pumping and dumping, per security
Being who we are, the recent ban on carry-on liquids immediately turned our minds to milk. An uncharacteristically un-annoying Modern Love column in today's Times confirms our suspicions: mothers are no longer able to travel with breast millk unless they are also traveling with babies (which would, as the column's writer pointed out, largely negate the need for traveling with bottles of breast milk). Pumping and transporting milk is a way of life for many working mothers, making it possible for them to keep nursing while fulfilling the travel responsibilities of their jobs. The writer wonders, as do we, whether this rule is an oversight or a calculated decision based on risk assessment. In any case, it looks like it just got a little bit harder for working mothers to juggle things. Thanks a lot, terrorists.
Posted by rebecca at 8:40 PM | Comments (0)
project supermom
We're having an argument over here about whether or not Laura Bennett on Project Runway is an inspiration to mothers. I think the fact that she made it through the first trimester while under constant reality TV surveillance and pressure from Tim Gunn to make the plunging neckline work is pretty bad-ass. That and the fact that she's 42, has two degrees, was a single mom and now has five boys at home. Granted it's a HUGE home. And it looks like she has a huge amount of help. But, still: five kids! And she's like, yeah, we like the craziness. I think it's nice to see someone with a healthy water-off-a-duck's-back attitude towards all this stuff.
Rebecca, on the other hand, thinks she's got a mean streak. And that her Supermom complex is not all that helpful to more regular moms in more regular apartments with more regular eggs. Not that her accomplishments (reproductive and otherwise) are not impressive, but what's the point of being accomplished and well put together if you're not well-liked? Granted, this may all be in the edit. The show needs a bitch, after all.
Posted by ceridwen at 2:07 PM | Comments (0)
The New York Boob, part 2
A Daily News reporter takes her baby and boobs on the town to test local attitudes toward public breastfeeding. From Le Cirque to the bus to the Met to the Apple Store, no one bats an eye. The only flak comes when she tries to feed her baby at the damn baby store...Babies R Us, that is. A spokeswoman says the saleswoman who asked her to stop was out of line, and they're considering some employee education programs. I'd say. They may also want to consider a little reparative PR, what with the double (D) infraction.
Posted by rebecca at 9:44 AM | Comments (0)
Got IQ?
One of the most distressing of the potential benefits of breastfeeding—that it increases IQ in the breastfed child—has been refuted in this new study.Though breast milk has been proven beneficial for child and mother’s heath, it’s nice to know that the tricky issue of intelligence can be left out of the equation. The whole notion of making your child “smarter” with every let-down or, worse, withholding IQ points by not breastfeeding (for whatever reason) can get new parents off to an unnecessarily competitive and insecure start.
Of course mom is still to blame if the kid turns out to be a dullard: this study also suggests that a child's IQ is more determined by maternal IQ than anything else. I guess that means all the breastfeeding in the world will not save my son from a C- in geometry.
Posted by ceridwen at 1:06 PM | Comments (0)
