bearing blog

bear – ing n 1 the manner in which one comports oneself; 2 the act, power, or time of bringing forth offspring or fruit; 3 a machine part in which another part turns [a journal ~]; 4 pl comprehension of one’s position, environment, or situation; 5 the act of moving while supporting the weight of something [the ~ of the cross].

The amendments are posted!

Gerald at Closed Cafeteria has put them up. Just as a reminder, what we’re talking about here is the list of 62 amendments (to the new ICEL English translation of the Mass) that the U. S. Bishops proposed for use in the dioceses of the United States.

One thing surprised me: many of the amendments aren’t changes to the "text" per se at all. Some are literally about punctuation and spelling. It didn’t even occur to me that some of the amendments would be to, well, headers and footnotes, but there you are:

In several rubrics, the word chant was modified with the addition of a bracketed reference [or song], as in:
· Entrance Chant [or song] (OM, no. 1)
· another chant [or song] (Gospel Acclamation at OM, no. 13)
· Offertory Chant [or song] (OM, nos 21 and 23)
· Communion Chant [or song] (OM, no. 136)
While the General Instruction of the Roman Missal translates the Latin cantus as chant, the slight emendation was proposed in order to clarify what may be properly sung…

Seems pretty reasonable. Why confuse people into thinking they are chanting when they are actually singing?

I have to say that of all the amendments, the one that has provoked me to think most is the bishops’ rejection of consubstantial as a translation of consubstantialem in the Nicene Creed. Here’s the context:

Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipoténtem, factórem cæli et terræ, visibílium ómnium et invisibílium. Et in unum Dóminum Iesum Christum, Fílium Dei unigénitum. Et ex Patre natum ante ómnia sæcula. Deum de Deo, lumen de lúmine, Deum verum de Deo vero. Génitum, non factum, consubstantiálem Patri: per quem ómnia facta sunt.

Here’s what we usually say:

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father. Through him all things were made.

Supposedly the new ICEL translation had the more accurate, but somewhat clunkier and more jargony-sounding in my opinion, consubstantial with the father for the underlined words. I can’t think of another translation for "consubstantial" though: "having the same substance as?" "Sharing substance with?" In Greek, this is "homoousion" ("made of the same stuff" if I recall correctly). The "con" implies a "with" is called for.

But is anybody else, like me, reminded by "consubstantial" of another word: consubstantiation? The reason it’s important is that it isn’t really in our theology, but rather, is placed in contrast with one that is: transsubstantiation. The words refer to two different ways of understanding how Christ’s body and blood exist in the Eucharist. We say transsubstantiation: the substance of the bread and wine are changed into the substance of the body and the blood. Others, notably Lutheran, have a different understanding that we call consubstantiation: the substance of the bread and wine co-exist with the substance of the body and the blood. (Although I confess having a hard time telling the difference in meaning, because whenever I’ve heard an apparently knowledgeable Lutheran explain what they believe, it sounds suspiciously like our idea that the "accidents" of the bread and wine remain. Somebody, maybe, can clear me up on this one.) Still others don’t accept any kind of transformation or change at all, believing that the denotation of bread and wine as body and blood is symbolic. (Nonsubstantiation?)

Anyway, I keep wondering if the idea of "consubstantiation" contains some clue to the meaning of "consubstantialem". It almost seems opposite, though. The Father and the Son are not two substances co-existing, commingling, in the same appearance, but rather the same substance in different "appearances" or manifestations or what-have-you. So I don’t know. Maybe the words have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

There’s other things that are interesting.

[In the Creed] the rendering of he suffered death and was buried, was changed to He suffered, died, and was buried.

Well, that’s not quite the same, is it? The original uses suffered as a (better) synonym for underwent, really. The proposed change (which is what we say now, incidentally) uses suffered to mean experienced pain, I assume. Not that He didn’t do that, but should we put it in the Credo if it’s not in there?

Another change is only in the spelling of Laurence to Lawrence. I assume that the former is the British rendering of the saint’s name; the latter is the only way I’ve ever seen it spelled in the States. That makes sense.

