nothing separates us from love, I will sit down and nurse my little one for the next 365 days
Work life balance! Where is pleasure and freedom?
OR
Why we cannot wait….To…
I am giddy with excitement; I celebrated an incredible milestone of having a 70th birthday. While I am not nursing a little one at the moment, I have recently given birth to what some might call a new idea where I want to pivot….
I want to commit to anchoring myself.. developing within me an attachment of love … seeing this new entity grow and to keep showing up 365 days in a row. Connection, attachment, balance, love, letting go… spreading seed in the dark unknown the black sun if you can envision such a thing where I bring all aspects of myself as an elder to bring more light and love and community in the world.
My children were my best teachers. I learned so very much about love, and myself and that they trusted me and relied on me. I was both the beneficiary and the supplier. I thought I was doing it alone, by sheer will, the giant teat; sustenance for us both at a time when it was so hard to look around and see what I was doing and see if it made any sense at all. How do we encourage ourselves to do or be something? What brings us Joy! How can we be proud of ourselves and have faith in our own mind, body and spirit… just because…
We do it by just showing up, being gentle and kind with ourselves and others and making space to listen and form our tribe. Can we float and form a space where we gather around we show how we might listen to the women who have nursed their little ones for 365 days or longer to meet up with someone who feels deeply that this is a milestone for them that they would like to just see what may happen if they could … do something that they want simply for the Joy of it just because…
Could we, not I form a foundation a sanctuary, a gathering place, a listening post where folks might speak and ask not only questions but, the space where they first and foremost would be listened to… no fear, no judgment, just love….
Would it be OK and important that we take time out to set a priority that was centered around a critical moment of setting the foundation, making the transition and we have that hope and light for our little ones and for each other… but mostly for our selves as women.
So tonight we take the steps, and have our first meet up where the doors are open and we look around for our tribe, who is there with us and for us…
I saw so many roadblocks to how I could organize and sponsor a call out a gathering.
I saw all the speed bumps and was having trouble with keeping the vision and hearing the voice of wisdom and love.…
I got an email birthday card… about reminding me about legacy and birth and what might be what’s calling me to celebrate
Feeling like my senses were failing me… when in fact my grace and vision was becoming crystal clear…
Keep it simple, open your heart, loving kindness and compassion and have the humility to ask for help.
Do you know one woman who has nursed her little one for 365 days or more?
How can you find her?
Have you ever thought, wondered tried to nurse a baby and felt like you missed the mark or would have benefited from the “tribe” the community that would support you with love no questions asked.
Would you like to make a pledge to stay with your little one and nurse for 365 days in a row? Just because you want to…
What we have in common is who we are and what we want to do. So many mothers came before us… They have such stories to tell.. Your passion , your hearts desire… We honor all mothers and their journey… We celebrate the birth of new ideas with women.
All are welcome here if you need us and want us. We have been looking for each other… so come by, my brother made pie for the celebration and it is sweet and good…
See you soon…
So let us begin!
“You have touched the lives of so many. May your birthday shine like your life.”
Creating a brand and becoming an influencer are all parts of what I’ve been told I need to do to gather and support the tribe of women who want to commit to nursing their little ones. Celebrity endorsements, book reviews, web sites, blogs, funnels, vlogs, TIK TOK, Tweeting, YOU TUBE production are all the skills and strategies I must use to reach my target audience. Whether it’s online, or meeting up locally… I must create a plan, make a budget and define my nice so tightly.
Someone somewhere is looking for me as if I was the one that had the answer. Where are the mentors, the ELDERS, the healers, the storytellers in the room. Who has crossed over to the otherside and lived to tell the tale. Went away, came back, Prodigal DAUGHTERS returning willingly, because this was indeed the next leg of the journey.
