Hello Lactnetters,
   (1) First, the ugly article:
    Today (12 June) a article appeared in the Perspectives section on our local metropolitan newspaper, The Courier-Mail (Brisbane), attacking motherhood and meeting the young child's needs (in fact, all those measures which are beneficial to breastfeeding, thought this is not stated), and highly praising the so-called "controlled comfort" (also known as "controlled crying") method of "dealing" with night crying.  (I call is "child abuse".)  The writer, a Melbourne academic, seems to think that night waking is something that inadequate mothers actively encourage in order to be needed, and to cop out of paid employment!!!
    The article is titled "Full-time motherhood a luxury few should afford".  The word that sets the tone for the whole article is "should".  While some valid points are made (about the difficulty of getting back into the workforce at a level appropriate to skills after several years off), my overall impression of the article is that it is vitriolic. The article hasn't yet gone up on the paper's website, www.thecouriermail.com.au , but it may do so overnight.  Look in the menu on the left, for "Extras" and click on "Opinion".  As I said, it hasn't gone up on the website yet, but it is worth looking for, for those who might like to make a response.
   The concluding paragraph sums up the writer's opinion: "Once all women of older children engage in paid work, they no long will rely on the endless amount of maternal work generated by a lack of boundaries to justify their lack of paid employment.  Motherhood will beodme as fatherhood is now: jsut one of the responsibilities that womenundertake in the course of very busy lives, not the only one."
   (2) Now, the good one:
    In the same issue of the same newspaper opn the facing page, there is a delightful letter by a nurse-academic making very positive comments about rooming-in and how it helps get "feeding" patterns off to a good start (by "feeding", read "breastfeeding").  She was responding to a news report about a hospital that is using temporary, wipe-off "tattoos" to identify and match Mums and babies which, she writes, "reveals the continuation of out-dated hospital policies aimed at separating newborns form their mums and families."  She goes on: "With our current knowledge of maternal /infant sleep rhyuthms and their relationship to early establishment of feeding patterns, it is inconceivable that nurseries for healthy newborns still exist."  There's more, in the same vein.
    Responses to reports or articles on breastfeeding or on feeding in public in this Brisbane newspaper tend to get a consistently positive response by those readers who write in.  I shall be reading the correspondence pages with interest over the next few days.
     By the way, I'm still *nomail*, and so please copy any responses to me privately.
     Virginia
PS.  My thoughts go out to those of you in flood-affected areas of Texas and Louisana.

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