Getting More from the Library

*I tried Grammarly's grammar checker free of charge because I've been editing that novel I mentioned, and if I stare at the words long enough, they start staring back at me. It gets a little disquieting.*


So, you're using the library to check out books. I tip my hat to you. Here's seven more things that if you're not doing already, you might want to start.

1.  Checking out things your library doesn't have on hand.

       Seriously- if you didn't know this, you need to hop on it: even if your library doesn't carry something, if you want to read it, you can request it. If you can't request it from home, online, your librarian can do it for you. Be prepared with title, author's name, publisher, and ISBN. 

2. Checking out music.
     Libraries aren't just about reading material. They're repositories of information and culture, and their holdings include a plethora of media. Here's a hint, they have movies too.

3.Joining Book Clubs.
     After you finish reading books, doesn't it feel good to talk about them with someone? Well, chances are, your library hosts a book club or can point you in the direction of one. My library hosts two a month, and the members are wonderful.

4. Checking out e-books. 
      Libraries have e-books, and e-books have the added benefit of returning themselves. That's right, no late fees. God bless my e-reader.

5. Using magazine exchanges.
     Many libraries have places for patrons to bring in their magazines and drop them off for other patrons to pick up and take home to read. It keeps them from becoming clutter without creating extra waste.

6. Sorting Government Hokum.
     Need those tax forms? Need help with your taxes? Need to know how to sign up for the ACA? Most libraries will have the standard tax forms on hand, and many have people trained to assist in filling out not just tax forms, but also other government forms, like the applications for health insurance through the new exchange system. Check your public library's website or give them a call to see which services they provide.

7. Getting Research Assistance.
     Don't know where to start looking for something and you really need more information on it? Talk to your library's research librarian. They can point you in the direction of books on the topic, help you determine better search parameters, teach you how to use the big scary microfilm newspaper viewing machines, and possibly put you in touch with someone who knows a lot about the topic you're researching. Topical experts are wonderful, research experts are priceless. Some libraries have excellent local history sections and special collections with amazingly detailed information as well. Research librarians are Heroes.

Cicadas

In my bedroom there hangs a painting that I bought from a talented art student some six years ago. In an unusually long 1:4 ratio, it depicts a beautiful woman with a giant green cicada fluttering at heart level, and her face, looking down on it, seems illuminated by the cicada. I think of her as an archetypal mother goddess watching over one of her more bizarre creatures. I love this painting, my son is terrified of it. The only part he wants to look at is the cicada. He thinks the cicada is protecting him from the dark woman.
When these little, okay, disturbingly large, buggers started showing up, this was the first he saw. Running around a tall spruce, he noticed the glimmer of it's green wings. "Mom, it's the SERKADIN! The one from your picture!" He jumped up and down, gesturing wildly. His "bug friend," just lazed against the tree, not particularly caring that a four year old was coming dangerously close to harming his iridescent wings.

When I told him that it would be a long time before we saw the cicadas again, he was sad and insisted I take a picture. Since then he's enjoyed finding their shed forms littering the playground, calling me over to see where one of his bug friends used to be.
He still doesn't like the woman in my painting, but now he's sure the cicada is his friend, after all, it came to visit him one day at the park.


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Ballots

Last week I was talking about how to pick the right candidates for the positions that matter, but there's a few other voting guidelines which I have come up with. Sometimes and office doesn't seem wholly important to me, or I don't have strong feelings on the issues. Some years I've forgotten my own rules and walked into the voting booth (well, not really a booth, we don't have booths, we have awkward tables with little privacy screens) only to be surprised by some of the issues and positions up for a vote.  When I follow my own rules, this doesn't happen.

I don't like political surprises.

Rule One:

Find out what the ballot will look like ahead of time.  It really isn't that complicated. Most areas' major newspapers will run the ballots the weekend before the election so that no one is left guessing. This information is also available online. I found mine on the County Clerk's website.
By knowing who and what will be on your ballot,  you have the chance to research the topics that didn't seem germane last week.

Rule Two:
Research the unopposed candidates. Why even bother, right? Well, I don't know about the specific election rules where *you* are, but here, my votes count even when I skip a section. I have the choice to vote for or skip voting for an unopposed candidate. Unopposed candidates have to get a percentage of the vote to be elected, so it's really a yes or no proposition that is presented somewhat deceptively. So yes, I research the unopposed, at least a little, to know if I want to fill in that oval or leave it blank.