Here’s another one that changes the meaning a tiny bit:

In the following paragraph (OM, no. 87), two words were deleted for the sake of easier proclaimability:
ICEL: counted among the flock of those you have chosen.
USCCB: counted among the flock you have chosen.

Don’t you think that the ICEL version makes it sound as if the "flock" is assembled from carefully selected individuals, while the USCCB version makes it sound as if a whole and entire flock was selected from among many flocks? I think those two words made a difference!

Here’s another one I don’t understand:

ICEL: We proclaim your death… and profess your resurrection
USCCB: We proclaim your death… and announce your resurrection

"Profess" and "announce" are hardly synonyms. Maybe they don’t think we understand "profess."

(I’m not even going to touch the controversy over "dew"/"outpouring," otherwise known as the Poster Child Of What’s Wrong With The USCCB’s Command Of Liturgical English.)

Oh well — interesting. Overall, most of the amendments don’t seem to me to be a big deal.

Jun 23, 2006

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A confessional piece.

Amy Welborn pointed to this piece at Godspy. I thought it was excellent. (Sensitive content.)

Jun 22, 2006

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Anglican Communion roundup.

Dave Hartline of The Catholic Report scored interviews with two prominent "progressives" and two prominent "traditionals" at the end of the Episcopal Church’s General Conference. He very nearly managed to get an interview from the Archbishop of York, too, who was Canterbury’s delegate to the convention.

The interviews are very, very telling.

Reverend Canon Ken Harmon: "There are forces at work in the Catholic Church trying to make this happen but it will never happen in the Catholic Church because you have “Clear Doctrine,” something we haven’t had in a long time."

Reverend Susan Russell: "I find it odd that the people in the Episcopal Church would talk about scripture as if they were some fringe element fundamentalist. One of the reasons our church broke with Rome was because of issues like the Magesterium. Now they want one?"

Bishop V. Gene Robinson: "To be honest, I have spent more time at this convention talking with conservative people than liberals. I know there are many who don’t accept me as a bishop. I have no trouble sitting with them. That’s what the word Communion, as in Anglican Communion, is all about. You know, I was denied Communion in a conservative diocese. Now that I thought was beyond the pale."

Greg Griffith: "I will say this; evil hides whereas the truth comes out in clarity and honesty. We are upholding the traditions of our church."

Read the whole thing. Ken Harmon sounds by now like a good candidate for swimming the Tiber. He’s not the only one, according to Al Kimel (former Episcopal minister) of Pontifications:

Within an hour after the announcement of Jefferts Schori’s election as the new Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, I received an email from a young Episcopal priest declaring that he now knew that he must become Catholic. What do I now do, he asked?

Going into the General Convention, orthodox Episcopalians said that they wanted clarity regarding the direction of the Episcopal Church. That clarity has now been given. The pending resolutions about the Windsor Report no longer really matter. Clarity has been given.

This convention was bigger than it looked from the outside.

Jun 22, 2006

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Anglican.

An intense drama played out in Columbus, OH this week at the Episcopal Church (USA) General Convention. There were a number of significant votes, but the most jarring one for the Anglican Communion has to be the rejection outright of "Resolution A161" in response to the Windsor Report, a call from the rest of the Anglican world for the Americans to stop ordaining bishops who openly refuse to live in chastity, specifically, those who openly assert their right to a sexually active homosexual relationship. Also, a woman bishop who has asserted her strong opposition to Resolution A161 was elected primate over the entire American Episcopal Church.

It is important to note that this is not just a rift between liberal and conservative U. S. Episcopalians, although much of the talk has made it seem that way. It’s the apparent implosion of a global communion. The Anglican provinces in Asia and Africa are not going to be happy about this.

The grief this is causing for traditional Anglicans in the United States is apparent. Three dioceses in the United States asked for another bishop somewhere in the world to serve as their primate instead of the elected primate. The election of the female bishop was seen by many as gauntlet-throwing, because (geographically if not by population) most of the Anglican world doesn’t view the ordination of women to the bishopric even as valid, let alone allowable.

