The Mom Crowd

There is a great discussion over on PhDinParenting.com about breastfeeding and blogging about it. After reading PHDinParenting’s post and the comments I believe that there is a difference between supporting breastfeeding mothers and promoting breastfeeding.

Supporting breastfeeding mothers is encouraging moms in the decision they have already made. While promoting breastfeeding is trying to encourage new moms to breastfeed even if they don’t want to. My hope is that I can encourage those moms that want to nurse or are nursing, because breastfeeding moms need encouragement.

There is not a lot of support for new moms that want to nurse. I needed encouragement.

• Older generations didn’t breastfeed and my mom doesn’t encourage me.

• My former Pediatrician wasn’t active in supporting me.

• When I left the hospital with my first child I was given a diaper bag sponsored by a formula company loaded with formula in it.

• While outprocessing the nurse gave me a long speech how I was going to have to give my baby formula at some point. Now that I think back I may have made every effort to nurse my first baby without ever giving her formula just to prove that nurse wrong. And I did. Now I wish I knew her name so I could tell her she was wrong. I guess my personal challenge didn’t matter in the end. Ha!

The truth is that breastfeeding is dang hard. It took me 3 weeks with my first baby before I didn’t have any pain nursing. With my second baby I thought the pain wouldn’t last as long since my boobs were used to it and I knew what I was doing, but I was wrong. I still had immense pain for the first 3 weeks. I called a lactation consultant and she told me that I was doing everything right and that it would get better. Thankfully she was right, but I needed to hear that encouragement from a Lactation Consultant at that time.

I am currently nursing my 10 week old and it isn’t easy to watch my diet. I stay away from caffeine and alcohol and I try to eat healthy. My second baby is a boy and nursing a lot and that makes me really hungry. Since I am eating extra food, I am confused on how I should diet and exercise to lose my baby weight. I would love to have my body be mine again, but the trade off is worth it. If I didn’t believe that breastfeeding was better for my baby then I don’t think I would do it.

Breastfeeding is not always encouraged by professionals or older generations. Learning to nurse is difficult, time consuming, and can be inconvenient. My aim is to encourage my friends and those who ask for my help and support in their breastfeeding efforts. It is never my intention to always promote breastfeeding to those that choose formula or to judge them. I may look at them funny while I am observing what they do, because formula is foreign to me and I am watching and learning in case I ever have to do it one day.

One way that I like to support my friends in breastfeeding is by giving them a Brestfriend Pillow as a baby shower gift along with a copy of an article that I wrote titled, “7 Things You Should Know Before You Start Breastfeeding.”

Other ways to support your breastfeeding friends:

• Be a listening ear when they are going through the first few tough weeks.
• Encourage them to see a Lactation Consultant if they need help.
• Don’t be weirded out when they nurse in front of you.
• Share about your own breastfeeding experience.
• Buy them a nursing cover for a baby shower gift.

Have you ever encouraged a friend that wanted to breastfeed? Has breastfeeding vs. formula feeding ever came in between a friendship?

In preparation for Mother’s Day, Entertainment Weekly posted another of their infamous lists this week: “17 Beloved TV Moms“.   I was glad to see Elyse Keaton (“Family Ties”), Lorelai Gilmore (“Gilmore Girls”), and Tami Taylor (“Friday Night Lights”) all made the list, as I highlighted them in my own “Favorite T.V. Moms” article last year.  As expected, the editors at EW cleverly chose several wacky moms, too, to spark conversation.  

Here’s their list:

• Carol Brady (“The Brady Bunch”)
• Lucille Bluth (“Arrested Development”)
• Nora Walker (“Brothers & Sisters”)
• Lorelai Gilmore
• Sophia Petrillo (“Golden Girls”)
• Lynette Scavo (“Desperate  Housewives”)
• Rosanne Conner (“Roseanne”)
• Clair Huxtable (“The Cosby Show”)
• Marge Simpson (“The Simpsons”)
• Tami Taylor
• Elyse Keaton
• Kirsten Cohen (“The OC”)
• Ruth Fisher (“Six Feet Under”)
• Peggy Bundy (“Married With Children”)
• Joyce Summers (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”)
• Marion Cunningham (“Happy Days”)
• “the missing mom” (various shows with no mother present)

A lot of beloved t.v. moms were excluded from the list.  I also feel there were some maternal figures merely included for their show’s “cult classic” factor.  I think their “missing mom” choice at the end was a cop out, as though the writers ran out of time.  Who should have filled that slot?  Should Mrs. Partridge be listed instead of Carol Brady?  What about classic moms Donna Reed and June Cleaver?  Weigh in with your opinion!