Rule Three:
Don't be afraid to leave blanks. As I said earlier, my votes still count, even if there are blanks on my ballot, so I remind myself that it's okay to leave a blank if I still don't know, still don't care, or just don't like anyone running. There are also always options on my ballot where there will be more than one opening on a board of some sort, and I'll be asked to vote for up to three or up to four people. Those are the magic words: up to. I'm not required to counterweight my vote for the one candidate whom I would like to see fill a position by also building up votes for her opponents just because they're the lesser evils coexisting on a ballot. So yes, one is up to three. Two is up to three. Three is up to three. All of these options, including zero, is perfectly acceptable.

Ultimately, I have to remember,

the ballot is not my boss.

Rule Four:

Bring the kids. What? Yes, I said bring the kids. Don't electioneer and tell them for whom you are voting and why, but by all means, bring them. If you know who you're voting for ahead of time because you researched the issues and the candidates, and you're not going to be surprised because you made sure you knew what the ballot was going to look like, their fidgeting isn't going to stop you from filling it out correctly and they're going to learn that voting is part of what adults do. It is part of what it means to be a member of a community. 

Far too few young people vote. Your children can learn to value it as much as you do if you show them that you value it and help them understand the process. I don't know about you, but I'm raising citizens.

That's it, in a nutshell. Look it up, research anything I didn't expect to find on the ballot, remember that I don't have to vote for everything, and make sure my kids get involved with the political process too. Is there anything I missed?

How to Pick the Candidate that's Right for your Home

There are a lot of local issues on our ballot for next Tuesday, and it's my patriotic duty to get informed and then make my opinion part of the collective decision making process. Who will be the new village president? Who will sit on the county board? Do we want our municipal electric co-op to buy up yet another supply source? Is hydroelectric really doing it for us? Big questions. However, the one in which I'm most interested is, in fact, the local community college board.

No, I don't attend said community college. I graduated from other institutions many years ago. But I have kids, and the options which will be available for them in a few years matter. However, I don't think most of the current board and I see eye to eye on what's important.

We live in an economically depressed area, and enrollment at the local community college is down substantially. They approximated that the 2012-2013 student body is 1k lighter than the preceding academic year. One of the problems cited is that because the local economy is stagnant, parents can't afford to send their teenagers to school, teens can't get jobs to help subsidize their education, and financial aid is no longer as easy to come by as it once was. Even the inexpensive two-year institution of my youth has now become as cost prohibitive as the overpriced private university three miles west of it.

Recently, arguably to combat this deficiency, the current board voted to take the funds earmarked for building an Arts center on campus for the homeless arts department, and instead, spend it on other building improvements and the Science/Technology department's space needs. The thinking that led to this decision is that business, technology, science, and vocational programs are going to supply their students with the experience and skills necessary to get a job, and that needs to be their focus.

Okay, I can see that a lot of people enroll in a community college in order to be job ready in two years. Considering the economic climate here, that makes a certain amount of sense. However, I think it was a decision poorly made.

The Arts are an integral part of how we experience life, and the quality of that experience. One of the reasons that high school gym classes offer quarters of bowling and horseback riding is so that students can have exposure to activities which they can enjoy long into their adult years. In the same way, Arts education opens up the door for life-long hobbies that can improve the quality of life, even for the unemployed. Of course, Arts education is the first thing on the proverbial chopping block when public school districts have to make budgetary cuts, and as a result, many turn to alternative programs, such as the community college, even before college age, in order to maintain a well rounded education for their children. Others simply look forward to college as a time to broaden horizons and get involved in the Arts that move them, but now our community college has made it clear that the Arts are not a priority.

Lovely.

This leaves me scrambling to read the platforms of the ten, yes- ten candidates who are running for the three available positions on the Board of Trustees. Interestingly, many of these candidates have not made much of an attempt to let us know anything other than their name, so I have developed a list of considerations.

1. Does the candidate have a website or other internet presence. If yes, read it, if no, cross them off the list. Let's face it, if they don't have a web presence, they haven't done their homework and don't belong on the Board of any educational body.

