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Pressures for the Mother to Work

Sunday, March 24th, 2013

There are mothers who have to work outside the home and they need our support.  Unfortunately, work is one of the main reasons that mothers wean their babies.  It is frequently too inconvenient to pump and store their milk while working.  If determined, however, these working mothers can exclusively breastfeed and keep up the nursing when home.
And the opposite can occur: some mothers get support to stay near their baby but aren’t interested.  I know one husband who arranged for his wife to work where daycare was provided just down the hall, but she was not interested in that arrangement.  The husband said his children’s biggest and only complaint about their mother was that they hated daycare during their younger years.

Other mothers who do not really have to work are pressured to go to work by their husbands, relatives, or society, and some government programs encourage mothers not to work through entitlements.  The government pays them not to work.  As was reported in our newspaper recently, one husband said his wife is not looking for a job  because she gets $400 a week from the government for not working.

Another mother was quoted as saying that she works because she would be bored if she stayed home with her kids all day.  That quote says something about our society and educational system and the value we placed on raising our own children.  At high school career day, students would be lucky to find a session on mothering or on fathering on such days.   Parenting sessions usually don’t happen.

I believe that any form of substitute care is never as good as a caring mother in a normal family situation.  We know many homeschool mothers do well keeping their children at home.  There was pressure in the Sixties to use pre-school.  One mother once was so impressed with our 4 or 5 year old that she asked me what preschool I used.  I told her “none”—just home.  The answer took her by surprise.  I remember one Protestant friend who was fighting her church’s new offering of daycare for working mothers on the church grounds.  Why?  It implied that working mothers were approved by her church, and that she feared more mothers with young ones would start to work because of it.

For those mothers needing support to stay home or arrange work so they can be with their baby or little one, read my booklet The Crucial First Three Years and the blogs on “mother and baby as one.” (After clicking, scroll down pass this article.)

Lucky the baby who breastfeeds for at least the first year of life or longer and who has a mother and a father who cares for him during those important early years.

Sheila Kippley
The Crucial First Three Years
Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood

Posted in Education, Mother and Baby as One | 2 Comments »

9. The Importance of Fathers

Sunday, July 15th, 2012

What about the father?  David Blankenhorn wrote a book, Fatherless America, to show the importance of the father.  At the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars convention in 1999, he called the father “that first significant other” or “the first encounter with an intimate other,” Here he means “other than mother.”  In spite of his promotion of good fathers, Mr. Blankenhorn stressed the importance of the mother-baby relationship during the first three years of life.

Dr. Herbert Ratner was a public health doctor,a convert to the Catholic faith who gave many talks to the laity on marriage and family, and a strong advocate of breastfeeding and good parenting. At a Catholic Physicians Guild of Chicago in 1997, he made the following comments on fathers:
“I will give you two words that characterize what fathers have to offer their children, and these apply to parents in general. Love and time. The father  “romances” each new child by delighting in and falling in love with the newborn. In addition, the male gives moral and emotional support by appreciating the nurturing mother and is customarily the provider and the
protector of the mother and child. With the passage of time, he contributes more and more to the emotional, intellectual, and moral formation of the child.”

A father is (or ought to be) an invaluable support for his wife.  His love and support can help her feel good about herself as she devotes herself to the task of good mothering and to breastfeeding. Behind most successful breastfeeding mothers is a good husband and dad who offers spiritual and emotional support to his wife and who provides for her and the children so that she can be there to raise their children. Dads can enjoy their little ones through many activities. They can hold, play, walk, dance, bathe, dress, read, sing, whistle, teach, and pray when spending time with their baby. Dads can form close relationships with their children by spending time with them. Any child today is especially lucky when he has a mom and dad who love him dearly and express that love in simple ways.

Beginning July 22 through August 7th, the following printed books will be available at 30% discount at www.lulu.com:
The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding: The Frequency Factor
Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing, the 1974 Harper & Row classic edition
Natural Family Planning: The Complete Approach (coil version)
Battle-Scarred: Justice Can Be Elusive
This sale is being offered from the start of NFP Week and goes through World Breastfeeding Week.

Sheila Kippley
Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood
The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding
The Crucial First Three Years

Posted in Family, Mother and Baby as One | Comments Off

8. Breastfeeding: Mother, Baby and Society

Sunday, July 8th, 2012

Canadian psychiatrist Elliott Barker worked with 300 of the most dangerous persons in Ontario at a maximum-security prison. All of these prisoners were criminally insane. Through his studies. Barker gradually became convinced that a tendency to criminal behavior can be traced back to the lack of care a person receives during the first three years of life. The greatest cruelty that can happen to human persons during the first three years, he said, is “to harm them so emotionally that they can never form an affectionate relationship with another human being, that they can never trust another person, and that they can never have the capacity for empathy.” It is during these early years that a person develops the capacity to trust, to empathize, and to show affection.

He took his message to the teens in the classroom.  In an effort to prevent or reduce criminal activity, the doctor told teenagers that the most important job they will ever do is to raise their children. The job of parenting takes priority over their career or anything else, and the time during pregnancy and during the first three years are the most important years of formation. That is when the life-foundation is set.  Barker told teens to do three things as parents:
1) Fall in love with your baby through a positive birth experience. The father should be present at the birth.
2) The mother should strengthen that love by breastfeeding her baby until he no longer needs it.
3) The mother should keep her baby with her as much as possible. Separations and changing caregivers make it harder for babies to learn trust.

Again breastfeeding and avoiding separation of mother and baby is the message for a better society.

Sheila Kippley
Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood
The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding
The Crucial First Three Years

Posted in Ecological Breastfeeding, Mother and Baby as One | 3 Comments »

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