I and the message have the solution to the perceived problem. Fear of loss, missed opportunity would drive the engine, create fear and lack and loss, purveyor / provider of the solution. Something a “product” worth paying for. Subscribing to… Membership and belonging has its advantages. Loneliness, solitude and the fear of loss and abandonment, no one will like me if I don’t confirm, not good enough, not worthy, living up to the standard of perfection I may not meet. Can we honor the process, the progress we made. I have been here before in this place and this feels different. I can and I will try a different approach, something I want… my heart’s desire.
I will be better at listening to the STORIES. I will watch the rituals, old and new and ask fewer questions and just listen. I want to earn respect by being a good and patient and feeling no need to advise, cajole, convince, might I want to collaborate and co-conspire and co create with women that already know what it is they wish to be and do. Create more content for a demographic I had deluding myself into thinking that I knew all about, and what it is they needed and what might be best for them.
My first grand daughter is newly 21, certainly of childbearing age, told me a story of her dear friend certainly on the bestie category, the tales of age mates, and identity, and ritual. She went to a gender reveal party where the sex and gender was to be revealed to the community. Her mother, and I and most of the ancestors I knew about certainly had had a child by then. Women’s role in society and identity was defined by their childbearing status and of course directly or indirectly by default by their progeny or by their male non childbearing spouse.
Anthropologically, the rituals ascribed were designed and perfected and marketing to provide education, and to secure a clear identity and membership and support for the group they would be joining.
In the act of holy listening… she told the tale of her experience of being on TEAM GIRL and an alternate if not an opposing TEAM BOY. The instructions were clear based on the text invitation.
Team GIRL were to bring the gift baby wipes. Team BOY were to bring diapers!
Holy Listening...
the gender was announced with mini confetti cannons and surprise. with both parents revealing the gender of the child to the world. blue smoke for the boys, pink smoke for girls and the attachment and aspirations and welcome begins. Their new announcement to their shared parenting. How could I create content for mothers if I had no space or patience for listening.
Imagine how will you announce the anticipation of the birth of your little one. Who will be there? What help you would you require? How will I find the women that want to join the tribe to support to allow and encourage you to continue a close relationship honored your decision to continue the connection and your heart’s desire. I f we are willing to listen, you can tell us what you may need. Who will be happy for you if you are not able to share what allows you to stay with your little one. Discovery of the pregnancy and the gender of the baby and how you wish to parent your child are relatively new experiences in the lives of women. Creating new rituals and points of transitions are important components of the medical care you may receive as a part of your prenatal care, the delivery and how you care for yourself and your developing family. I had never heard of a gender reveal party. My grand daughter reminded me that what most people want is to be listened to and to share what’s important to them especially when they have a chance to choose parenting. Who will be there to listen and to celebrate you? They will watch you as you listen to your heart’s desire,
Where is your daddy? Did you leave him? Did he leave you? What happened?
Today is my dad’s birthday.
The first man in my life, the Leo Lion impressing and forming and shaping me providing the seed for my mother’s womb. I am indeed the Prodigal Daughter and I think of him often and how lucky I was to have him in my life.
Given the options and possibilities of what it meant to be a black man, a father and a husband and a son, our lives together was remarkable and affected me and shaped the mother I am today. My journey with him and without him deeply influenced the development of my family. who I looked for as a husband and a father.
I am also still getting to know him. He died in 1982. He was born the same year, my grandmother’s father disappeared from her life in 1916. He shows more of himself to me as I get older and indeed especially on his birthday. Not coming to me as often as my mother to visit, but coming nevertheless and asking me to search and take a closer look and to honor him. He watches over us. Our sons and our daughters… He asks me to wonder what makes us leave, what makes us stay and what might have happened when we could not be together.
This is the first season that I recognize this date on the calendar in cycles redolent of the moon and the sun. As I circle back to the season of his birth, the brilliant summer sun, moon, and stars occur during the opening portal of the Lions gate.
I get to look at my father the Leo Lion and my mother the Taurus Bull and see what sparked the connection:seeds sown and planted. I also get to look at the lines and lineage of being HIS daughter and HIS line and things about his father and his father and see the touchpoints of the patriarchy and seek balance and understanding and compassion for things that I don’t fully understand and could never know because I wasn’t there, and he didn’t tell me.
