I used to really believe that women could be trusted to make the choices
that were right for themselves and their babies, and that my role was simply
to share information.

Then I went to work for the Children's Aid Society (CPS in the U.S.). I saw
cases where:
-a mother broke her baby's leg because he cried too much
-a mother punished her toddler for bad behaviour by with-holding food until
the child was so weak she could not stand up and her skin literally hung on
her arms
-a woman hit her stepdaughter (not yet three) so hard on the back of the
head that she killed her because the child didn't do what she was told
-a woman left a child in a car in a shopping mall parking lot while she went
into the mall to shoplift some things. When she was caught and arrested, she
didn't tell the police about the child in the car. It was winter, and in
Canada. They found the child the next morning.

Well, I could go on. The point is that women make some terrible decisions
about what to do with their children and sometimes deliberately harm them.
Their motivations are often very complex, and it isn't just about logic.

I don't have a solution to this, and I don't have a solution to the
WIC/formula issue. It's a real struggle.

Teresa Pitman
Guelph Ontario

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