Small Things

Interview with the nursing mother from Barbara Walter's flight

I must revisit the nursing-in-public topic today, as I just found a link (over at Open Book) to an interview with a woman who says she is the mother who nursed her baby on the plane, making Barbara Walters so uncomfortable.

Apparently a blogger came across mention of her on a mother's listserve, and interviewed her by email. She seems like a fascinating lady. She is from South Africa, and was sitting with her husband and baby on the last leg of an 18 hour trip.

You can read about the incident here.

New home give-away show features a young Navy widow

I recently picked up a copy of San Diego’s local Navy newspaper, the Navy Compass and came across an article that got me all choked up right there in the parking lot of the commissary, among the shopping carts and grocery bags. Apparently there is a new television show airing this fall that will renovate and give away a home to deserving families who have never before owned their own home.

Sounds a lot like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (which I happen to love, I am a tear-jerker junkie). This new show, called Home Team, is a little different in that they don’t build an impossibly impressive home from the ground up, they renovate an existing home. They do not give it outright to the family, they award them a 10% down payment, one year’s mortgage payments, and $5,000 worth of furnishings. All in an emotional surprise reveal.

That is the part that got me choked up in the parking lot. The Navy Compass spotlighted an episode where they give a new home to Jennifer Showalter, a local San Diego mom. She is the widow of Joshua Showalter, a Navy Aviation Electronics Technician 2nd Class, who was killed last August, along with Lt. Cmdr. Scott Zellum, Lt. Patrick Myrick, and Lt. James Pupplo, when their aircraft crashed into a volcanic island south of Japan. The three officer’s wives, along with Joshua’s shipmates, family, and friends, spent over two days remodeling the house for Jennifer and her four-year-old daughter.

I remember hearing the local news last summer, when the crew was killed. I remember how, for a moment, I put myself in those women’s shoes, and imagined the agony of hearing that my husband had been killed. But only for that fleeting moment, and then I locked that image away again, pushed down deep where we Navy pilots’ wives keep ideas like that safely repressed.

And then in the parking lot the other day, I was looking at a picture of all four widows, looking exactly my age, as three of them surround Jennifer while she stands, shocked, in the foyer of her new house. All of them are smiling. Beaming, actually. And that is something I think I will have to tune in to see this fall.

Why "Small Things?"

Most of us don't aspire to do great things with our lives. I think most of us just hope to do well with the things we're given. To do a good job raising our kids, to be gracious to our family and friends. And maybe to make a difference here and there in our lifetime.

Mother Teresa said that God has created us to do just that--small things. She said, "We can do no great things--only small things with great love."

That love is the caveat. We don't have to do great things, but the small things--taking care of each other, giving to each other, comforting each other--we must do with great love.

And the small things are sometimes the most challenging. It's not just about hugging your kids and speaking kindly to your spouse and your parents. The hard stuff may be doing 8 loads of laundry a week for your family. Staying up with your sick child for 36 hours. Working overtime to pay for your child's tuition. Making room for a sick parent to move in with you. Not easy.

Even harder is taking that love across the street, or into our communities. Doing the small things for neighbors and strangers.

So it is a comfort to know that God only asks small things of us. But He also asks for great love. And that's the hard part, isn't it?

Mothers stage a "Nurse In" at The View

(See protest photos here)

When my son, my first baby, was born, I settled easily into breastfeeding him, and was overwhelmed by how symbiotic the baby-mother relationship really is. And is supposed to be. Baby cries, your hormones react, milk lets down, and every instinct you have urges you to hold and nurse your baby. Baby thrives. Our very nature compels us to nourish our babies. Good plan, God.

So was I surprised to find that our society stubbornly extinguishes that instinct? Not really. I grew up like most everyone else, seeing bottles as the standard for infant feeding. I was actually fortunate enough to see my own mother nurse my baby sister, and I can remember once seeing our upstairs neighbor sit on our patio nursing her baby. It was all very mysterious to me, though. Both were exceptional experiences, both brief, and both very private. Bottles were how babies were normally and openly fed.

