Parenting: Current Trends and Hot Topics
Hilary Flower
St. Petersburg FL USA
Report on a session from the 2003 LLLI Conference
From: NEW BEGINNINGS, Vol. 20 No. 5, September-October 2003, pp. 176
Peggy O'Mara, publisher of
Mothering magazine, opened her talk by describing her formative experiences
as a La Leche League Leader. In LLL she learned what she dubs the "trust
model" of parenting, in which the mother is encouraged to trust
her own instincts, her own body to nurture her baby, and her baby to
let her know how best to mother. She learned from LLL that mothers have
a great deal to offer society, and that providing such empathic care
for a generation of children could change the world. Feeling herself
at the edge of a movement, she founded her magazine. She took from La
Leche League the mother-centered model of getting work done. Whereas
she had met once a month with her Group when she was a Leader, she met
with her staff once a week to produce her magazine, and children flowed
in and around the work spaces.
"We have something so
powerful to contribute as women and as mothers," she said. "We
are seeing a new mother movement."
O'Mara talked about how on
a societal level, even as institutional controls are tightening, there
is a growing distrust of institutions. She sees a fundamental shift
taking place from reliance on an "outer authority" to reliance
on an "inner authority." Mothers are increasingly impelled
to trust their own inner authority and their children's inner authority.
This shift requires a lot of us, since clear-cut answers provided by
institutions can seem so comforting. But in reality, we see again and
again that "general" recommendations are not always in the
best interest of individuals. To care for an individual child, a mother
must seek out more detailed information and make an informed choice.
O'Mara's examples drove home
her points. Recommendations to supplement all breastfed infants with
vitamin D undermine the public trust in the sufficiency of exclusive
breastfeeding while failing to target the message to the groups that
most need it, those who receive little sunlight or have dark skin. Similarly,
the actual research around HIV and breastfeeding makes it clear that
the lowest incidence of mother-to-child transmission of HIV is when
the mother is exclusively breastfeeding, and the highest incidence occurs
in the context of mixed feeding. Thus sweeping prohibitions against
breastfeeding when the mother is HIV positive may jeopardize the health
of millions of children worldwide.
Last updated Tuesday, October 24, 2006 by njb.
Page last edited Sun Oct 14 09:30:02 UTC 2007.