TitusOneNine is the go-to source.

Jun 21, 2006

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1 comment on Anglican.
More on the windows.

I blogged a few days ago about little Laela Shaugobay, who fell from a fourth-floor window in Minneapolis, in part (apparently) due to fire codes that require minimum-sized windows that are easy to open from the inside.

Laela is likely to survive, according to today’s Star Tribune. She’s a lucky girl.

But her story highlights some serious problems with the city’s fire code.

The exact circumstances of her fall are unclear to Shaugobay, but she said it appears that Laela had gone to the open window and may have been trying to look out or to put her face against the screen. The window sill is low, coming to just below Laela’s waist.

That’s too low for safety. That’s also where the window sills are in my house, because the city required it. See my post, which includes pictures of my two-year-old son standing next to the window in his future bedroom.

As she leaned over, the window screen popped out and she fell.

Residents of the Many Rivers apartment complex along E. Franklin Avenue have expressed concerns that the window screens in the building are too loose.

Building officials said they share those worries, and plan to explore efforts to better secure the screens.

According to the previous Strib article, when the building manager had tried to secure the screens (in a different building) prior to the accident, city inspectors stopped him.

Besides, window screens are not meant to prevent a fall.

There is no city regulation addressing the security of window screens, in part because screens, even if well installed, are not meant to be strong enough to keep people from falling, said Minneapolis Fire Marshal Dave Dewall.

He cautioned residents or landlords who might try to place some kind of barrier, such as security bars, in front of the screens that the city fire code requires any barrier to be easily removed from the inside so that the window is a readily accessible escape route, he said.

Dewall stressed that the best safety measure is simply to stay clear of windows.

And people are supposed to keep their small children clear of windows…. how?

What about simply keeping the windows closed and locked? That works for some kinds of windows, but trust me, not all. My toddler could easily operate the casement windows (again, we were required to put in the casements instead of the originally-planned double-hung windows, by city code) in our bedroom; the only latch or lock is within his reach.

What about training your children to stay away from the windows? Maybe … but it wouldn’t have helped Laela, who fell from her aunt’s apartment, not her own.

Jun 20, 2006

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“It says something about the state of visual arts today.”

Life imitates The Onion.

In this year’s summer show at London’s Royal Academy of Arts, "Exhibit 1201" is a large rectangular tablet of slate with a tiny barbell-shaped bit of boxwood on top. Its creator, David Hensel, must be pleased to have been selected from among some 9,000 applicants for the world’s largest open-submission exhibit of contemporary art.

Nevertheless, he was bemused to discover that in transit his sculpture had gotten separated from its base. Judging the two components as different submissions, the Royal Academy had rejected his artwork proper–a finely wrought laughing head in jesmonite–and selected the plinth.

The Royal Academy claims the selection was not an error, because the pedestal (but not the actual sculpture) was "thought to have merit." Click the link to see the accepted work.

h/t DarwinCatholic.

Jun 20, 2006

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The Heimlich maneuver.

I was trying to herd the boys out the door of Melissa’s house just as she finished cooking dinner for her family — pancakes and bacon. Melissa’s youngest was wailing, having awoken grumpily from his nap, and I was snapping at the boys about shoes and wet clothes and things, and we were all pretty hungry.

Oscar, unbeknownst to me, took a large piece of not-terribly-crisp bacon off the serving plate and stuffed it whole into his mouth. I was trying to pull a dry T-shirt over Milo’s head when I heard a strange noise behind me and turned to find Oscar choking on the bacon. He was bent over, making little gurgling sounds, turning red — and simultaneously trying to stuff the trailing end into his mouth.