I can tell you though that this celebration of his birth asks me to consider different questions and to ask of other women, the daughters of their fathers and the mothers of sons to be willing to take a look at what our part is, what we have created.
If I share this post on my space for honoring the maternal experience of breastfeeding, I may tend to focus more on the maternal relationship that is in right relationship for the restoration of healing for the mother with her own father.
If I place it elsewhere, may I allow myself a wider berth to play with connections and just acknowledge the list of what comes up for me and how might I understand both him and me /myself better and not worry so much about the audience.
I continue to be disturbed about the violence and intense control directed at women, directed at children, directed at men. Managing hard emotions, without addressing conflict within families prevents healing. This pain and loss is always an invitation to the open heart. Faith can replace Fear. Loving with an open heart is our solution. Searching for our fathers is part of our journey.
In search of our mothers’ gardens… do we settle for God the father, a heavenly father LORD of the manor to substitute for the man we do not know or worst for the man we think we know and who hurt us and who we have not forgiven. Nor can we forgive ourselves for wanting more.
This morning I felt my father move in closer, or it was perhaps I that listened in and looked for him more closely and found him everywhere. It felt like his birth signaled me to see things that I hadn’t noticed before in my immediate surroundings simply because it was his birthday.
This morning I picked up an old journal/scrapbook that I thought was full and hadn’t looked at or for in a long while. I opened the page to jot something down and the last entry was curiously dated April 11, 2015 the date I had left California driving East with my dog Snow.
I had a new fast car The Fiat 500C 2014 and the heading was the Prodigal Daughter returns. Citing scripture and the issues that called me home… my return to the East Coast and to my Daughter, and grandchildren. I also was challenged by the thought I was returning home and felt my parents calling I had no idea what I might uncover on my return and what I might be willing to expose myself to….
I also was forewarned that my grandchildren were calling and that I was stepping in to being an Elder and that I would indeed think I was traveling alone but I would not at any point be alone. I would be surrounded by angels, and ancestors and I would be part of an ancient migration.
I was curious, frightened, in awe of what I might find, but there was no turning back. For the drive, I would not allow myself much of a glance in the rear view mirror. Now did my dad show me that revelation early this morning. Talking in deep conversation to dead people is not something I would admit to, but he offered me an openness today for whatever reason.
I listened to a meditation offered by an indigenous person from Hawaii; how our path may have crossed is another story for another time, but I had never been to Hawaii and have had no desire to go but I recalled that my father had and my brother when I was newly married with a nursing baby. I was not invited for the family trip, and I remember feeling excluded because I now had a husband and a baby boy and was no longer my father’s child. I belonged to another man. My brother initially said he had never gone to Hawaii; then changed his story.
My father, JoAnne, my sister, and my dad’s girlfriend Suzanne all went together. My brother said he did not remember, and it had been a long time ago. He said he remembered little about the trip being unimportant to him. They stayed in a big hotel and that it was an Omega trip (my dad’s fraternity) and I remember them saying they didn’t like the poi, the food was disappointing, but the islands were incredibly beautiful. The conversation was quickly over, I was curious and had more questions, but we were done. I pushed further did he want to be a Q after the trip had they extended an invitation, maybe that was the purpose of the trip. He laughed and said he was queer and not a Q and that was the end of it. No more questions. I was probing and pressuring and received all he had.
I realized the story for me was not my brother’s story, it was mine and it was for me and my dad and revisiting the Prodigal Daughter’s return.
I went back to the last April 11, 2015 entry and re-read the scripture today August 5th 2023 as a part of the celebration ofmy father’s birth. Hawaii and the meditation of balance between feminine and masculine and my father and my mother and what it meant to me to be the Elder in the room. I was no longer included. It was not my trip, another way I could cut the cord and forgive and let go of what I no longer needed and pass the baton.
Luke 15. 30. 24
I am going where I have never been before!
