Rachel said, "I am so impressed with women in the US
who breastfeed despite the tremendous obstacles in
their way, and I use their dedication to inspire the
daughtersof the welfare state with whom I work (who
can seem spoiled by comparison!) but in my heart of
hearts I wish all women and all their children had a
safeguarded right to their breastfeeding
relationships."
Rachel, I hate to argue with you since you're so
amazing yourself, and I love you so, but dont' be
impressed by *me*. I'm just, as Kathryn Black says in
"Mothering without a Map", an ordinary devoted mother.
I don't think my overall culture had much to do with
breastfeeding for me. Instead, I learned about it in
undergraduate endocrinology and I *knew* the only way
I could concievably have children was if they were
breastfed, co-slept, not left to cry, etc. You see, I
had been raised by a mother without a map (orphan at 7
mos), and I felt in my bones that mothering didnt'
have to be what I saw as a child. When I learned what
could be so different, I was reassured and willing to
have children.
Did I have societal struggles? Oh yes, indeed. see
<http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7269/ursula99.htm>
where I dont' even go into the full details of how
nasty the nurses were about trying to give Ursula
bottles. My mother nay-sayed me regularly when she
came to help us recover from birth (dh, without tenure
then, had a meeting to go to so he was out of town
shortly after Ursula's birth). Maybe I'm pig-headed,
but I also knew that parenting my high need dd would
be so much harder if I had to deal with bottles and
there was just *no way* that was going to happen!
but then, maybe I'm wierd. I went on Dr Phil, after
all, to demonstrate to the world that some kids want
to nurse when they're in 2nd grade- and I let "our"
school know. of course, one of "our" students was on
Oprah wrt gender identity so maybe I am in a cocoon.
If I am, I want to spread the cocoon around to others.
=====
Kate, http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~kolina/advantages-of-formula.html Mom to Ursula (9), Sage (7!!), Benno (3) "You can tell the quality of a person by how they treat people they don't need." ~ a wise dad
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PY-teenAP/ For older attached kids' parents. :-)
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