In a message dated 6/12/00 4:13:54 PM, [log in to unmask] writes:

<< Regarding the have and have nots, one of the points I try to stress when
working with at risk women and groups is to point out how mothering through
breastfeeding is not only good for the baby, but it can also allow the mother
to mother herself - her inner child through her baby.  We talk about what she
wanted and needed as a baby yet did not receive.  Then how when she gives
this care, comfort and concern to her own baby it comes around full circle in
terms of healing her own wounds.  She knows she isn't perpetuating the
distancing, the non-responsiveness, the yelling and screaming - whatever the
issues are when she chooses to parent her family in a more positive vein. >>

This is a topic dear to my heart. For 4 years, I coordinated a bf peer
counseling program in an inner city hospital clinic. I trained about 40 women
as counselors during that time. Several worked the entire 4 years, others for
a couple of years, some much less or even not at all. When I began the
program, I required that women have bf for one year or still be bf at time of
training. Hospital staff told me I would never find women in the local
neighborhoods who had bf that long, and indeed a similar, smaller program in
the city required only a few months (sometimes even less). They were
wrong--the mothers just never told anyone in positions of authority, but word
spread and I found the mothers.
    The next thing I did was include a lot of discussion about attachment,
holism and other aspects of positive parenting. This, too, was met w/
negative comments from those in authority who thought my training was not
culturally appropriate! (I won't get into my feelings about that in this
format!!)
    Anyway, I made it a policy that role-modeling of loving parenting was
expected of the counselors, even though I knew that some of the parents
spanked their children in their homes. One day, one of the women was in my
office and she told me about her own childhood and how when she first heard me
 talk about positive parenting, she was angry and resentful towards me. She
felt that this was the way that white women of privilege parented, but not
women of color or poor women. She did not believe she would stop spanking her
four sons, b/c she believed in it. She said that over time, being around the
other women, she came to make different choices.
    She told me that one of the proudest moments for her as a mother was when
she overheard one of her twin sons talking with his friend in his room one
day. He told his friend "You should have my mom. She used to whip us, but she
decided to stop and she never hits us anymore." She also had bf those twins
for 6 mos with no help from anyone and her third son for one year. When she
joined the program, her 4th son was a few months old. She nursed him for 3
years.
     During the time she was a counselor, she lived in terrible poverty,
raising her sons alone. She worked as a counselor for 4 years and had
hundreds of clients. She spread information all over her neighborhood and to
her family. Many of her clients nursed for years. She had the most gentle
loving way of nudging women into nursing and into falling in love with
mothering. This woman is one of the strongest, most courageous human beings I
have ever known.
    During the first year of our program, avg. bf duration increased among
mothers delivering through the clinic from 2 weeks to 4 mos. The hospital
ended the program after 4 years and replaced it w/ one that didn't threaten
the status quo. (B/c I believe bf is connected to all of mothering, we taught
our clients about normal birth, natural medicine and other aspects of holism
that didn't go over very well in such an environment). Programs like these
change everything, but b/c they do, they aren't always allowed to flourish or
even to exist for very long. IMO, more women in "at risk" groups do not bf
b/c we do not support programs like this one and women like my friend.
    BTW, when my youngest son was born almost 2 years ago, I was blessed to
have this woman's gentle, loving energy in my home for his birth.
Jennifer Tow, IBCLC, CT, USA

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