I am in northern Missouri, where besides being buried under two feet of
snow, we have a strong cultural bias against breastfeeding.

 I can't speak for the rest of the US or even Missouri, but here it is seen
as a little bit weird to nurse for more than six weeks, and the less
educated/professional a mom is, the weirder it is to nurse.  I cannot
imagine that a "local" mom, one "from here" and not employed professionally
by either of the universities, would ever have the support to nurse a
toddler or even an older baby.  Local blue-collar industries do not support
pumping at all.

 This is my personal feeling, but culturally here, few people would
understand why anybody would *want* to breastfeed a foster child.  It's
deviant behavior, and why would anyone want to be a weirdo for a foster
child?  People wondered why I forced or persuaded my kids to nurse for
years, having no idea that toddlers and preschoolers *want* it, and it isn't
for the mother's psychological benefit, and I'm in that
educated/professional category which earns me a bit of a pass (though I am
part of the 25% of the population here that lives below the federal poverty
level, so I straddle the cultural divide in some ways).  When I explain that
there exists no formula that my allergic babies could drink, then people
understood why I would go to the trouble.

I think it might fit in the same category mentally as foster parents who
perhaps wanted to treat a baby with alternative medicine, or who were
extremely devout religious and expected a foster child to join them in
religious practice.  One might be glad that they were a good family, but
kind of wish they left all that other stuff out of it. (Disclaimer: I'm a
Secular Franciscan sister, so I'm not slamming religion one bit.  Just
trying to think of other sorts of things that might provoke the same
reaction).

Lynn Carter IBCLC
quite worried about ff clients who may not have thought to stock up before
the storm. . .

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