2. Does the candidate supply any pertinent information on said website. If yes, read it. If no, cross them off the list.

3. Does the candidate say anything with which I agree. If yes, continue to consider their platform. If no, cross them off the list.

4. Does the candidate mention the Arts. If yes, continue to read.  If no, cross them off the list. If they don't mention it, they certainly aren't prioritizing it.

Sadly, I have, to date, only found one candidate who mentions the Arts, so I have not had the chance to employ steps 5 or 6.

5. Does the candidate outline a plan to sustain and improve the Arts program? If yes, move to the shortlist. If no, keep on the list in case no one else does.

6. Does the candidate use language conventions. Yes, at the end of the day, my decision would be swayed by grammar. That may seem silly because my grammar isn't perfect, but I feel that when one runs for political office, they need to take care to present his or herself as professionally as possible, and if a candidate can't be bothered to edit, can I expect them to treat with great care the institution with which he or she'd like to be charged with the keeping thereof? No. Consequently, grammar was going to be my tie breaker.

Now, you might not be worried about the Arts at your local community college, but the model still holds. Take the topic most important to you and put it in the place of the Arts. Maybe it's the local environment, energy resources, roads, or park district programs that matter most to you. Get informed, and get out the vote.

Ignorance is an Island

Think back, way back. All the way back to when you were in school. Do you remember working on your homework in elementary school, middle school, high school? Do you remember asking if you could have a friend come over to study with you? Did your parent, guardian, or even your friend ever ask you "are you allowed to work together?" Maybe you've recently asked the question yourself. I know I did. This weekend my teenager wanted a friend to come over so they could collaborate on an art project and also work on their social studies homework. Their social studies homework, if I understand it correctly, is a workbook assignment about the Constitution (capital letters, baby- it's an important document).

There I was, being that mom. I said it.

"Are you allowed to work together?"

What? This isn't a test, and workbook pages should never be an assessment. Don't get me started on how they're used for grading, because that in and of itself is ridiculous, but workbook pages, if anything, are a tool for learning. In college, I often heard professors tell us that if we wanted to truly learn something, we needed to take what we knew and explain it to someone else.  It's a great exercise, really. It makes you take what you know, talk about it, analyze it, re-synthesize it, and think about it in different ways. When you've been able to teach it to someone else, you've had to get to know something better than copying a word you found in the text onto a fill-in-the-blank line.  

What does this have to do with working together? Kids who study together, who are actually focused on the work have the opportunity to ask their peers questions when they don't understand something, rather than just guessing what word goes on the line and moving on, willfully accepting that their answer won't be right, and that this piece of knowledge will either become clear to them in the future, possibly through osmosis or by someone reprogramming their up-link to the Matrix while they sleep, or that this piece of information will simply go unlearned and accepting that not knowing is okay. Sure, a few will go back into the source material and keep re-reading for clarification until they understand, but that's not every student, so why would we want to close off any possible means of better understanding?

Of course, the answer is one that was deeply ingrained into us through our own experiences with group education. We ask ourselves, "What if they cheat?"

Cheat? Yes. What if they cheat. What if one student finds the answers and the other student doesn't even read the questions but copies the answers into the blanks provided? I'm sure a lot of you remember a time you were accused of cheating in school. Maybe you even got a zero or an F on an assignment or test you worked hard on because of it. Maybe someone did cheat off of you and you were both punished. Isn't that the prevailing logic? "If two of you appear to have been cheating, you will both receive a zero."  It's the threat that has students hunkered over their in-class work, placing a second book on the desk and sometimes using their non-dominant hand as a shield in order to prevent prying eyes.

Seriously?

Are we that afraid that we're going to mis-assess what children have learned? Do educators truly not trust students, or their ability to teach them and model appropriate assessment behaviors? Instead of instilling academic ethics, we're teaching kids to fear the perception of cheating, when in fact, sometimes, working togetgher when learning things is a valuable tool.

It isn't as though educators don't know this. They promote this philosophy, every few weeks asking the students to form reluctant groups in order to work on projects. Then they bemoan their student's reluctance to collaborate, and their lack of skill when it comes to group endeavors. "Why don't they learn better in groups?" educators ask. "Why do they hit a wall when asked to collaborate?" Of course, we've trained them not to collaborate. We've instilled the notion that they should be an island of academic achievement, never turning to their peers unless specifically assigned to do so. We punish them for coming up with the same answers, if they aren't the answers we expect to see, even if it was a half hour debate on why that might be the best answer to a question. We assume that one student thought it up, incorrectly, and the other didn't bother to find out what the real answer was, and thus teach them not to work together.

