Kathy D is betting dollars to doughnuts that our Massachusetts
legislators don't even know that children can breastfeed after 3.
Well, Kathy, I guess you're just not familiar with the central
role Dunkin Donuts plays in the lives of New Englanders...that's
a very serious bet indeed!  ;-)
The fact is that these changes were made *after* the testimony
(although I have to wonder how many legislators actually showed
up) which included professional (including Marsha Walker) and
mother testimony.  It is possible that information on appropriate
duration of breastfeeding wasn't included, but I'll check. I'm
98% certain it was included in the written testimony. We are
also working with our friends in the legislature to see how
this perversion transpired and how this 3 year old cutoff came
about.  My mister, while we were talking about this last night,
suggested that an age limit is a good thing if only to prevent
teens from going at it in public, but 3 is way too low.  10 would
be more like it.

Yeah, I mis-spoke when I spoke about the intent of the changes, but
this is sophisticated Massachusetts here, I don't think we should
hold that figurative bar down at ankle-level.

Another issue is that breaking this law by breastfeeding a 3 yo
in public could possibly put one on the sex offender list.  We've
had problems in the state which our procedures regarding this,
a man getting blacklisted for urinating off his own porch at night.
We're also checking on those implications.

Thanks for the input so far!
:-)
--
Beth Johnson
Perinatal Educator, Doula
Springfield, MA USA

"Breastmilk: anything else is less."

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