"Spit it out," I said sharply, and he only cupped his hand more tightly over his mouth. "Spit it out!" I said again, then shouted, "SPIT IT OUT!" For some reason, this (the fact that Oscar wouldn’t spit it out even when I yelled at him) pissed me off more than worried me, which was probably good because when I came around behind him I performed a Heimlich maneuver that just about had the character of child abuse. It lifted him off the floor. He took a whistling breath and I screamed "SPIT IT OUT!" again because I could just see him using that breath, or the next one, to inhale the big blob of bacon right back into his throat. (I started to do it again but Melissa’s husband Chris pointed out that he had taken a breath and I should stop now.) Finally he ejected a chewed, rubbery blob onto the rug. Chris picked it up and threw it in the trash. I sat down on a nearby chair.

Oscar started to wail and threw his arms around my neck and sobbed. I held him and said I was sorry that I had yelled at him.

Oscar wailed: "Chris threw my bacon in the garbage!"

And then he wailed: "Stop laughing at me!"

And then he wailed: "I want some more bacon!"

Jun 19, 2006

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The conversation ended rapidly after that.

Mark came into the house, sweaty from his Monday-night game of ultimate disc, and the boys squealed and piled into his lap. He had a big smile that lingered long after the boys unpiled and clattered back downstairs to the playroom. He’d already expressed gratitude that I encouraged him to start playing frisbee with a few guys after work once a week.

ME: (from a horizontal position on the couch; I’m pregnant and tired): Life’s pretty good, huh?

MARK (still grinning): Yes. Life is unreasonably good.

ME: You pretty much got everything you wanted, didn’t you?

MARK: Yup. [taking off his shoes, still grinning] I brainwashed you pretty well.

ME: Good thing you didn’t tell me your plans on our first date.

MARK [still grinning]:

ME: So, like, was sending me to graduate school part of the plan?

MARK: Oh, absolutely. You thought you were preparing for a professional career in academia. But really, all along I was grooming you to be happy as a housewife.

ME: Don’t say that word.

MARK: Grooming?

Jun 19, 2006

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Open windows. (Updated).

This past week, a toddler girl fell from a fourth-story apartment window in South Minneapolis. She’s doing better, but is still in critical condition, according to this Star Tribune story.

An issue in this story is the conflict between fire-safety codes (bigger, easy-to-open windows are better) and commonsense child-safety principles (hard-to-open, not-so-big-that-they’re-close-to-the-floor windows are better). As far as I know, there aren’t any requirements that upper-story windows should be difficult for children to open. It seems that the fire-safety code wins this particular conflict.

The building’s developer, American Indian Community Development Corporation, will do a full investigation and ask the city to review its window codes, said Jim Graham, the corporation’s development director.

"The building conforms with city zoning codes and requirements," Graham said. "If there’s a safety issue, then we should do something about it."

Some of the windows, which open from the bottom or top, are less than 2 feet from the floor. Development Corporation officials had tried to screw down window screens at a similar building down the block but were told by city inspectors that doing so wasn’t allowed because of the fire code, Graham said.

Wrought-iron bars across the lower halves of some windows on the building’s third floor were put there for architectural design, Graham said. He wondered how those could be allowed but securing the screens wasn’t.

We built a new house in Minneapolis last year. In our bedroom, where the whole family sleeps, we planned to have three front windows over the porch roof, and two windows over the bed, just large enough for light and air, but small enough and high enough so there wouldn’t be a risk that a child standing on the bed could fall out. All would be double-hung windows, a design that is very nice if you have small children, because you can unlock them to open them from the top for air, while still preventing the bottom from opening by wedging a dowel between the window and the frame.

Here are our three front windows. The porch roof is just below. Perfect for escaping from a fire, right? They are certainly the ones we will use if we ever have to escape from the bedroom (onto the porch roof).

Except — these three double-hung windows are not large enough, according to city code, for them to function as egress windows. (Everyone in my family could fit through them, even me, eight months pregnant.) So — instead of my high-up, child-safe double-hung windows over the bed, I have these:

These are our city-mandated egress windows: Given their size, they have to be casement windows, according to code, and they have only a single lock, a flip-up latch — you can see it faintly through the curtain at about the level of the reading lamps. We have never opened them, because (unlike a double-hung window) it is impossible to open them just a little bit without making it very easy to swing them open ALL THE WAY. The sill is about eight inches above the top of the bed. The screen pops right out. No porch roof here — it’s a straight drop to the pavement two stories down.

