development at the Erikson Institute, where I learned about the way that humans grow and learn from in utero through age eight, from an interdisciplinary lens. I studied physical, cognitive, language, social, and emotional development, as well as assessment and statistics. From there, I began my career working to support healthy attachments and separations between toddlers/young preschoolers and their parents. After a long-distance move, I landed more in the preschool/childcare world, where I spent the next 10 years of my career as a teacher, coach, and trainer. Over the past two years, with young children of my own, I realized that I wanted to return to my passion of working directly with and on behalf of the parents of young children.
What are the greatest benefits of utilizing postpartum and/or parenting doula services?
We live in a society that loves to talk about “family values” and the importance of family, but those ideals are not evident in the way that we provide actual support to families who are having babies and raising young children. In other countries, there are government provided benefits, including education, hands-on help, stipends, childcare, etc… We offer very, very little in comparison. I believe that doula services help fill in that gap! When we become parents, we may have some experience with children… but we may not! And it is commonly accepted that new parents should just kind of feel their way through the process, but that leaves a lot of room for fear and doubt to creep up. A postpartum doula can provide that nurturing guidance that can provide a boost of confidence and security to new parents, and a parenting doula can continue to provide that during those challenging milestone shifts between infancy and middle childhood. Because a secure attachment to parents and caregivers is so critical to healthy long-term development, it is very important that parents foster a strong relationship with their children, and I believe that having positive feelings about themselves as parents and about their parenting practices provides the necessary environment for strong, healthy attachments to thrive.
In many cultures, other family members would care for the home and needs of the mother and baby while the mother healed and bonded with her child, otherwise known as “It takes a village.” Why do you think that model of family dynamics no longer/rarely exists in the US and what has it cost families and society?
As I mentioned, I believe that our federal and local governments should be doing more to provide concrete support to families, as is common in other developed, wealthy nations. The concept of “the village” should include the large-scale systems that operate around the child and their family, such as the government, the healthcare system, the companies that employ the parents, the childcare and school systems, and so on. That’s the macro-level of the village and it is lacking. I also believe in the need for a meso- or middle-level of the village. These are the people and relationships that envelop the family, without necessarily directly interacting with the child. The healthcare providers, childcare providers, neighbors, parents’ bosses, and coworkers. In my opinion, this part of the village still exists but needs to be strengthened. General busyness and focus on individual pursuits and success can prevent these people from showing up for the new family. Similarly, an emphasis on individual achievement has made it more difficult for new parents to ask for and accept help. The village is there, but it might be dormant and need some help to re-activate it! It does seem, however, that the tiny village of support around parents is still alive and well for many families! Anecdotally, I hear about lots of parents who rely on regular help from family members to provide childcare. Many Baby Boomers have been able to retire while they’re still in good health and are able to help their Millennial children by filling in childcare gaps and offering respite. I’ve also seen many instances of community-based support for families when new babies arrive or there is an extended family illness. Meal trains and delivery services are becoming more common and are easy to set up online. Let’s also not discount the importance of emotional support that many parents find access to through their virtual connections: texting with close friends who are also parents, well-moderated Facebook groups, and access to professionals without the need to travel or even leave the house! Those are part of the village too!
You also have a podcast, what kind of topics do you tackle and with what types of guests?
My podcast, Somewhere All Bright and New, is designed to offer a fresh look at modern parenting and re-imagine what parenting could look like in a not-so-distant future. Some of the episodes are interviews with parents who are willing to open up and be vulnerable in sharing their own experiences. We’ve got folks talking about work-life balance, race, neurodivergence, religion, and more! Some of the episodes are interviews with people with professional expertise in the early childhood, including a talented educator who shares insights on what to look for in a high quality infant/toddler childcare environment and why it’s important to support the professionals who work closely with infants and toddlers in group settings. Other episodes focus on me sharing my perspectives about parenting, usually through a social justice lens. I’m thinking a lot these days about what it looks like when I’m confronting the influence of toxic systems on my own parenting, and those themes are very present in the podcast.
Can you share some examples of what a success story may look like for a family?
Because my work focuses on young children and my own children are still young, at this phase, my view of a success story is one where parents are feeling balanced in caring for their kids and themselves. Many parents feel stuck on the hamster wheel of just barely getting by. With work demands, school and extracurricular schedules, and the relentless needs of young children, parents are focused on surviving each day, not necessarily thriving. A success story is when parents find some way to relieve that pressure: a career change, a shift in priorities for the kids, banishing “mom guilt”, or embracing their own right to rest!
For me, I feel successful when I’m giving my kids plenty of room to be fully and completely themselves without feeling pressured to fit them into a mold of my own or society’s expectations.
You can find out more about Jill on her website, https://www.jillianbestadler.com/, and her podcast, Somewhere All Bright and New, will be launching soon, so follow her on Instagram @parentingwithbalanceandwonder for updates!
