Alternative Parenting – Page 42 – a hippie with a minivan

I can't believe that I forgot about this…

When Colin was at the hospital and I was anxious to get home I mentioned to the doctor that I had another nursling at home and she dared to comment on it!
She at first looked surprised and then asked how old he was and I told her that he was just about 3 and a half…
she then said it was time to wean him !!!!
OK… First I was already stressed and on edge cause I wanted them to get him of the Serum but that just hit me like a ton of bricks… but I am proud of myself… Everything came out perfectly and without a thought… every little reason she gave I responded without skipping a beat and I am actually happy that we did have the conversation in a way…
It went a bit like this….

Dr: You should wean him!
Me: Why?
Dr: He is 3.5… that’s too old?
Me: Actually 3.5 is young in my opinion…
Dr: But he is too old to be nursing still.
Me: Actually, the natural weaning age is between 2.5 and 7 years old, so he is still near the beginning… and I don’t believe in premature weaning.
Dr: But it must drain your energy.
Me: Why would that happen?
Dr: But he has teeth…
Me: So!… sometimes a 4 month old has teeth… would you advise the mom to wean because of that?
Dr: No… that’s true… you’re just the first person I have met that has nursed this long…

A bit later she heard me talking, saying that I have to go to Montreal to see our family doctor for the kids and she offered to be their ped (this is also after she found out that I am not vaxing)

Anyways…Even though I am OK with the conversation I can’t believe that a doctor would have the gall to actually comment on breastfeeding…. I know I hear others that rant about their awful, misinformed doctors but I am lucky that I never had experienced it until now…
The problem is that to be a breastfeeding counsellor we have to have to go through the Training that is put in place for Unicef’s “Baby-Friendly Initiative”
The nurses and Doctors at the hospitals that are working to become”Baby-Friendly” also have to go through the same training.
The Big problem is that that doctors are the ones that are most often not doing the training and hindering the hospitals. These know-it-alls actually know nothing about breastfeeding and they are the ones that have the most weight in the minds of most parents… and when they are given the chance to learn they don’t even want to do it!
How can people put all of their trust in these people?
Another thing that Irks me is parenting advice… Why the HECK do people take parenting advice from doctors! Why is the opinion of one person better then the instincts of a parent? Besides… in most cases with the hours that doctors are away from their homes and away from their children how can you expect them to know what they are talking about… I know there are some good docs out there that do have good parenting advice but I don’t think that a doctor’s office is the place to exchange that advice…

What I love about my Family Doc in Montreal is that he is always eager to learn. We don’t always agree but when it happens he rather exchange info then just try to convince me. He never gives advice that is out of the medical realm. He has never talked about sleep, feeding, potty-training etc… He doesn’t believe that parenting advice should be part of the doctor/ patient-parent relationship…

However, I find Montreal to be far away if I have a sick child to bring in… It’s a good hour drive, mostly highway, pretty rough stretches in the winter and about 30$ worth of gas… so I am debating whether to take this doc as a Ped. for the kids (not even 10 mins away)… even if she dared to say something about my nursing relationship, and I would keep the family doc anyways.

Milk money

there is a great quicktime video avaiblible on Dr.Jay Gordon’s Webpage about the Breastfeeding adds that have never been able o see the light because of the formula companies…

It aired on 20/20 and it is a bit long but worth the watch… and of course the site is a great resource too!!

CLSC last night…

I gave a Pre-natal last night and I got home at 10pm!… The nurse asked me if I could present some wraps and slings at the end of the class and I of course gladly accepted… We did the whole class, there was about 10 couples one of the biggest groups that I have had to date and also the most talkative. One mom in particular was very off the idea of breastfeeding and really had a head full of outdated info and tons of myths… she is having her second child 20 years after her first and I think is still dealing with guilt issues of her first parenting experience… Anyways I suffered through the stupid breastfeeding video from the 80’s that they have to show (I have seen it at least a dozen times now and it is just getting old!!) and then at the end of the class I showed the wrap and sling… everyone thought it was great and they all took my card… just as I was packing up a mom came up to me, asked about price, when she could call, where I live etc… and then asked if I always have some at home… I had brought the slings that I have left with me so I showed her what I had and she bought one right away…

The nurse came back in the room at that point and we started talking… the girl that bought the wrap is a local police officer and she and the nurse our friends… we started talking and something she said really surprised me… she HATES giving the classes because she doesn’t like what she has to say… she has to stick by the rules and they are the rules that she herself doesn’t adhere to… We talked about how hard it was to have to recommend things, teach things that we just don’t agree with. We have to put our own feelings and experiences aside and give the ‘blanket recommendation’ (Vit D supplements, co-sleeping etc)
We talked about how hard it was to talk about breastfeeding, talk about how important it is, talk about how easy it can be, talk about it being the best when you know very well that you are wasting your breath….