I’ll leave you with a Lorelai Gilmore classic:  “Okay, I’m just gonna let everyone deal with all this because I need to relax and get a cup of coffee and maybe hammer a nail into my head.”  Happy Mother’s Day!

Photo Courtesy of 4peterse

Imagine yourself living in post WWII England. There are buildings that have been condemned due to safety hazards with people living in them anyway.  There are bomb shelters and buildings that have been damaged by bombings.  You live in London’s East End and you work with people who you have been sheilded from your whole life.  You are a nurse, training to be a midwife and living in a convent with nuns and other nurses.  You aren’t too big into religious things so living in a convent with nuns is interesting. You are thankful that you don’t have  to go to the services, and yet thankful for living in community with these fascinating women.  You go out on a bicycle, your only means of transportation, on daily calls to the people in the East End–mostly in the tennements (otherwise known as slums)–even in the rain.  You do prenatal care and help to deliver babies.  Sometimes you help the other nurse nun who you don’t get along with too well do patient care visits to the older, sick people in the community. You discover that a family with 10 children can live in a two bedroom flat and that laundry can be hung anywhere and everywhere. 

Jennifer Worth, a midwife from the 1950′s did all of these things.  This book, The Midwife, is a biography of her life as a midwife. She went to live in the London Docklands to serve a wide community of people as a nurse-midwife. The area she served dealt with fighting, drunkenness, and poverty.  The overcrowded area seemed to welcome crime.  The people were also hard working, trying to make a living and the men trying to provide for their families.    

Her memoir is definitely an interesting read.  The chapters are story clips of women whose births she attended, difficult births, families with domestic violence, families with great love for one another, a prostitute, and nuns she worked with.  She paints an amazing picture of what life was like back then. I enjoyed learning about some of the history of London and especially enjoyed learning about the Cockney dialect.  Her stories are engaging and easy to read.  

You don’t have to be a midwife or even particularly interested in “birthy things” to enjoy this book.  This book helped me to appreciate some of the modern day conveniences we have as mothers.  Indoor toilets, running water, washing machines!  Can you imaging having 10 children with no running water in your house and no washing machine?  Can you imagine how much of your day would be spent simply washing clothes?  It helped me to appreciate the amount of space we have for our own living quarters and that there aren’t abandoned bomb shelters nearby with people doing all sorts of terrible things while my children are outside playing.

One of my favorite chapters is about a woman from Spain, who only speaks Spanish, who is married to a man who only speaks English.  Oh, and they have 25 children!!!  25 children!  Can you imagine?  Their story is heartwarming and leaves you with your jaw dropped.  

If you go on Amazon and read the other reviews of the book, I think you’ll want to find your own copy to read.

The very first ever National Mom’s Nite Out is this Thursday night! “National Mom’s Nite Out is the first nationally organized celebration of motherhood. Intended to bring together today’s moms, physically and virtually, National Mom’s Nite Out will unite over 150 social media groups, companies, local playgroups, mommy bloggers and mother social networks in giving moms a well deserved night off.”

There are many sponsored events around the U.S. You can click here to see if there is a party at a retail space in your part of the country. If not, then you could host one in your home or check out the websites hosting parties online. I am sure there will be many tweets about the joys of being kid-free for an evening. (Follow @MomsNiteOut on Twitter here.)

So leave the kids with Dad, a sitter, a family member, or a friend and take the night off!

The work of a Stay at Home Mom now equates to an annual income of $122,732. This is based on a survey of over 12,000 mothers on salary.com. They also based this number on how much it would cost to outsource 10 typical job functions of a mother: housekeeper, day care center teacher, cook, computer operator, facilities manager, van driver, psychologist, laundry machine operator, janitor and chief executive officer.

On mom.salary.com users can calculate for themselves how much a mom’s job is worth. And then, guess what? The user can print out a “pay check” and an Earning Statement and give it to their mom for Mother’s Day. For real? This is exactly what every mother wants for Mother’s Day -  a piece of paper that doesn’t really have any value.  (Of course, if this was a real check then I would be happy to receive it.)

The check is nice sentiment if the number on the check was 1 Zillion dollars or something else equally cute to show that your mom is worth more than current than current market trends.  There is no number that can be applied to the value of a mother’s love for her children.

* My check is only worth $115,757 because of where I live in Texas.

What do you think of Salary.com’s assessment of the value of a mother’s work?