How do I prepare for the journey home?
Your baby is not your daddy, neither is your baby’s father.
What might your daddy think about you nursing your little one for 365 days?
How do you feel about that?
Things To Do
Things To Pack
People To See
Waiting ON
What did the son do that made him leave?
What makes you return home? Home free to your heart!
Running Away vs. GOING TO something you desire.
My father was born on August 5, 1916 in Harlem in New York, New York; the second son of Julia and Jonathan. Born at home on 113th street likely with midwives who I came to know and likely came to be my teachers. I know my father well because he spent time with me and because I was the second daughter of the second wife and because I was the first daughter and I think he saw in me something that was growing in himself at the same time and because of his relationship with me as his daughter.
Who is your daddy?
Where is your daddy?
What did your daddy do?
As you ask those questions for yourself.
The door widens on where to go next… and who you are. Not everyone wants to know who their father is and whether they have a “right” to know or whether they might benefit from knowing is another story.
If not knowing the “answers” to those questions or if even having those questions may be in fact an issue for you is quite intriguing.
YOUR daddy may not be your biological father?
There were several things that came for me to do for my father’s birthday
Collect the photos of my dad.
What lessons had he taught me about gender, about love, about being a father; about relationships; about himself?
How did he parent me differently than his other two children my siblings
Were there other children, other siblings that I didn’t know about.
Who stood in the gap when my father was not there?
When did I first miss him?
How did he treat my mother, mistreat her, value her love her did he love me in ways that made me choose him over my mother?
Did I betray my mother by loving him…
I am reading a wonderful book of reflections about daughters and their fathers.
Happiest of Birthdays …. and Thank you for coming home!
Today is September 20th 2022, my son’s 48th birthday. When I was nursing him in the way way way back, I didn’t think about this day. No luxury of fast forward into the future; in fact, I thought little and just kept moving along. My grandmother had always mentioned to sit down and take my time and suggested ever so gently that all would be alright. I don’t think I have a single photo of him nursing
Diaper Pin MOM & DAD & Monk at 9 months
It would not have occurred to me to take such a photo or to even have someone take a photo of me nursing my baby. I don’t recall who took the photo, perhaps my mother or father. Likely suspects with a camera. I was dressed, had a bra on, no leaking and probably getting ready to go somewhere and packing up a diaper bag, hence with a diaper pin in my mouth. Things are different now. That’s Ok!
I didn’t have a computer, or smart phone, and this was pre-internet for me and he and I were still very close and connected and I would not be who I am nor would he be who he is without that relationship. So I am grateful and very grateful to celebrate his birth and to share this day with his father and to honor the women.
I am in the final stages of finishing up a second book on breastfeeding as a specia invitation to encourage any mother who wishes to nurse her baby for 365 days will have all she needs.
I have set out to have 52 women who have done so as part of an Elder Speaks: Wise Woman Series where you will get to meet the women who have just done that. First there are ten women, then 30, ten 100, and then 1000
If you would like to tell your story, please let me know… someone desperately needs to hear what you have to say. Birthday Blessings for each of you!
Please check out…. these two YOU TUBE videos… just for you…
As a day of Holy Obligation, I attended on-line Mass today. Not because I had to; but because I wanted to truly celebrate A Feast Day for Mothers. It was really quite lovely. It has been many years since I went to Mass. However, I have found myself moved to prayer most days, these days; and as you would imagine I pray mostly to Mary in all her mysterious glory to intercede on behalf of all Mothers.
It is a simple prayer, probably one that I first learned in my childhood.it goes like this…
Hail Mary
Full of Grace
The Lord is with Thee
Blessed are you Among Women
Blessed is the Fruit of thy Womb
Jesus.
It is the foundation of the Rosary , a calming and repetitive devotion that is an integral part of a long held ritual often enjoyed during Advent, the season leading up to the birth of the Christ and all of the celebratory events we associate with Christmas.
