Cotton-Pickin’ Days

Peaceful morning, last one before Easter holidays begin tomorrow, cup of cinnamon dolce latte at Starbucks, The Times open in front of me…. All was good until I came across this piece by Alice Miles:

Natural birth! Hello? This is the 21st century

Hello? Hello?? HELLO???

Alice takes offense to the idea that the UK National Health Service (NHS) will be encouraging women to avoid medical intervention during birth. By 2009, the NHS plans to offer more birthing choices to women by recruiting more midwives and offering the option to have at-home, midwife-led, or consultant (doctor)-led births. And there’s something wrong with that?

When I gave birth in Japan, I appreciated my doctor very much. He provided excellent prenatal care and was very supportive during my long labor. But when it came time to push the baby out, he stepped aside and allowed the midwife to ease Stephen out carefully, slowly, and gently so that I could avoid an episiotomy as I had stated very strongly in my birth plan. What a fabulous partnership!

But Alice will have none of that. She went the planned Caesarean route because she wanted

…a predictable, pain-free birth (yes, I wanted it in the diary; anything wrong with that?) with a surgeon I had met and trusted, accompanied by lots and lots of drugs.

How nice for her.

Guess what, honey? All those drugs and a pain-free birth is just momentary denial. Childbirth and parenting are meant to be painful. It’s what makes you appreciate your children so much more. What’s worth doing in life takes effort and if you think that it’s possible to glide through childbirth, you’re sadly mistaken. Even if a c-section appears to be the tidiest way to go about giving life to children, it isn’t. And it’s wrong to tell women who’re considering their options that your way is the best.

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Outrageous!

Breastfeeding Mother Kicked off Commercial Airplane

I have done my fair share of nursing on planes and have NEVER even gotten a sideways look from anyone. I’ve often worn nursing shirts, tucked a pillow under my arm as a screen, had Marv hold up a blanket for me, or simply done nothing except hunch over in my seat a little and turn towards the window. Thank goodness no one has ever suggested I refrain from breastfeeding Stephen or I would have had to punch their lights out or better yet, sue their pants off just as Emily Gillette and her family are doing. Go Emily!!

via Breastfeeding 1-2-3

Technorati Tags: breastfeeding, emily gillette, delta airlines

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I’m over at Breastfeeding 1-2-3 today sharing some memorable moments in my breastfeeding career, which ended just a few months ago. We had several poignant moments in the wind down of this phase of our mother-son relationship but from beginning to end, I’ve been lucky that breastfeeding came naturally and easily. I would have enjoyed having a blog like Breastfeeding 1-2-3 to read while pregnant and breastfeeding. Even now, I enjoy reliving the memories and the conversation there.

Read more: Overcoming Overactive Let-Down

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Dr. Joyce Brothers approves of baby blogs.

via Bloggers Blog

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Angela at Breastfeeding 1-2-3 wrote about Breastfeeding Art yesterday and they’re so gorgeous I had to share them with you here too. The picture shown here is of the 2007 calendar.

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Parenting is hard. But it’s even harder when you’re on your own. Christina Zola at Solo Mother is sharing her experience as a single mother. It’s an incredibly personal look into a very tough situation. Go give Christina some hugs and encouragement!

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b5media appeals to everyone from people interested in celebrity gossip to scientists to sports fanatics to arts and crafters to anyone who belongs to a family and has relationships. But apparently, this doesn’t make it worthy of a $2 million investment and maybe not even worthy of our time.

According to Mike Rundle,

These investors must be living in a timewarp, one where arts and crafts blogs written by stay at home moms and 20 blogs on crappy TV sitcoms can return on an investment.

What do you say, fellow stay-at-home moms? Time to teach this kid a lesson!

Oh, and check out what Mikey said on this here stay-at-home mommy blog back in January:

One of the things that irks me about when people attack others on the internet, is that for the most part, that person wouldn?t be man (or woman) enough to actually say that kind of stuff to the person?s face if it were a real world interaction. The anonymity of the internet somehow gives weaker people the strength to take potshots at people they know nothing about, but alas, it?s that same anonymity that makes the internet so democratic.

Oh, really?

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No, not mine. Judith Woodburn’s of Salon. She’s still breastfeeding her son past his fourth birthday.

My son turned 4 a few weeks ago. His birthday wishes included the following: real binoculars, anything to do with Spider-Man and to keep on nursing.

Read more.

Update: Veronika Robinson nursed her girls waaay past their fourth birthdays.

For anyone wondering, I am completely pro-breastfeeding, but not militantly so.

via daysitter

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So this is what my problem is:

Rudolf Dreikurs, writing from the late 1940s on, railed against permissiveness run amuck. “Dependent children…give a great deal of trouble…. The more capable the mother, the more she tends to assign to herself all the domestic duties and responsibilities, the more likely will her children become dependent. You should never do anything for a child that he can do for himself. If he is used to being catered to and waited on, then this procedure must be stopped…never should you relieve him of any obligation.”

Not to mention the damn dishwasher, vacuum cleaner, washing machine, steam iron, and other modern appliances.

Ruth Cowan’s marvelous study of housewives in the first half of the century shows that each new piece of equipment (e.g., vacuum cleaners) elevated standards of cleanliness so that women actually spent no less time at their tasks.

From Anxious Parents: A History Of Modern Childrearing In America by Peter N. Stearns
Three more quotes at Genetics and Health.

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Is participation in “the mommy wars” a rite of passage for women who have the financial means to decide whether they ought to go back to full-time paid work or stay home with their children? If so, then I think I’ve matured as a mother and have no further need to be embroiled in battles.

I simply don’t care anymore what anyone thinks of my choice to stay at home and forgo a research career. And I don’t care if someone else has a high powered career replete with fancy suits and high flying business trips. I used to care…A LOT.

“Are you looking at me?” I’d think, eager to prove my self-worth and trot out my educational pedigree.

“Do you know who I am? What I do? What I used to do? How much my brain is worth?”

Now it doesn’t matter. I don’t need to prove anything to anyone except myself and I’ve already done that long ago.

In the school playground, we’re all parents joined together by kids born around the same time. And as it should be, it’s all about the kids. What works for our family would probably not work for theirs and vice versa. Every day, I cheer them on as I’d hope they’d cheer me on regardless of our family situation. There’s plenty of happiness and satisfaction to go around and I hope everyone has as much as they can get.

So I may or may not read Mommy Wars : Stay-at-Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families. Because I’m over it.

Make love not war.

NB: I loved Sandra Tsing Loh’s analysis of the mommy wars in The Atlantic, May 2006 – Rhymes with Rich. It’s subscription only so leave a comment here if you want me to send you a link that’s good for three days.

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