Jan, I didn't see your original post, but from my 30 years in Honduras, it
is very clear that mothers care very much for their babies and grieve very
hard for those that die.  They refer to them by name and they very
definitely had personalities for them.  Mothers will say that they had 5, or
8 children, even if only 3 or 4 are alive.  They are very much a part of
their lives.  When I started the community project in Honduras one of our
first breastfeeding counselors had 15(!) pregnancies and spoke with sadness
about the fact that she only had 5 living children.  The 5th was, in fact,
an adopted, abandoned child that she nursed alongside her own 4th and she
tells everyone to this day that they are twins, and for her, they are.

Katherine's comment abou the upper classes made me remember how reading
about wetnursing made me understand how the nobility in Europe could always
send their sons off to war!  I had always wondered about that when I read
history books, because I couldn't imagine how a mother would WANT to send
her son off to a possible death ( you might accept it, but I can't imagine
"wanting", but when I realized that very few noblewomen raised their own
children and almost no one ever breastfed, I understood how they could feel
so cut off.

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"The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are
 creating.  The paths are not to be found, but made, and the
 activity of making them changes both the maker and the
 destination."  Attributed to John Schaar, University of California.

 Judy Canahuati
 email: [log in to unmask]
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