I am so dismayed by this reply that I can't think straight. Anyone got any
ideas how to respond to this intelligently and calmly?
Rachael
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
From: "Kelly, John" <[log in to unmask]>
To: activist <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: RE: Saturday's Child Illustration Today (10/17/97)
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 97 11:59:00 PDT
Dear Ms. Hamlet:
It's really too bad that breast-feeding has been tarred by the lunatic
fringe. I suppose that's a natural overcompensation to the shameful way
breastfeeding was suppressed earlier this century, but still...
I am a big fan of breasts in general and breastfeeding specifically. I was
breastfed, as were my two daughters. If anyone were to ask my opinion, I would
recommend breastfeeding. It's obviously better than the alternative. But I find
some breastfeed-or-die proponents to be tiresome. When I read, as I have, that
children can be breastfed until they're 3 or 4, my reaction is, "Ooo, gross."
And when I read in your note that the "obvious" implication of a
cartoon-like illustration incorporating two bottles is that a baby can't be seen
without a bottle and, ergo, that bottlefeeding should be the norm and that I am
somehow part of the military-industrial-Nestle-baby formula complex, I just have
to scratch my head. (I won't even ask if you've heard of breast pumps or bottled
breast milk.) I suppose the obvious implication of the blue teddy bear, blue
pacifier and yellow rattle is that no baby can do without these, either.
Thank you for reading Weekend, but please do not read too much into our
illustrations.
John Kelly
----------
>From: activist
>To: kellyj
>Subject: Saturday's Child Illustration Today (10/17/97)
>Date: Friday, October 17, 1997 9:54AM
>
>Dear Mr. Kelly,
>
>Reading today's article in Saturday's Child about backpacking with a baby,
I
>was pleased to note that Mr. Hendrix made no mention of the need to pack
>bottles or formula. With his emphasis on the need to pack carefully for
such
>activities, he left the impression (on me at least) that the infant's food
>was
>to be brought in that most convenient of containers, her mother's breasts.
>Why then, was it necessary to include not one but *two* bottles in the
>illustration to the article? The obvious implication is that a baby cannot
>be
>seen without a bottle.
>
>The routine association of babies with bottles in our culture is one of the
>many barriers mothers face when trying to breastfeed. Everyone in the
media
>must take responsibility for seeing to it that bottles are *not* depicted
>with
>babies unless they are important to the story in some way. To do otherwise
>reinforces the belief that bottle-feeding is the norm, and breastfeeding is
>somehow an aberration.
>
>
>J. Rachael Hamlet
>Author, The Breastfeeding Advocacy Page
>http://www.clark.net/pub/activist/bfpage/bfpage.html
>
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