One of the philosophies people toss about so often that it seems to lose meaning, "united we stand, divided we fall," speaks to this. Throughout history, the truly great things have been collaborations. (Someone out there is thinking Tesla was sort of a lone wolf, and yes he was, which is why he died penniless and alone: great example there.) So let's stop asking if they're allowed to work together. 

Invite your child's classmates over to study. Encourage out-of-school discussion on what they're studying, on the homework questions, on ways these topics and issues touch their lives. It sounds dorky. It sounds like your kid will hate you. It sounds like your kid's friends will think you're that mom or that dad. Be that mom. Be that dad. Be that afterschool care giver. You don't have to hound them, but be willing to facilitate if they show interest. Yes, they can work together. Yes, they can study together. It's called learning, and no matter how many people get involved, it's a good thing. A healthy thing. 

Then, when a teacher calls to say "your son and his friend both had the same bizarre answer to their homework, I think they're cheating," be prepared to say, "no, they were learning together. I overheard the discussion which led to that answer, and while they arrived at the same errant conclusion, they were both thinking about it, and that's how learning happens."
 
Teachers aren't evil. They aren't the enemy. They're not perfect. They're people, and they are people who were raised with the same anti-collaborative notions that keep getting instilled into the next generation. We're not going to start a colalborative revolution here on my blog. I wish, right? But we all have opportunities, every day to help our children learn to work together better by simply allowing it when they ask.

So yes, yes teenager, your friend can come over to study the Constitution, and if you both have the same wrong answer, at least you talked about it.

Grades

They say that parental involvement is the key to a good education, and while I do not take that so far as to homeschool, since Mongoosine and I are not particularly compatible in a learning environment for that many hours, I do try to keep involved and up to speed on what is going on at school.  She attends the local public school.

She's all sugar and spice. 

I can't imagine why a girl, who never exhibits any attitude wouldn't be the

 *perfect candidate*

 for homeschooling with a high-stress mother...

My daughter's school makes them all available online. When a grade is entered into the gradebook, it's immediately accessible from home.
I check them every day.
How often do you check your children's grades?  

Dress Code Distress

My daughter's school has a rule that grates on my nerves.
The students aren't allowed to dye their hair any unnatural colors.

NO

Her school even prohibited a girl from attending her after-the-end-of-the-school-year graduation event because she had blue hair. Interestingly, this rule wasn't enforced equally at that event, allowing another girl with pink streaks to participate. Then again, that other girl was popular, and the blue haired girl... not so much.
So why does it bother me?
It bothers me because I don't feel it is the place of any school board or administrative staff to tell me or my kid what color her hair can be. It bothers me because it smacks of rule making for the point of controlling someone, rather than rule making in order to ensure the health, safety, or education of the students.
I have similar problems with other points in the dress code, but this one specifically makes my brain hurt.

At the beginning of the school year, the assistant principal explained in an orientation assembly that it would be a distraction, then went on to joke that we wouldn't want to see him with green hair, and so it's only fair. I had to bite my tongue, because frankly, green might be an improvement.

Personal attacks aside, honestly, I don't understand how the color of any child's hair is going to detract from the learning environment any more than an interesting bow or complicated braiding style or up-do might.  The children are allowed to wear shirts of whatever color, even ones with pictures and writing.  One would think these things are more distracting.

Further, if the color of a student's *anything* is going to detract from the learning environment, perhaps one needs to address the real problem. If what is going on in the classroom is less engaging than the hair color little Melanie or Stanley have been rocking for a week, then the kids wouldn't be learning, even if Melanie kept her ginger and Stanley kept his brown.

Rules for the sake of squashing creativity have no place in schools, and I'm embarrassed that our local schools enjoy creating rules for the sake of exercising power.

What do you think, would purple hair make it impossible for learning to take place?

