LACTNET Archives

Lactation Information and Discussion

LACTNET@COMMUNITY.LSOFT.COM

Options: Use Forum View

Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Show All Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Subject:
From:
Steve Salop and Judith Gelman <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 15 Jun 1999 01:03:44 -0400
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (49 lines)
Several studies have shown that most teen pregnancies that are carried
to term are "unplanned" but not unwanted.

 The idea of all these programs is to make teen girls not want
babies--and since babies are inherently appealling and loveable, these
programs play up the  undesirable aspects of babies.

However, the research clearly shows that the best "contraception" is for
girls to have aspirations beyond motherhood.  If a girl only wants to be
a mother and sees that as her sole adult role, she can attain adulthood
NOW (eg at 13 or 16) by getting pregnant.  If a girl sees herself as a
future neurosurgeon, getting pregnant and all the things that lead to it
(eg sex, not using contraception, skipping classes to be with a
boyfriend,etc) have a lot less appeal.  But it is a lot harder to get
girls to have goals than to hand them a doll that makes babies seem less
appealing.

By the way, I thinkthat the average teen is  pretty savvy to what is
going on here  and that the novelty of these dolls has worn off.  My
daughter tells me that there are websites that show you how to hot-wire
your doll so it will leave you alone.  That doesn't mean that kids think
they can hotwire real babies.  Kids know that the whole thing is a
gimmick--so maybe they see the bottle negetively after this experience.
THat sounds unlikely, but why would this experience make bottlefed
babies seem like a good thing? It isn't like these kids live in a
vacuum. What the experience shows them is that it is awful to have to
wake up several times a night and stay awake to hold a bottle in the
baby's mouth. So maybe a feeding method that lets you sleep sounds even
better to these kids. Or maybe they just walk away thinking that the
whole thing is legalize torture imposed by the school system.

The teens I know were almost all breastfed and they all intend to
breastfeed, but they intend to do it _years_ from now. A bottle that
shuts down a doll won't change that either way. THe strongest influence
is still what their own mothers did--attachment babies grow up to be
attachment parents. We have an uphill battle because attachment
parenting is hard to do if you never felt that secure attachment to your
own parents.

Warmly-
Judy Gelman, IBCLC
Washington, DC

             ***********************************************
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

ATOM RSS1 RSS2