You don’t have to be Catholic or even religious to imagine what it might be like for you the 17 days before the birth of your little one. In addition to feeling fat, and wholly unready for the task at hand and how you might ever care for a little One; you hope for a moment of calm and the knowledge that all indeed will be well. it can be very reassuring to know that God is within you.
The tale is really quite magical, that a Virgin gives birth. There is NO sin, Original or otherwise and this was known well before your (Mary’s ) conception. Her mother (the baby’s grandmother) Anne knew and it was foretold that her conception was like no other and that She alone would give birth and nurture someone incredibly special who would save the world because of her Divine Love and Grace.
Today no matter what, I hope and pray that you feel special and wonderful and capable of even the impossible. Spirit’s got your back and you need not worry about the details.
My granddaughter introduced me to a word that she had tattooed on her forearm in plain view, she was “Too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words”. Pope and a bunch of folks used the same Word to describe Mary and why we might worship her.
See her there, gorgeous mound of amber Joy pretending to cheez for the camera. She is about 15 months old. My dad took this photo just past the 365 day mark. This is a lovely Sunday December near Christmas Gathering. We are nowhere near weaning. I am getting some good natured teasing from folks, I am smiling, she is ignoring them. Weighing in about 36 pounds, my Nana is whispering in my ear to ignore them reminding me she is strong and healthy for a girl and I look happy and well. “You will know when it’s time” I find it’s so interesting today that both my grandmothers who had a chance to nurse their babies well past a year gave me almost verbatim the same advice. “just sit down and nurse that baby and you will both feel better”
My daughter is wondering why I wore that stupid midi dress, turtleneck no less which provides no access to titties. I was trying to look grown up as if we no longer nursed at a moment’s notice. She more practical still than I wonder how long does she need to be polite and wait and eat finger foods olives, cheese, crackers, codfish cakes, deviled eggs.
See her reaching over pulling the fake pearls, not distracted a bit from what she knows will be our quiet time when we are done with these family folk. I just found this picture. The only one I have with me and my Nana. She lived a few years more and died my first day of midwifery school, passing the torch as it were. I now can see the power of Elder blessings!
I have been uncharacteristically teary today. I just finished the last payment on the headstone for my mom. She’s been dead now since 2009. The cemetery couldn’t find the account number or paper working barely the grave site if not for my daughter. The cemetery changed hands or pandemic stuff; records not digitized whatever? My daughter is the only one that visits the grave site and I think it is a fitting present that today on her 40th birthday, we remember my mother properly with so much gratitude. The gravestone goes to production, no more debt. We are so free to love and remember.
Violette Duckett Strachan April 27, 1927- January 9, 2009
Legacy is love. Inheritance is joy, and hope and promise.
Happy Birthday my beautiful Daughter. You are my Joy! I love you so!
One day your time of fertility, and nursing a little one will go away. One year, one full cycle of 365 days after the birth will seem to be such a short time. Hours, minutes, days are all relative. It is such mystery that we have a time to menstruate, we bleed and for the remainder of nearly half our lives we cease to be able to reproduce and we have menopause; the bleeding stops.
During lactation, and then again as we approach menopause, we have extraordinary powers and are extremely sensitive to the ways in which we interact with the world. When our flow changes, when we nurse our babies as we prepare to let them go from relying on our bodies: we heal ourselves, we heal each other and we heal our planet.
One of my favorite authors and teachers is Susun S. Weed. She has written several books on healing and most recently I have re-read Wise Woman Ways: The Menopausal Years. As I remember vividly the time of nursing my children, I don’t think I thought of the days of how it would feel for me or that the cycles I experience as a woman (Some ONE with a womb) would change across my lifetime in a predictable pattern. We are all unique, but we share many things in common.
Susun describes and expands on a concept she calls the six steps of healing. She reminds us that we have ancestors and grandmothers who have been through this before and that we can listen, tell our own stories and also rely on them to teach us and guide us whenever we are ready. It is the role of the elder. It speaks to wise woman ways. As you grow and nurse your little one , you are becoming a wise woman.