Limerick

Because today is a HUGE day around here- my tween and I are both singing in Carmina Burana with the local symphony with a snazzy international conductor, after a full day of rehearsals, plus she has a morning set of rehearsals and a mid-day performance for a local music festival (can you say someone needs ice cream before bed?) I want to quickly share with you a limerick we collaborated on.
It was for a school project she was doing, and I think by now her teacher will have finished googleing to see if the kids plagiarized their limericks off the interwebz, so it should be safe to post it.

**Background info- we're Doctor Who fans around here, big time Doctor Who fans, and I'm so proud of her wit, her singing talent, and her enthusiasm, I feel the need to share this.**

Gallifrey - "The Sound of the Drums" - Doctor Who, BBC

A long time ago, far away,
Was a planet they called Gallifrey.
Lost in the Time War,
You can go there no more,
Lousy for tourism, eh?

:-)

She's awesome, isn't she?

Poetry

Last night was Mongoosine's school poetry slam.
It was held in the school library.  The kids and the teachers dressed like Beatniks. We snapped rather than clapped and I felt moved to use words like "deep." Had they bothered to include the time on the invitation, there probably would have been more in attendance, but as it was, it was fine with me. We had to balance slam with choir anyway.  So, in honor of the slam, I will leave you with some poetry to ponder, if you can dig it.

Mama Dada

mama clock I when sun bright
hold early window blankie change
table shirt coffee skirt glasses fluffy on
and nurse we she when tug smile eye
curl laugh pillow kiss chirp sky

Back to School Supplies. A Rant.

If you have children in school, you've likely spent much of the last month or so listening to "when are we going to go school supply shopping?" You might know just how grating that question can get.  Well, we still haven't, even though it's less than three weeks until school starts and the question is posed multiple times per day.
So here's my hang up.
My child's school district is STUPID.
Well, I take that back. The people who compile the list of school supplies are collectively stupid.  I'll rant about the part where the kids have to supply basic supplies for the teachers which should be the school's responsibility later. This is about the overly specific list.

First of all, they separate out the supplies needed for basic classes, Life Studies, Spanish, and Art.  So she needs a total of 3 packages of #2 pencils, but they're listed in different places, because gods forbid someone look at their supplies list and actually see the pertinent number associated with the supply.  No, the parents have to get halfway through the supplies section only to find they have to turn around and get another package of pencils, or another spiral, because the list compiler couldn't be bothered to actually compile a list.

That's not the most irritating part.  It's the branding.
The list specifies which brand of many items to buy. She needs Post-It notes, not sticky notes.  She needs Scotch tape, not just tape.  She is supposed to have Kleenex (despite Kimberly Clarke's abysmal environmental record, why can't it say facial tissue, preferably with recycled content?)  She's suposed to bring Expo Dry-Erase markers. you know, because they couldn't have saed some ink and left off the brand.

I'll give them a pass on the TI-30XIIS Calculator, because when teaching a classroom to use a calculator there's something to be said for everyone having access to the same functions, but just so we're on the same page, I'm going out of my way this year to not buy the brands specified on the list. I absolutely will not do it.   It's bad enough that her scissors must measure 5", whereas last year they were to measure 5 1/4", bad enough that her sprials must be 70ct, wide ruled, non-perforated.  I will not be mindlessly buying branded materials for no reason other than the fact that some employees of the school district are stupid enough to advertise without compensation.

Let's be real.  If I tell someone I love a brand, I tell them why.  Sometimes I only know about it because I'm reviewing it. Sometimes I write reviews of things that I love because they've been truly helpful for me or because I am excited bout them, but those are recommendations.  I might tell you that I LOVE writing with certain pens but can't stand the crappy Bic pens which never seem to work more than a week out of the box. Hey, I usually buy Uniball when I have a choice.  I personally like to let people know what has worked for me and highlight products made by people whom I want to see succeed because I like who they are, what they make, and what they stand for.  However, when I recommend a product, I'm not doing so with the weight of the school district behind me and the threat of your children having their homework considered late until you procure the items I recommend. This is just laziness and completely uncompensated advertising and it irritates me to no end.

