OK, enough of you have asked me to elaborate . . . I am leaving the details out on purpose to preserve anonymity. Case #1: 6 year old girl, no longer nursing, being evaluated at school for possible learning disabilities at parents' insistence; during a psychological evaluation/interview, the girl mentions that she nursed until earlier in the year -- so she nursed til 6, though was no longer nursing; and that she slept with her parents, and they all slept nude; and that her father gave her a backrub each night to help her go to sleep, with her mother not in the room. Child was taken away and placed in foster care. I never heard the outcome of this case, but at last contact the girl was in foster care in a different city, parents were not allowed any contact, and she'd been gone for six months at this point. Mother said there was nothing wrong with how they parented, nor did she seem to understand why anyone outside the family might think it was a little odd, especially the nude backrubs. Mother insisted it was perfectly normal to do all these things. Case #2: little boy, 5 years of age, divorce/custody case; mother awarded custody, but required to wean and to get counseling and take parenting classes (the long-term nursing was only one of many issues); the mother had contacted me for advice when the case first went to court and I provided my usual letter of support for the normalcy of nursing a 5 year old; after the court order, mother called me at home late at night on several occasions to ask if I thought "x, y, or z" violated the court order; the last time we talked she called at 11:30 pm at night, waking me up, to ask if I thought it was a violation of the court order if she "E-X-P-R-E-S-S-E-D S-O-M-E B-R-E-A-S-T M-I-L-K I-N-T-O A C-U-P" -- she spelled this out over the phone to me, in a whisper - and gave it to the little boy to drink. I told her she was nuts, that I thought, yes, it was a violation of the spirit of the court order and she shouldn't risk it, and NOT to call me at 11:30 pm to ask stupid questions. Case #3: mother of 3 developmentally delayed children, approximate ages 5, 3, and 1.5 years. None of them could talk, none were toilet trained, all were still nursing. Pediatric workups led to presumption of some sort of genetic problem, but no definite diagnosis, some physicians thought they had autism/pervasive developmental disorder, or autistic-like tendencies. Mother had refused to have children enrolled in early childhood intervention (ECI) programs, refused immunizations, admitted she locked the kids in their rooms at night. All three kids were taken away from her. The social workers blamed the developmental delays, the lack of toilet training, and the lack of language on the mother's extended breastfeeding. Now, we all know that is ludicrous -- it seems perfectly obvious to me that there was something the matter with the children. The children were placed in two different foster homes (2 in one, one in the other). They were all given their immunizations and enrolled in early childhood intervention programs. The mother was allowed to visit the kids in foster care, but persisted in nursing them during the visits even though she'd been told not to. The mother was offered the chance to regain custody of the children if she agreed to stop nursing them and continue to take them to ECI. She refused, insisting that the state had no right to tell any mother (or father) how to parent their children. I talked to this women for over an hour on the phone, trying to get her to understand that of course the state (as representative of the general community) has the right to set limits on how people treat their children -- that there are people who abuse, maim, kill, neglect, and otherwise treat their children badly. She was, basically, not interested in getting her kids back. She was only interested in proving that the state has no right to tell anyone how to raise their kids. She was not willing to follow the guidelines set forth in order to regain custody of her children -- last I heard, she did not have custody, and was allowed only supervised visits to make sure she didn't nurse the children. Kathy Dettwyler _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html