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Lets face it, kids are expensive. But here's a little secret the marketing department at Fisher Price don't want you to know; most baby stuff is completly unnecessary. Even those things that are so imbedded into our collective subconcious that just the word baby make you think of them. There are however a few parenting philosophies that can save you an awful lot of money, as well as being just generally awesome. 
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In our attempts to end victim shaming, we have ended up silencing and shooting down anyone who suggests that we could be teaching risk awareness to our girls. It is going to take time to change our entire society. It is going to take time, to raise a generation of men who do not see women's bodies as their personal playthings. There are quite a lot of steps we need to take before we even get to the point where baby boys will not be born into a culture that views women as holes to fuck. Until then we are fighting within the confines of our current existence. And those confines mean that we have to approach the issue from both sides. 1) teaching boys to question the paradigm 2) teaching girls risk prevention strategies  We have been so conditioned to believe that it is our fault, our bodies that failed, that we don't even consider the fact that breastfeeding is a two way relationship. Both the mother and the baby have certain factors that must be present in order to succeed. Yet our language, our cultural beliefs ignore this. How often do you hear a woman say "We tried to breastfeed but my baby just couldn't." We tried to breastfeed, but my baby failed. You don't. People don't say that. Yet in a lot of cases it would actually be far more accurate than saying that the mother failed, because the issue isn't a supply issue at all it's a transference issue. But we don't even have a decent way of testing which side of the dyad has underlying problems, so our society, so used to blaming women for everything, blames the woman. Our women, so conditioned to blame themselves for everything, blame themselves. When are women on a whole going to wake up to the fact that their bodies didn't let them down, the system let them down?!  If you ever find yourself saying things like "each to their own" or "it's the parents decision" or "who are you to tell me how to raise my child" or "you raise your kids and i'll raise mine", this article is for you. I am hopeful that this article will make you rethink these comments:  In 2014 The Pregnancy Babies and Children's Expo decided to cut one of their scheduled exhibitors/speakers, Dr Bryan Symon from Adelaide. This decision was in response to parent backlash as he holds some extremely controversial views about newborn sleep and breastfeeding. Later in the year they held a debate with "experts" from both the pro-sleep training camp and the anti-sleep training camp. The outcome of which was that they (PBC Expo) decided that there was no reason to prevent Dr Symon from speaking at the 2015 expo. I attended his talk in Brisbane, which included some very interesting "facts", such as the claim that Red-Haired women can not breastfeed. A nurse who had never heard of him before and had been happily agreeing with everything he said, ending up standing up and asking how he could possibly spread such dangerous misinformation. This talk also saw Dr Pamela Douglas from The Possums Clinic being escorted out by security, after disagreeing with Dr Symon. This was my letter to the PBC Expo coordinators in the aftermath of the Expo and the stir Dr Symon's attendance caused online in the lead up.  There are very few upsides to being a single parent with a partner who lives interstate. But one of the few silver linings is that if you decide to bring a new partner into you life, you can choose someone who's parenting values match yours.  |
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