So dear school- unless the company is sponsoring your school year, stop telling me to buy their brand.   Further, stop begging me for money when you're dumb enough to do free advertising for major corporations who already have vast name recognition in the market when you could be hitting them up for sponsorship instead.  "If everyone donates just $30 per student" actually makes a difference in my grocery budget, so learn how to do advertising, or stop it all together.
And as for the overly restrictive (and sometimes nearly impossible to find) supplies?  She's going to have something similar, but if the wide ruled spirals cost more than the college ruled? Guess who's going to be rocking college ruled?  My kid.  If you want to cry about it you can wipe your tears in some ethically manufactured facial tissue, because my daughter won't be bringing you any Kleenex.

Oh, and supply your teaching staff with reasonable supplies.  There's no reason the kids should have to supply the dry erase markers and red pens for the whole school.

Facts versus Feelings

I have been reading articles lately, such as I Formula Fed, So What? Breastfeeding Sucks, and The Case Against Breastfeeding, since Annie over at PhD in Parenting drew attention to them with her thought provoking response to the most recent, (I Formula Fed, So What?) Society is Creepy (Not Breastfeeding).

I'm a touch conflicted on this one.
On the one hand, I FORMULA FED MY DAUGHTER.
I did. It hurt. I was engorged. I was bleeding. I was tired.  I didn't have a strong support network.  I soldiered through two weeks of a breastfeeding nightmare and then she became another bottle-baby.
Some misguided lactivists *did* say things specifically designed to shame me after the fact, as opposed to offering early help when it might have been useful.  No, instead they made a point of sneering and making hurtful comments every time I went to feed my child, on demand, just like the nursing mother across the room.  Somehow my child's needs being met was some sort of crime because I wasn't doing it the way they thought was best.
You know what? It would have been better, but it wasn't something I was up to.  Does that make me selfish? I don't think so. I don't think so because I was able to hold her and smile at her and sing to her and enjoy her after my milk dried up and every shift of the wind was no longer excruciating.  It was good for our relationship when I no longer cringed when I saw her looking hungry because I knew that it would be all I could do not to scream in pain as we struggled to get a good latch with my engorged breasts.  In that circumstance I made the best choice I could with the resources I had at hand.  I have some anger about the issue and feel that the personal sentiments expressed in those articles are legitimate and that each woman has the right to tell their story and be honest about how they feel, even if they feel formula was "good enough."

On the other hand...
Was formula good enough or just as good? No. It absolutely wasn't, and it absolutely isn't.
No matter how we feel about it, we mustn't confuse facts with feelings.
Formula is NOT as good as breast milk.  And since when do we want "good enough" for our children?

Fast forward ten years to when I was pregnant with my son.  If I remember correctly, I broke the news to my spouse by saying "I'm pregnant, and I'm not breastfeeding."   There might have been a pause. Nonetheless, the reaction in my gut was immediate. The pain associated with it had been worse than the labor and more lingering, and I had no interest in a repeat, and the lactivists of an earlier decade had emotionally scarred me pretty deeply.  I was even becoming something of a formulactivist.
But then I started reading, and the more I read, the more I researched, the more I realized all of the science proves conclusively what I already knew but didn't want to admit.  Breast milk is the perfect food for infant nutrition and formula is simply chemists' failed attempt/s to imitate it.  There is NO comparison.  Formula needs to exist as an intervention but it needs to be just that, an intervention for cases in which breastfeeding, expressed milk, and donor milk are not options.
No, mothers shouldn't be made to feel guilty for having chosen to formula feed, however, I do strongly feel that up until the decision has been made, the baby born and the milk dried up, if we don't attempt to educate mothers as to the benefits of breastfeeding and dispel myths which make breastfeeding look like too hard of a choice, then we are doing a disservice to those women and their offspring. Women need honesty, they need support, and they need to see it.
Women need to know that breastfeeding doesn't mean you can never taste a drop of alcohol until the baby's weaned. They need to know that alcohol works its way out of milk at the same rate it works its way out of one's blood and that so long as they don't nurse the baby when they're drunk, there is no need to wean to occasionally indulge.  (Of course, impaired parenting presents a whole host of it's own problems, so I'll follow the lead of other women whose judgement I trust and suggest getting a sitter if you're planning on getting drunk.)
Women need to know that they can leave the house with a nursling, because breastfeeding is a protected right in most states.  They need to know that it is legal to nurse their babies.  (How can we live in a world where there would even be a question about that?)  Women need to be empowered in knowing that it is okay to nurse a baby wherever that baby is hungry (other than a moving car, there are child seat laws, you know.)  This means a woman can nurse her baby at the library, the doctor's office, the post office, the DMV, the grocery store, the playground, the museum, the mill, the forest preserve, and the bakery.  It's perfectly fine and good to nurse in public.