(And no, we can’t move the bed. We designed the bedroom to be barely larger than the bed.)

What I’ll wind up doing, of course, is bolting a steel fence over these windows, making them impossible to use as egress windows (not to worry — we can still get out the front) but at least removing my fear that my toddler will open them up and fall out.

In our old house we had an attic bedroom. The sill of the lone window was abut nine inches from the floor (not atypical in attics). The frame was bent so it didn’t have a screen and the lock sometimes failed. I saw my eighteen-month-old son toddle over to that window once and open it up almost effortlessly, standing a few inches away from a three-story drop — something I’ve seen in a few waking nightmares since! I made my husband screw a metal screen across that window, that very night. Good thing we didn’t have a fire.

My point here: Fire safety codes that don’t take into account the needs of families with small children to keep the windows secure, wind up defeating themselves, because parents will defeat the codes one way or another:

One woman said her children’s father pounded nails into the window frame near the locks shortly after they moved into the building so that her 3-year-old son couldn’t get them open.

Wouldn’t it have been better if the windows were simply securable to begin with? It would be nice if they could function both as fire escapes and as barriers to children’s falling out.

It’s not just the master bedroom. Here’s Superman, cape and all, standing next to the window of what will (someday) be his bedroom:

Yes, we were required to put the windows that close to the floor. I haven’t the foggiest idea how to safely fit a bed in this room where jumping on it won’t risk a collision with the window.

Fires are probably, on the whole, more dangerous to little kids than windows are. But I would have liked some more freedom to arrange the windows in our own home, according to the needs that our family has. If it’s harder to sell it later, fine — I’ll take that consequence…

UPDATE: Two commenters point out that the reason for large, easy-to-open windows is not so that inhabitants can escape, but rather, so that firemen plus all their equipment can get in. I’ll cede that point, but I still think there’s competition of two legitimate safety principles here. It’s because one of them is enforced by the city and one’s not that a kid fell out a window last week.

Here are some window safety tips from the National Safety Council. Including this one:

Keep your windows closed and locked when children are around. When opening windows for ventilation, open windows that a child cannot reach.

In other words, never open your bedroom windows. Ever. Oh, and by the way,

Do not install window air conditioners in windows that may be needed for escape or rescue in an emergency. The air conditioning unit could block or impede escape through the window.

never have air conditioning in your bedroom either, unless you are fortunate enough to be able to afford an apartment or house with central air conditioning.

Set and enforce rules about keeping children’s play away from windows or patio doors. Falling through the glass can be fatal or cause serious injury.

Keep children’s play away from windows. Uh-huh. See the picture from what will be Milo’s bedroom. Above.

Keep furniture – or anything children can climb – away from windows. Children may use such objects as a climbing aid.

What’s the point, when your two-year-old’s center of gravity is above the windowsill anyway? See above.

The fire safety issue is well taken. Yes, it’s important to have egress windows in every sleeping area (although, perhaps, if firefighters’ dimensions are the controlling factor, we should be calling them ingress windows). But there’s clearly a revenge effect at work here.

Jun 18, 2006

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2 comments on Open windows. (Updated).
Lauda Sion.

Corpus Christi calls for Thomas Aquinas:

ZION, to Thy Savior sing,
to Thy Shepherd and Thy King!
Let the air with praises ring!
All thou canst, proclaim with mirth,
far higher is His worth
than the glory words may wing.

Lo! before our eyes and living
is the Sacred Bread life-giving,
theme of canticle and hymn.
We profess this Bread from heaven
to the Twelve by Christ was given,
for our faith rest firm in Him.

Let us form a joyful chorus,
may our lauds ascend sonorous,
bursting from each loving breast.
For we solemnly record
how the Table of the Lord
with the Lamb’s own gift was blest.