She describes an archetypal character called Grandmother Growth. She advises us to:
“Let Grandmother Growth help. She knows the ways of woman’s mysteries. She lives the ways of the wise woman, healing and wholing person and planet. She offers stories about Change, new ways to understand the menopausal years, and new visions of old woman, She-Who-Holds-the Wise-Blood-Inside. “Shall we begin?”
Step 0. Do Nothing
Step 1 Collect Information
Step 2 Engage the Energy
Step 3. Nourish and Tonify
Step 4. Stimulate/ Sedate
Step 5a Use supplements
Step 5b Use drugs
Step 6 Break and Enter
Most of what we share and promote here in this breastfeeding365 blog centers around the healing that takes place during steps 0-3. For many of us, in our contemporary society we have never done anything even remotely like this. We have never been allowed to make the time.
STEP 0. .. Do nothing …sleep, meditate, unplug the clock or the cellphone, a vital INVISIBLE step
STEP 1 …Collect Information …low tech diagnosis, reference books, support groups, divination
Where are you on your healing journey? Are you nursing a little one right now? Are you supporting and helping someone as they make this change in the way they are living their lives. Tell us your story! We are listening! And so is Grandmother Growth!
• Love • Knowing What You Have • Freedom • Mother-Baby Couple • Healing”
True freedom comes from having boundaries and feeling free to take action on your own behalf to do things that benefit you. Doing for others doesn’t mean doing things at your expense in the name of someone else.
When what you are doing for your child is killing you, things are out of balance and something is wrong. When you rationalize what you are doing is for your baby and it’s hurting you that is even more wrong.
You can’t be guilt-tripped into nursing your baby. It’s not something you do for show or to impress others. It must be what you want for yourself. You don’t spoil a child by breastfeeding. You spoil a child when you allow anyone including your baby to take what responsibilities rightfully belong only to you.
My mother always used to tell a story about what her mother Lois told her about giving to your children. ““Always leave something back for yourself. You will ruin them if you don’t and they won’t know how to learn to live in this world.””
My mother’s stories were always told repeatedly and were usually enhanced by being told late a night after just a wee bit of scotch.
It would always start with this opening . . . “Now let me tell you something, you have to remember . . .” If I knew know how precious those words of wisdom would be I would have taken notes.
She would say:
““Now what’s wrong with this picture? The baby has everything, you have nothing. The baby needs everything, and you need nothing[… Child what is wrong with you, there are no flies on you . . . You are the mother, nobody will love that baby but you like you do . . . but you teach them . . . . Like this. And the she would motion to her hands to show me imaginary money and dollar bills . . . as if she was counting the national treasury out.
One for you, two for me
Three for you, five for me
Six for you, ten for me
When reminded of this story of my mother by Suji who she also lectured on this point many times when she thought we were spoiling the children and allowing them to take advantage. I was struck with how often I heard so many mothers say . . .
Now that I have this child, life as I know it is over. The baby’s needs are more important than mine. If we truly believe this, how could being a mother possibly be pleasurable?
“No wonder we are taught to hate and pity teen mothers and unplanned pregnancies, and single moms. Have you assumed, or allowed someone to influence you to feel that having a baby is in conflict with what you really want to do. You are taught to delay childbearing and childrearing because you believe that having a child causes a conflict in your life. Every aspect of your life, your career, your lover, your marriage, your friends, your home and your lifestyle, your ability to make money and care for yourself are ALL in conflict with having YOUR baby. Really?”
All other things or important relationships are perceived as competition for your inner desire and calling to mother. We are not always taught to think about the ways in which we powerfully create a new life in partnership with others.
How do we learn to integrate mothering with who we are as women? Who will join us and sustain us during this journey? Who will love us while we learn to love another part of ourselves that we must one-day release to the world?
We often feel we are free to make decisions and to have choices, but how often are we influenced by people around us, the media, expectations we have of ourselves and others have of us.