Women need to know that their boobs won't sag because they nursed their babies.  They need to know that the changes which lead to sagging breasts are a function of pregnancy and not of breastfeeding, and that some women are more disposed to sagging than others.  Breastfeeding will not make your boobs sag.
Women need honesty. They need to know that yes it can be painful to learn to breastfeed.  Not every baby is born with a good latch in mind.  However, the problems of the early weeks can be corrected with a good support system and perseverance.
Women need to be aware that some women find the whole ordeal of breastfeeding unpleasant. Not just the pain but the weird mixed messages that can be sent to your brain when a part of your body which may be one heavily associated with sexuality starts being used for another purpose.  Some women never experience any conflict between the sexualized breast and the functional breast, but some do, and women need to know that if they do have that uncomfortable sensation and have to grit their teeth at the mixed messages going on in their brain, that it doesn't mean there's something wrong with them, but rather that their brain is wired to receive one type of message from that area.  This doesn't mean one can't breastfeed, it simply means that there might be additional complications.*
Women need honesty.
Women need to see it.
I really think there is nothing more beneficial to supporting the healthy development of more and more nursing dyads than getting out with your baby and nursing that baby on demand, in public, without running to the bathroom, dressing room, car, or hiding under a blanket, unless your nursing cover makes you more comfortable.  The more people witness the seemingly rare occurrence of a mother nursing her baby, the more and more women will begin to accept the biological norm as the social norm.

So I'm begging you, when you read an article claiming formula is just as good as breast milk, make sure you do a fact check as well as a gut check, then take a moment to be the good kind of lactivist who offers information and support, and not the kind who inspires the types of articles to which the rest of the lactivist community must respond.



*I am including this because I have read more than one woman say that no one talks about this, that the lactivist community likes to sweep it under the rug because the people who find breastfeeding creepy might use it as an argument that breastfeeding is creepy.  But breastfeeding is feeding a baby. That's not creepy.  What's creepy is shaming a woman for feeding her baby while having to deal with the difficulty of not only a biological response different than the one she'd like, but also the narrow minded views of people who ultimately care more about their sense of having controlled others than the health and wellbeing of women and children.

The Sun Never Ceases

Clocks don't stop without a reason, and even when they do, time continues to pass. The closest you can come to stopping time is engaging in something painful, or painfully boring, and still, time just keeps slipping away.
It feels like school just let out for summer vacation a few days ago, weeks at the most, but this morning it was completely and totally over.
This morning I embarassed my daughter when I followed her out to the bus stop with bedhead, no bra, and in my pajamas, to take a picture of her boarding the bus to school for the first time.
I still remember the anxious kindergarten days of trying to learn to let go, and I realize I haven't quite learned it yet. Fifth grade is here and I'm still not so sure how I feel about this whole school thing, this whole growing up thing. Change.
But the sun doesn't rest. Time keeps moving, or we keep moving through it.
No one ever told me that being a time traveller would be so hard, especially when I only know how to pass through it in one direction.
So tonight I'll hug my Mongoosine extra tight, because I miss her already, even if yesterday I thought I couldn't wait for this.

World Breastfeeding Week: In a Perfect World

My "twitter pal," as Mongoosine calls them, made a statement that I've read many, many times now. @RadicaLactivist called for "1 policy change. formula available only through prescription, not for sale in any retail outlet anywhere... and then provide free lactation consultants to every single mom and a re-training course to every doctor." She isn't alone in the sentiment that formula should be by perscription only, but her point that it would "rephrase formula as a medical procedure rather than a food choice," was one I' hadn't really considered.

What is the purpose of formula, anyway?

If even the packaging it comes in grudginly admits that breastfeeding is the healthiest and best way for an infant to recieve it's nutrition, then why are they marketing it? The World Health Organization and UNICEF reccommend breastfeeding within the first hour of life, and doing so exclusively, no bottles of formula or water, no pacifiers, nothing that might hinder the baby's adaption to breastfeeding. The WHO also promotes breastfeeding children until they are at least 2 years of age ,and for as long as it is mutually beneficial and desirable thereafter. So again, why on earth is formula being marketed to mothers?