We both wished that we could stop talking about the importance of breastfeeding and could just focus on the dangers of Formula….

If Breastfeeding reduces the risks of :

Cancer (breast, ovarian, and uterine for mom and baby girls), obesity, asthma, Crohn’s disease, diabetes (and insulin requirements in diabetic mothers), Allergies, Helps prevent post-partum hemorrhage, Ear infections, diarrheal infections, bacterial meningitis, respiratory infections, rheumatoid arthritis, Hodgkins disease, protects baby against some vision defects, osteoporosis etcâ€¦etcâ€¦etcâ€¦.

AND Breastfeeding is the NORMAL way to feed our childâ€¦

Then it can be easily concluded that Formula is a CAUSE of many of these diseasesâ€¦

Againâ€¦ I am Tired of talking about the benefits of breastfeeding when it is the dangers of Formula that we should be focusing onâ€¦ but that will never happen because we donâ€™t want to make moms feel â€˜guiltyâ€™ and there is no money to be made by breastfeedingâ€¦.

This of course is proofâ€¦

Anywaysâ€¦ it felt good to talk with someone that is in the same situation and it makes me feel good to know that there are more and more with the same ideas as me, people that I can share with and have great conversations withâ€¦.

Defining a woman in our society…

It saddens me that in our culture that women are often so self oriented. The women I see around me, those I talk to, often work out of the home, need to get out once a week for dinner and a movie with their significant other, go for lunches on a regular basis with girlfriends, get their nails done, their hair done and all of the other stuff that they seem to find “important”… all the stuff that they did before they had children. Yet don’t see the importance of raising their kids completely, don’t see the importance of being a full time mom. They see motherhood and their kids as being a threat to the way that they define themselves. They cling to the identity that they had when childless and don’t want to leave any of that behind. They define themselves as women, as feminists, as working moms, as “themselves”…

I really don’t have anything against moms that work out of the home, they have their own reasons I guess and I can’t argue with them because they see it as doing what is right for them. However, I personally can’t understand it…

I can understand that there are some moms that are alone and that need the money and don’t have a choice… I can understand that it is sometimes the mom that makes more money, I can’t understand why the dad wouldn’t stay at home, I can’t understand the ones that say they “need” the money for their second car, the big house, the trips and the plasma screen TV…. I can’t understand how people say that they are the ones raising their kids when their kids are in daycare 5 days a week for 10 hours a day…

I know a few moms that have their kids in daycare full time and see the reality that the daycare has a great influence on their child’s life (negative as well as positive)… the daycare workers are the ones that often see the first steps, hear the first word, kiss booboo’s away, teach and take care of the children… others that I know don’t see the daycare as being anything more then a place that they take their children for a “few” hours and they are the only ones “raising” their kids….

Yes, maybe there are women that really just do love their jobs and want to continue to work and to them I would just have to agree to disagree because I love my job as mother too.Before I had kids I was in school, working, went out, had fun, got married and had time with my husband to get to know him, I was myself, doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it… When I had kids, I stayed the same yet changed. I became a Mom. I took on a definition to my life that I don’t see as being contradictory to myself but complimentary. Sure I don’t do all of the things that I did before and sure I miss it sometimes but for now, especially while the kids are so young my job is to be a mother and I can be myself while doing that. I understood that I only have a few years to raise my kids, to teach them, to discover them, to make them feel like they are the most important beings on the face of this earth. When they are a bit older, I can do more of the things that I did before (if they still interest me). Raising my children is the most important job that I could ever hold in my life, and they reward me everyday for doing so.

I know that for some women working out of the house is what they equate to being equal to men… I understand the “equality” issue… however, the most common complaints that I have hear about the “traditiona” nuclear family has often been how the mom was the one raising the kids while the dad was the one that came home tired and cranky at night and that was seen only on weekends… Is this what women really want? To be away from their kids as much as the men in the past?

I don’t see myself as inferior for staying home and raising my kids… there are women that provide childcare as a living… am I inferior to them? No, I am not paid. But I am doing the same thing… I am just doing it for myself instead of paying someone else to do it for me…

I guess I am lucky in the fact that I have a husband that acknowledges that what I do is important and that I work hard. He expects of my to raise my kids, not raise him, he doesn’t expect that the house is spotless but smiles when the kids have drawings or crafts to show him. He is hardworking out and in the home. He sees me as an equal and treats as such.

