C'mon, Kathleen!  (I take it you include western women in your 'complaining
wuss' comment!) I think it's really hard to be a mother today!

You can't compare western stresses and pressures with the physical hard
work of the third world - it's different.  But while those women in Mali
return to work after just eight days,  there is also a tradition in many
peoples of truly nurturing the new mother and her baby and nurturing
feeding, too.

The western woman is isolated from friends and family at a vulnerable time
- and is expected to work full-time away from her baby for eight or 10
hours a day when that baby is just two or three months old.

She's expected to look good, and slim, and clean, and have a career and a
life plan and satisfy her husband sexually and have multiple orgasms,
too....oh, yes, and raise an intelligent, loving, well-nourished
well-behaved kid, 'cos if she doesn't she'll get the blame.

I think my life as a mother was harder - in some non-physical ways-  than
my own mother's and hers was harder - in some ways - than her own mother's.
I'm talking support, community, expectations here, of course, and not
vacuum cleaners or microwaves or motor cars.

Bf is sometimes seen as just another demand - when it could be a great
source of truly  liberating joy : (

I knew I would get back on topic....

heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc Newcastle upon Tyne UK