On this altar of the King
this new Paschal Offering
brings an end to ancient rite.
Shadows flee that truth may stay,
oldness to the new gives way,
and the night’s darkness to the light.

What at Supper Christ completed
He ordained to be repeated,
in His memory Divine.
Wherefore now, with adoration,
we, the Host of our salvation,
consecrate from bread and wine.

Words a nature’s course derange,
that in Flesh the bread may change
and the wine in Christ’s own Blood.
Does it pass thy comprehending?
Faith, the law of light transcending,
leaps to things not understood.

Here beneath these signs are hidden
priceless things, to sense forbidden;
signs, not things, are all we see.
Flesh from bread, and Blood from wine,
yet is Christ in either sign,
all entire confessed to be.

And whoe’er of Him partakes,
severs not, nor rends, nor breaks:
all entire, their Lord receive.
Whether one or thousand eat,
all receive the selfsame meat,
nor do less for others leave.

Both the wicked and the good
eat of this celestial Food:
but with ends how opposite!
With this most substantial Bread,
unto life or death they’re fed,
in a difference infinite.

Nor a single doubt retain,
when they break the Host in twain,
but that in each part remain
what was in the whole before;
For the outward sign alone
may some change have undergone,
while the Signified stays one,
and the same forevermore.

Hail! Bread of the Angels, broken,
for us pilgrims food, and token
of the promise by Christ spoken,
children’s meat, to dogs denied!
Shown in Isaac’s dedication,
in the Manna’s preparation,
in the Paschal immolation,
in old types pre-signified.

Jesus, Shepherd mild and meek,
shield the poor, support the weak;
help all who Thy pardon sue,
placing all their trust in You:
fill them with Your healing grace!
Source of all we have or know,
feed and lead us here below.
grant that with Your Saints above,
sitting at the feast of love
we may see You face to face.
Amen. Alleluia.

Want the Latin? It’s here.

Jun 18, 2006

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Waiting.

Baby’s kicking hard this morning. Maybe it’s all the coffee I had. Each successive pregnancy (this is #3, for those of you who haven’t kept count), I’ve felt more movement. I suspect it’s because my abdominal muscles have gotten progressively more lax.

This time, the sensations remind me of the feelings of going into early labor: the suddenness of each bump, thump, or rollover; the take-your-breath-away; the downright weirdness of a pulling or stretching or shoving feeling that comes from inside my own guts, for pete’s sake. A few of the sensations are the same ones that do accompany labor: twinges from the cervix are unmistakable and very familiar. And of course, if the baby kicks and punches for more than a few minutes, he or she stimulates my uterus to contract, at this stage painless, but startling.

And each time it reminds me, I think something different. I am not ready to do that again, sometimes. Or Here it comes. Not much longer now. Better GET ready. Or that ominous knowledge that it’s going to come, and I don’t get to choose when, it chooses for me.

It’s not all looming-doom kind of feelings, fortunately. There’s also a peculiar, remembered excitement. Sometimes these big kicks trigger memories of those days when the contractions started to get more regular and we wondered if this is it. Like the day (two days before The Day) when we thought #2 would surely arrive, and we pulled out the boxes of birth stuff and got them all ready and went shopping for labor food, me leaning every few steps, breathing, on the handle of the cart. That day was a sunny, breezy Sunday, and Mark was home, and our little boy, who’s now our bigger boy, was cheerful, and we spent the afternoon taking a long walk to the playground to see if we could revive the contractions that had petered out. It was a lovely day, even though it wasn’t the birth day. It still had that secret excitement of knowing that it’s all starting up and that I’ll meet the new little one soon.

Couple that with thankfulness that I don’t have to get ready to go to the hospital, a feeling best compared to the rare opportunity of going for a bike ride at 6:30 on a cool weekday morning, particularly that moment when I get to ride across the pedestrian bridge that crosses I-35W at 40th St., sailing in a gentle arc over the noisy, jammed rush-hour traffic on my way to the paths that ring Lake Harriet.