Did you know that there are actually laws against this sort of profit-minded guerilla warfar against beastfeeding in some countries? Why? Because of the World Health Organization's directives.

So if formula is clearly second rate, then why is it allowed to be marketed to new mothers? Why is it touted as just another food option so that the differences between breastfeeding and formula feeding get blurred like the difference between organic and non-organic produce?

Is it really that big a deal?

Yes.

The fact is, infant mortality rates are invariably higher in formula fed populations. You want a source? Fine. I'll go hunt one up, but I've read it often enough that I shouldn't have to go find this. Here a reputable SOURCE, and ANOTHER and ANOTHER- and mind you, since there's no money in making formula out to be the bad guy, I'm going to go with most sources on this front being more reliable than say a cloth diapers study done by Huggies. Especially that last one which sites the CDC.

So whether or not a child is breastfed does make a difference. It is more than a feeding choice. Formula should be used as an intervention when breastfeeding isn't possible, and it should only be used with medical supervision and with a good lactation consultant helping the mother to solve the problem that is making the formula necessary in the first place.

Yes, feed your children.

Yes, supplement if your milk hasn't come in.

Yes, supplement if you have another reason to NEED to.

I certainly don't propose making single fathers lactate to meet the nutritional needs of their infants, but I do think that we live in a culture where people are told that formula is just as good if not better, only giving lipservice to breastfeeding. We are taught to expect a baby to be formula fed and that breastfeeding is the extra-credit, gold star, extra effort some martyred woman is putting in because her baby runs her life.

That isn't the case.

It's not just a feeding choice, it is a decision which affects a child's health, as well as their statistical probability of survival.

So should formula be by perscription only?

I'm not going to call that a bad idea.

I'm also going to not call promoting the normalization of breastfeeding a bad idea, because lets face it, the fact that you don't see a lot of breastfeeding in the media or in public reduces the liklihood of a new mother thinking, on her own, "of course I'm going to breastfeed my baby. It's the way it's done."

It'd also be "not a bad idea" if maternity leave was better legislated in this country (and others) to allow for the needs of an infant to be exclusively breastfed for the first six months to better be met. Just sayin'.

So yeah, perscription formula, why not?

It'd certainly give insurance companies a vested interest in good lactation consultants.

"Because" Healthcare

Do you remember being young and full of questions? Remember pestering your parents with them until they turned to the answer "Because I said so," and then you'd be like "by why?"
I kinda feel that way about our children's healthcare.
We're living in a day and age of "because I said so" treatments, procedures, and medications. When was the last time your doctor explained just what the exact reason your blood pressure was high and just how that pricey perscription (whose name also happens to be on the pen she signed said perscription with) works?
No. Your blood pressure is high, so take this. Why? Because.
And when did they ever sit you down to explain just why that medication your on says to avoid prolonged sun exposure? They just expect you to accept that you have to, because. No, they can't inform you as to whether it causes rashes, increased intensity of sunburn, or as in some cases, magnifies the effects of the medication much like alcohol. By treating health decisions on a "because" basis, patients are robbed of their own ability to make rational decisions for themselves. Its degrading, because it assumes we are stupid.
Its the same way with vaccinations.
When was the last time your conversation with your child's pediatrician was more than "looks like Millicent's due for her next round of shots." And if you ask why, you get the medical version of "because."
Show me the studies which prove its safe, don't just brush me off with "school system requirements." That, my friends, is a load of bull.
Show me, through unbiased studies with clear and unquestionable results, that I need to subject my child to injections of toxins. Don"t brush me off like an over-inquisitive five year old who wants to know why you're shining that light in his ears.
If everything the medical world is pushing on us is so very beneficial, then why don't they go out of their way to educate us? Why do they not supply us with information, accessible, easy to comprehend information, until we're begging them to say "because?" Because they don't think we'll like the answers.
As always, if I'm wrong, then please, please, please prove me wrong.
Educate people so they can make informed decisions, not just about vaccines, but about medicines, tests, procedures, and even multi vitamins. A school requirement is not a reason to make a health decision. Health is a reason to make a health decision.