On Thursday, September 20th, 2012 there will be hundreds of screenings worldwide of the new documentary Freedom For Birth. Twyla Kowalenko, a local mother and passionate birth advocate and I will be screening the film at the Centre for Social Innovation, Annex at 7pm (more details on location below) as part of the global premiere. Continue reading
I received another lovely testimonial today that I wanted to share. This one is special in an unusual way, because the client is herself a doula-in-training. I am so proud of everything she’s accomplished and honoured to have been a part of her birth experience.
We couldn’t have done it without Heather! The birth of my second child didn’t go as planned. Does it ever? It didn’t go the way I had thought it would for nine months, yet I was still so happy with it. I attribute much of this happiness to Heather’s support. I went into pregnancy and labour well informed about my choices. I had read all the books, taken the classes and had personal experience. Despite all of this Heather was still able to teach me so much. She is a wealth of information, valuable resources, and an incredibly calming presence. During my labour, at the end of every painful contraction I smiled. I was made to feel secure amongst what can seem like a bit of madness. I came out of a long labour feeling strong and proud of what I had accomplished. Heather truly cares about supporting women and families. She so clearly has a passion for what she does.
This is a great little post on the beauty and benefits of nursing toddlers. Following up on the controversial Time magazine cover, this article provides an excellent overview of why some moms choose to let their babies self-wean, and why we shouldn’t judge them for it. Breastfeeding duration is a personal choice and it’s nobody’s business but your own one way or the other. I hate to think that we may be letting fabricated or sensationalized notions of “mommy wars” get in the way of advocating for real support for real moms who are making individual choices based on what’s best for them, their babies and existing evidence. Ensuring that all women have access to the resources they need in order to make informed decisions and then making sure that they are supported in those decisions (whatever they may be) by their healthcare practitioners, their partners, their families, their employers and their peers is fundamental. You don’t have to approve of everyone else’s choices, it’s ok to admit it when something makes you uncomfortable. Everyone feels that way about something, sooner or later. Just because something makes you feel uncomfortable though, that doesn’t make it wrong, it just makes it wrong for you.
While writing this, I got a little stuck on how I wanted to wrap up. I popped over to another tab to read an interview with Jamie Lynn Grumet, the woman on theTime cover in question, and her final statement expresses exactly what I wanted to say, so I’m going to let her do it for me:
“There seems to be a war going on between conventional parenting and attachment parenting, and that’s what I want to avoid. I want everyone to be encouraging. We’re not on opposing teams. We all need to be encouraging to each other, and I don’t think we’re doing a very good job at that.”
Related: The Real Breastfeeding Scandal
There was a recent article in the Globe and Mail in which Elisabeth Badinter, author of The Conflict was interviewed. Badinter argues that women are in a no-win situation when it comes to motherhood and feminist values. She believes that women in Western society today are pressured by the tyranny (she even uses the term “ayatollah” to describe lactivists) of an ‘all-natural agenda’ to embody a form of motherhood that resembles an old-fashioned ideal, rather than an image that is informed by the feminist discourse of the past few decades.
I don’t want to rehash each of Badinter’s arguments here, so I’d suggest you head on over and read the interview before you continue reading… I can wait 🙂
OK, now that you’ve read Badinter’s take, here’s mine. Continue reading
Empowered Birth 