If you watch television, read magazines, and live in the world, you are affected by what you see, hear, and feel. I will give you a great example of how what we really need as mothers and what we think we need to function as a good mother can be two very different things if we are not very careful.
“HGTV is my favorite network. I actually pay extra for pay TV and could watch it endlessly. In fact, watching TV was my main barrier to completing the work on this book. I dream about my dream house, decorating, remodeling, square footage, what stove or fridge I want. Hunting for houses with open floor plans, checking for double vanities. Browsing real estate websites, it is positively hypnotic. My son calls it house porn, I laugh, but I still watch and from time to time, I do wonder how does it affect me and how I feel about myself and how I feel about the space that I live in and my neighborhood and my bathroom when I look around my personal space and it doesn’t look like that.
The master bedroom suite must contain a walk-in closet, a bathroom with a double sink so two people can brush their teeth at the same time and maybe even shower or take a bath separately.
“Never on my TV is there even a sign or a line of sight for a baby. The baby’s room is down the hall, perhaps even on another floor. The baby too has its own bathroom. Color-coding is very important so you and everyone else will know the sex of the baby from fifty feet away.
There is room for toys, a rocking chair or glider, a changing table and of course a fantastic crib that transitions into the daybed with an obligatory mobile. You can install an intercom throughout the house or a baby monitor but you as the mother are expected and even taught to monitor the baby from another location while you are with the other adults and to listen for signs of crying, hunger or life and you go when summoned. You can also check in on the baby by surveillance cameras and video monitoring.
An open floor plan for your granite counter topped kitchen with stainless steel appliances so your guests can see you while you are cooking and entertaining are critical.
This is why all pregnant women everywhere must move to a larger more expensive location in a better school district with an additional bedroom sometime during pregnancy or just after the birth.
Your baby MUST have it’s own room; their own closet and designer adult style clothes. Shoes when they can’t walk and jeans when they are still in diapers.
What would your dream space look like if you were designing a space for taking care of yourself so you can nurture your baby from pregnancy through weaning? What if mammals (the mother-baby couple) were designed to be together from conception through weaning to ensure survival of the species and smiling faces with good mental health for both parties?
“What kind of space would make it easy to be with your baby and to sleep with your baby and to not have to run all over the place or to be positioned to hear the baby monitor and still keep your husband or your regular sexual partner or the one you want if you don’t have one?
Do you have the freedom to decide that and do you truly know how important you are and what you do have for your baby? Will watching hours of television make you think that your relationship with your partner and with your baby will be improved in a bigger house with more bedrooms?
Your baby MUST have it’s own room; their own closet and designer adult style clothes. Shoes when they can’t walk and jeans when they are still in diapers.
What would your dream space look like if you were designing a space for taking care of yourself so you can nurture your baby from pregnancy through weaning? What if mammals (the mother-baby couple) were designed to be together from conception through weaning to ensure survival of the species and smiling faces with good mental health for both parties?
I confess it was very late at night, and I began wondering about our President’s mother. Where was she born? How old was she? What was her name? How were things going in her marriage? Was he her first baby, her first son? Where was her mom? Her sisters? Her auntie, her grandma? Had she had a successful experience by the time it came time to nurse the amazing child who would grow up to be President.
Mothering a son is different than a mothering a daughter. Or at least that’s what we are told, Somehow gender is a factor in how we love and nurture. When I held my son close, and cuddled, was it different than holding my daughter? When I lost control, or felt ill, or inept, was I different with my son than my daughter. Did I have higher expectations for myself and for him?
My Nana, my paternal grandmother was an immigrant traveling here by ship from Trinidad . She first arrived here at age 17 years old with her two younger twin brothers in tow. Some nine years later, she had her two boys both born at home with nurse midwives. She nursed them both for a long time as was their custom and she prayed that her sons would be great and promised God all good things if their lives would be spared the pandemic of their day, the 1918 Spanish flu. I can barely imagine what it was like to nurse my baby in the midst of quarantine. 50 million people lost worldwide. Would fear completely overwhelm me? She described so many children lost, soldiers quickly wounded and dying from the Great War, and traveling by ship across The Atlantic. She first traveled alone, and then with her twin brothers, recalling her own mother’s illness; their faith, the violence, the lynchings; sons who inflicted unspeakable harm, unimaginable sorrow, grief and separations, days when it seemed that none would be spared.