Anyway, I’ve still got several weeks to go, but sometimes it feels very far away and sometimes very close. And sometimes that feels scary, even though (because?) I’ve done this twice before, but other times it feels like it can never get here soon enough.

Jun 17, 2006

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Just making mothers feel guilty.

The momosphere is buzzing about that NYT breastfeeding article, mostly arguing about whether it’s helpful or harmful to The Cause to emphasize "risks of not breastfeeding" instead of "benefits of breastfeeding." Meanwhile, Selkie put her finger on a disturbing omission.

[T]he article is pro-breastmilk, yes, but pro-breastmilk and pro-breastfeeding are not the same thing…

Human milk is the right choice for human babies (barring unusual circumstances like inborn errors of metabolism or maternal HIV or HTLV), but for some women the cost of getting the milk into the baby may just be too high. I’m pleased that the Times was clear about the importance of breastmilk. I wish the article had addressed the issue of making breastfeeding easier.

It’s easy to say, about breastmilk, "There’s gold in them thar hills." (Oil in them thar hills, I suppose I should say if I were aiming for a consistent use of metaphor, even though that’s geologically implausible.) The evidence for human milk is overwhelming. What I’d like to see, if I were the Monarch of Media, is more emphasis on extracting it in ways that are manageable for all concerned.

I think, now, that I can understand the anger from many (perhaps not all) formula-feeding parents who retort, "That article/study/commentary/comment is just aimed at making us feel guilty."

I’ve got nothing against guilt per se. Normal guilt is a healthy emotional response to the knowledge that one has done something wrong, or at least, sub-optimal, despite the opportunity to do the right thing. (Feeling guilt when one has not had such an opportunity, on the other hand, is not normal or healthy.)

Still, there’s a good point there. Finish the sentence: "That commentary is just aimed at making us feel guilty, instead of offering resources that assist us and inspire us to persevere with the ‘right,’ but often apparently more difficult, choice."

My friends and I were talking about this last night. I used to pump breastmilk when I was at the university, in a bathroom in my building (because the cozy nursing mothers room was in a different building three blocks away). It was a pain, but I persevered! Still — that is not such a huge hurdle. There are nursing moms who work at Starbucks, where the only private room may be a bathroom and that bathroom is the same one that the customers use. What are they supposed to do?

The answer is not to stop disseminating the information that "just" makes people feel guilty. That information, we hope, is what motivates families to do the right thing. The answer is to add the information that gives families the confidence — "empowers" them, to use a buzzword — to do the right thing.

Don’t forget, either, that there are three important audiences to these articles besides the parents who are choosing breastfeeding or formula.

(1) There is the medical community, who don’t work hard enough to help parents breastfeed successfully, and who far too often do damage to parents’ efforts through wrongheaded advice and policy.

(2) There are private businesses large and small, who — with the right motivation — could make real changes that would lead more working mothers to breastfeed for longer duration. (Not to mention the potential impact of private insurers, specifically.)

(3) There are a huge number of government entities, municipalities and states and federal agencies and all that (plus the ordinary American in his or her capacity as taxpayer and voter), who already run programs designed to improve the lives of mothers and children, and who with changes of emphasis in existing programs could raise breastfeeding rates — let alone adding new programs. If voters and policy makers decide that breastfeeding should get a higher priority than some other program — and you can’t tell me that there isn’t stuff in there that deserves to be demoted — then it can happen. Ask any mom who happens both to be knowledgeable about breastfeeding and a client or former client of WIC or a similar state nutrition program. (And if you think there’s not a lot of overlap between those two, you’re deluded.) There’s a lot of room for improvement that would not only further the nutrition programs’ policy goal of improving children’s nutrition (duh), but probably save money too.

So why not, instead of "just making mothers feel guilty," devote some column space to (a) addressing those three other audiences and making them feel a little guilty, for once, and (b) provide information to help mothers subvert the system and breastfeed anyway while the odds are still against them?

Jun 17, 2006

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