I think the overall problem with the image of women is the home stems from the image of man being dominant because of it… The problem with this though is that the way to change this view is to change the mentality of the men and doing so can only be done by showing that being a mom is a job like any other and that the other stuff just needs to be equally divided between the mom and the dad…

The other problem is the constant conception that those who actually love to be home with their kids on a full time basis are really lying to themselves and are just trying to be Martyrs are second class citizens and are not ‘modern’ women etc…If you really want to work then do so.. I don’t think that everyone should and has to be a SAHM… but it doesn’t mean that it isn’t a valid choice and that it isn’t as important a job… but I truly believe that in choosing for both parents to work outside of the home that it also means that you are willing to share and leave the responsibility of raising your kids with someone else….

Afterthought: don’t we all think of things the morning after 😉

I think the important thing is that we have to understand that a woman doesn’t have to lose herself to become a full time mom…

She doesn’t just take on the challenge of taking care of her children but takes on the challenge of redefining herself. Some things are left behind and forgotten and they are often the petty things, leaving the core of who we really are and then we rebuild from there. Past friendships may dwindle and be left behind leaving time and space for another generation of friends that we will keep for a lifetime. It does take a village to raise a child and through the friendship that I have made I am building my village, friends for my kids, other kids that I can kiss booboo’s for, other adults to give and get ideas and support, and share with.

I didn’t lose myself by staying home but redefined and enriched myself.

A few things about Formula…

What the WHO (World Health Organization) says:

“because of the hazards associated with using breast-milk substitutes, infant formula was no ordinary consumer product, but that, up to the age of four to six months, it should be treated more as a nutritional medicine that should be used with the advice and under the supervision of health workers. The report also noted that, even seen from the viewpoint of fostering competition, direct advertising to mothers with infants in the first four to six months of life was singularly inappropriate because:
· advertising infant formula as a substitute for breast milk competes unfairly with normal,
healthy breastfeeding, which is not subject to advertising, yet which is the safest and lowestcost method of nourishing an infant; and
· advertising infant formula as a substitute for breast milk favours uninformed decisionmaking, bypassing the necessary advice and supervision of the mother’s physician or health worker.
In this respect, the report concluded, it can be considered that advertising of infant formula fails to achieve the objectives of ensuring best quality and the lowest cost and creating an informed public, which are among the benefits assumed to be a result of direct advertising.”
“Those who suggest that direct advertising has no negative effect on breastfeeding should be asked to demonstrate that such advertising fails to influence a mother’s decision about how to feed her infant.”
“Proper use of infant formula should rather be the result of informed decision-making based on objective and consistent advice, and appropriate supervision. This message is implicit in the final paragraph of the preamble to the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, which states:
Believing that, in the light of the foregoing considerations, and in view of the vulnerability of infants in the early months of life and the risks involved in inappropriate feeding practices, including the unnecessary and improper use of breast-milk substitutes, the marketing of breast-milk substitutes requires special treatment, which makes usual marketing practices unsuitable for these products.
No breast-milk substitute, not even the most sophisticated and nutritionally balanced formula, can begin to offer the numerous unique health advantages that breast milk provides for babies.
Nor can artificial feeding do more than approximate the act of breastfeeding, in physiological and emotional significance, for babies and mothers alike. And no matter how appropriate infant formula may be from a nutritional standpoint, when infants are not breastfed or are breastfed only partially, feeding with formula remains a deviation from the biological norm for virtually all infants.”
http://www.who.int/nut/documents/infant_formula_trade_issues_eng.pdf”
18. The vast majority of mothers can and should breastfeed, just as the vast majority of infants can and should be breastfed. Only under exceptional circumstances can a mother’s milk be considered unsuitable for her infant. For those few health situations where infants cannot, or should not, be breastfed, the choice of the best alternative “ expressed breast milk from an infant’s own mother, breast milk from a healthy wet-nurse or a human-milk bank, or a breast-milk substitute fed with a cup, which is a safer method than a feeding bottle and teat” “ depends on individual circumstances.19. For infants who do not receive breast milk, feeding with a suitable breast-milk substitute… for example an infant formula prepared in home-prepared formula with micronutrient supplements should be demonstrated only by health workers, or other community workers if necessary, and only to the mothers and other family members who need to use it; and the information given should include adequate of inappropriate preparation and use. Infants who are not breastfed, for whatever reason, should receive special attention from accordance with applicable Codex Alimentarius standards, or a instructions for appropriate preparation and the health hazards the health and social welfare system since they constitute a risk group.”