Hello, In reference to the discussion concerning maternity leave-I agree with all who have brought to light the fact that our tax dollars would be better spent on a years maternity leave building a well adjusted human being as opposed to paying for a lifetime of services trying to fix one. That is what our tax dollars are doing right now. Prisons don't fix people they teach them to be better criminals! My whole point is that we could cut alot of these costs if we could give every woman the opportunity to choose the best start. As things stand now, women don't have a choice! In my experience, we women don't bond together easily to make these appropriate changes. That is evidenced by the statements here in Lactnet that have made about how OTHER woman have been able to work and raise healthy children in the PAST. I find we are so critical of ourselves and one another. It's like we are in some competition or something-who has had the harder situation or something. If we could just find a common thread amongst us all (how about our children!), and look past the pain of our own experiences, we could lobby for these changes. It all goes back to what Kathy D. was talking about before, we bought into society's view that work for monetary gain is more valued than the work in the home. AND,I am a firm believer that if our society would value women and children more ( and, we would value ourselves and other women more) and thus understand the life shaping work done in the home-our tax dollars could go to other more constructive avenues. I was sitting in the beauty palor the other day and heard my hair dresser talking about one of her colleagues saying that she had just had a baby and it was such an easy delivery that she shouldn't take her whole six weeks maternity leave! I could just hear the anger in her voice when she described her own birth experience and the horrors of it that lead eventually to a c-section. She told me how long it took her to get moving around and how other women in her life told her to" buck up" that it wasn't a big deal, "women have been having babies forever." She ended up pushing herself and went back to work after 6 weeks because she had to. It was hard to pump enough milk because of being so worn out on her feet atleast 8 hours a day. She did it though. She broke my heart. Did her situation make her empathize with her colleague-NOT! It was the same attitude- "buck up Sister!" I see this all the time. Here goes my Benjamin Franklin speech-He said, "That we must hang together or surely we shall hang separately!" He was talking about the American Revolution but, don't we need a Mother's revolution of sorts!? Really, if we want to change society, it needs to start with the womb! We are going to have to get over this"buck up Sister attitude" and find a common thread. We have to look past our own issues-stop comparing ourselves with the past- and work TOGETHER to change things for the future.( for our children) My Mother always said that if you lead others will follow. I think men will be less critical and more understanding of our situations if we are more understanding of our Sisters. Climbing down..... Laura H. Ehrenzeller,BA,Breastfeeding Peer Counselor