Our President’s paternal grandfather died in 1918 from the pandemic. Apparently they were together one day for a walk and the next day, he died suddenly. I wonder how his mother with a young son only 14 years old felt losing her husband alone in a new country. She too was an immigrant! A young woman having to go on alone with her son who had the courage and foresight to build a prosperous family business. By the age of 31, her son married a woman he loved in 1936 and they soon started a family.
Our President was the fourth of five children born to a MOM, the youngest of ten children who immigrated from Scotland to join her sister in New York at age 17. Like my grandmother, leaving a small island; the future essentially unknown, but filled with promise. Maybe there were no other choices! She wanted only the best for her self and her sons. Something more, but she would gladly settle for survival and a long healthy life of service and joy. What might we have to endure? What might we all have in common?
my grandmother who had a chance to nurse all of her babies
I have to think on that one a bit and wonder a bit more. It has been a very long time since I held a baby at the breast. and drifted off to sleep, knowing all was well, feeling safe, not hungry, not thirsty, and not afraid. As a mother I felt the most power ever in my ability to not only love, but to protect and dream and wish for a world full of wonderful things I would prepare my son for when he was no longer small enough and portable enough to be held in my arms.
my father and his brother surviving the pandemic with a mother’s love, hopes and dreams
Today I pray for all mothers and sons. May they be protected for all the days of their lives. May our mothers find courage, find comfort, find love and the gentle space to wish and wonder and care for their babies. We have no idea what our sons will become, or how we will manage. We teach love at the breast; but it is not our only tool.
Today we unite with all mothers everywhere. We call for peace, grace, mercy, justice, but most of all the capacity to love safe from harm. Tell your story. Listen closely to the mothers all around you!
• Love • Knowing What You Have • Freedom • Mother-Baby Couple • Healing
1 Corinthians 13:13
“ . . . For there are these three things that endure:
Faith, Hope, and Love. but the greatest of these is Love.”
LOVE
How are you with the love that you have in your life and the love that you have in your heart and the love that you have for your child, the love you have for yourself? Do you love God, the Goddess; do you worship and feel loved and perfectly made by your Creator?
Does it (love) feel comfortable and good and unblocked? When you have a baby love comes up because for most of us we fall in love with our babies in a way that we could not know was possible. Maternal love is different, especially for a small infant. Breastfeeding your baby is one way that you can love your baby. Not the only way, but one way and a very important way that establishes the primary relationship that child will have with the world and everyone in it.
Breastfeeding triggers all sorts of feelings, and hormones and chemicals that allow us to extend the connection and bond that starts when you make love and a little one is conceived, grows during pregnancy and extends through the first few years of life.
In some respects, breastfeeding is a continuation of pregnancy and NOT breastfeeding aborts a relationship between you and that, which is part of you and cannot exist independently of you for quite some time. To be a mammal, live birth and warm milk is something we share with many species in the animal kingdom. We can learn a lot from watching them.
“If you do not feel and experience love for your baby, it is impossible to breastfeed and to have a close and intimate relationship with that child. The sucking on your breast causes changes in your brain, your uterus, your breasts, your heart, and your muscles. The sucking also causes changes in the baby. The sucking that occurs several times throughout the day at regular frequent intervals maintains levels of hormones and changes in your body that produces the nourishment for your child, reduces stress, promotes sleep and relaxation and a sense of well-being for you both. The more unrestricted sucking you allow, the more milk that you have. The more at ease you are and the more relaxed you are, the more milk your body makes. It is creamier, sweeter, and higher in nutrients based on how well you feel, how you are eating and drinking and how much you are loved and how loving you are.”
Breastfeeding 365 