Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Breastfeeding and Maternity time-off

I am going to say again, that I believe we need to do our best to increase the disability time-off for women to breastfeed babies up to 24 weeks. Pumping in the workplace doesn't cut it, in my not-so-humble but practical- experienced opinion! What has happened in this recession, is that we have lost 20% of the real value of the country. Also, there is concentrated wealth in the 1%, none of whom are "breastfeeding women", I think! This puts women at a real disadvantage, as the Achilles' heel of every woman is the potential needs for her children. There is no more "welfare", which anyone who is not a Republican running for office should know. We are losing public education, public libraries, public roads, and public health care, which used to help offset low wages for young mothers in trying to provide a safety net for children. We have moms working 2-3 jobs, with minimum wage and no benefits, and we have moms going into preterm labor. We have lost ground, with increased maternal morbidity, and increased infants needing acute hospitalization. The least expensive way to help solve this is to have a sense of "THE COMMON GOOD"-- such as was mentioned in the opening words of the Constitution. We need to support healthy families. We need to make family life, and the care of the young a major goal of civilization. When women forget to include our children's needs in public policy, the whole country will be poorer. Women need disability money for this time-off, because most are now working, and cannot afford to take time-off without pay. Women are exhausted by the 24/7 job of nursing infants. We need to cut women some slack, on behalf of the babies-- as future citizens of the country. It will really serve our society better in the long-run to have babies who are healthy, and have basic trust established, and are able to exist in a more stable and less chaotic home. The current divorce rate is 51%. The issues of divorce and marital instability are complex, but it forces most children into poverty. I personally believe that if less moms were exhausted, they would have the tolerance and flexibility to make the marriages more stable. That first 6 months of a child's life is crucial! Please write to your legislators. Or go to Momsrising.org, and advocate for mothers with children. THANKS.

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