Spilled Milk by Andy Steiner

Author:Andy Steiner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rodale
Published: 2005-05-07T04:00:00+00:00

Revolution Mom-Style, Now!

In the years before my daughter was born, I had this recurring nightmare: A wild, child-free woman becomes a mother and suddenly she starts acting like one. The killer heels end up at the back of the closet, the protest signs gather dust, the funky vintage convertible gets traded in for a navy blue minivan, and her sex life withers up and blows away. As the responsibilities of motherhood begin to weigh on her shoulders and cloud her mind, the wild woman even starts buying embroidered sweat suits—and wearing them out of the house.

The heroine of my nightmare wasn’t me, exactly—I never could carry off stilettos, I never owned a vintage convertible, and, kid or not, you’d have to kill me before I’d wear a sweat suit anywhere. But she was an accurate representation of my fear that if I let my biological impulse to reproduce get the better of me, my marginally sassy, independent-grrrl lifestyle would end up in the toilet.

But then, as the desire to have a baby of my own morphed from an occasional inner whisper to an insistent whine, I started looking around at the mothers I knew. What I came to realize was that becoming a mother didn’t necessarily have to make a gal close her eyes to the rest of the world or disappear under a pile of dirty diapers. In fact, what I learned was that the sudden realization of her inherent mamapower can actually inspire a woman to greater boldness than ever before.

Psychoanalyze my sweat suit phobia all you want, but you’ll save yourself some time if you accept my theory that by lumping all practically dressed mothers into one plodding herd, I was doing the exact same thing that the rest of the world has been doing for eons: discounting the powerful potential of women with children. Since I started really looking at mothers—and talking to them about the minutia of their lives—I’ve begun to realize that whether we are willing to admit it or not, we mamas are a pretty radical bunch. We love our children and we are willing to fight for them. We can still get passionate about what really matters, and when that passion is harnessed, we can make big changes in the world.

How to Take a Stand

Legal experts answer common questions about breastfeeding rights

Until her death in 2003, Miami attorney Elizabeth N. Baldwin was considered the leading expert on breastfeeding legislation in the United States. As a member of La Leche League International’s Legal Advisory Council, Baldwin provided legal council on hundreds of cases involving breastfeeding and attachment parenting. Because so many parents called Baldwin to request information about public breastfeeding laws, Baldwin, with the assistance of her husband, attorney Kenneth Friedman, prepared this helpful question-and-answer fact sheet for La Leche League’s Web site.

Question: I am in a state with no breastfeeding legislation. Do I have the right to breastfeed in public?

Answer: Yes. The purpose of legislation is to clarify that it is legal, and to change society’s attitudes about breastfeeding.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.