Dear Lactnet Sisters,
>The following is being offered in commemoration for World Breastfeeding Week,
>August 1-7.  It was written but never sent before in response to a picture of
>a breastfeeding mother pictured on the cover of the Times Herald Record,
>Middletown New York some time ago(around 10/96). (I finally sent it!)

>Regarding the Breastfeeding Mother on the cover of The Record
>
>No Room in the Inn
>
>Nothing was a good enough reason to allow the peace!  Not that she was a
>nursing mother with THREE young children, not that she was a customer, not
>even because there was no room provided for enjoying the merchandise.  No room
>in the inn, just room for spending money in a frenzied hurry.
>        We don't know how to value or respect and protect the succoring of our
>children.  Lacking common sense, we only know to be threatened by it.  We have
>to pay taxes to legislate common decency because there is no room in our
>hearts, no room in our aisles, no room in our stores, no room in our malls or
>parking lots or even the privacy of our cars, no room to sit quietly,
>privately or peacefully, not even the floor is allowed FOR SPACE TO NURTURE!
>        Let's look at ourselves and reflect on our treatment of the least of
>us, the young and tender.  Are they only to be made fodder for profit
>mongering mega corporations who can't/don't allow the room for children's
>nurture?
>        Sure the floor in a small book store may not be the preferred location
>to nurse a baby.  But if it's dangerous for the nursing couple, then it's
>dangerous for young children and other customers as well.  Considering that
>for nature's way, not even war, pestilence, famine, hurricanes, blizzards and
>tornadoes are reasons to keep a babe waiting, why should our blindness thwart
>a ready perfect remedy for a hungry babe?  At $2.54 an ounce, or as a
>$24,000.00 a year truly priceless investment in infant health and well being,
>breastmilk is a commodity our society should be grateful to support every
>mother providing for her young.  In truth, it is an investment for common
>sense and common decency, obviously scarce to find, not only in our malls but
>in our hearts.
>
>Ekua Sharp ([log in to unmask])
>157 Cascade Road
>Warwick, New York 10990
>
>(914) 986 6962