Why, almost thirty years later, is this still the status quo? A landslide of studies have well established the dramatic benefits of breastfeeding, as well as the inadequacies of formula. Numerous national health organizations now emphasize the importance of breastfeeding exclusively for six months, and continuing for at least a year (international organizations recommend two years). Breastmilk saves babies’ lives, prevents serious illness, reduces healthcare costs, and is ecologically responsible. These days, we supposedly have more respect for our bodies and are better informed about health and nutrition than ever before. Yet our society still discourages women from breastfeeding.

How? Well, the hospital tells new moms about the advantages of breastfeeding and then sends them home with a free bag of formula and bottles (compliments of the formula industry). Hollywood stars do commercials for formula (et tu, Brooke?), but none do ads for breastfeeding. Department stores and amusement parks place a chair in the smelly, germy bathroom so nursing moms will have “privacy.” (As though nutrition and excrement go together?) Grandparents and busybodies ask, are you still nursing? Isn’t that baby hungry? Isn’t he eating cereal yet? And ironically, in this progressive, skin-baring, body piercing, sex-sells-everything society, most people are uncomfortable around nursing moms and babies.

Barbara Walters saw nothing wrong in telling the mostly female viewers of her talk show that she thought the nursing mom on her airplane was inappropriate. So you better get your baby on a bottle before traveling, mommies. Editorials(see here and here) supported her opinion, equating nursing in public with public urination. There, there, screaming baby, breastfeeding may be healthiest for you, but it’s rude and disrespectful. Possibly downright gross.

Why? Why are people so uncomfortable with a baby just being fed? Now, to be fair, grandmas tend to have a reason for questioning a style of baby rearing they never grew up with. They of course feel they did the best by their kids, and bottles were just great. Breastfeeding was weird. It’s what they know. (Though to give credit to my own mom and mother-in-law, they both have been very supportive and have never, ever criticized where or for how long I nursed my baby. Kudos to them for being so open-minded, and for nursing their own babies back when almost no one else did.)

Women who nurse in public are mothering their baby best, doing what millennia of women have done, all over the world. It’s the only way we survived this long! In other countries it is normal, it is no big deal. Course, we Americans are known for our hang-ups about our bodies. Nursing breasts are not being flaunted or displayed for attention or even for Mardi Gras beads. It is just nourishment, plain and simple. Lunch. It is functional. It is a symbiotic experience, and a mutual need, but not exactly an intimate experience. Baby must eat. Mom can’t realistically hide for all of baby’s meals.

And the bottom line is that if you make her feel she should hide, than she is discouraged from following her instincts in nursing her baby. She will usually give up on her instincts. After all, she doesn’t want to be a social pariah. She just wants to go out and be normal again! So out comes the formula and baby bottles. And baby loses.

Breastfeeding cannot possibly become the norm, until society views it as normal. Breastmilk, the unequivocally superior infant food, will never become the standard infant food, until breastfeeding moms are a standard sight.

So I will keep nursing in public, hoping that other moms will be encouraged, and that future moms will remember the sight. And if others notice and are uncomfortable, I hope the experience is just one more step toward becoming used to it. But mostly, I will nurse in public because wherever my babies go, so does their milk. And believe me, they know it.

Welcome!

As this is the very first post on my newly minted blog, I guess I had better figure out just what it is I have to say. I am writing as a mother, but this blog is not just about motherhood. I am writing as a Catholic Christian, but this blog is not just about faith. I am a Navy wife, but this blog won’t just focus on military life or marriage. I am sure I will write about all these things at one time or another, but I can’t peg this blog into any of those niches.

Of course, all these hats contribute to how I view the world, and how I figure out the best way to live in it. Sometimes I have something to say about family life, my kids, or my God. Sometimes I just need a soapbox.

Mostly, I hope this blog keeps me from talking to myself as I do the dishes and fold laundry, which makes my husband shake his head and mutter “you are such a nut.” Or causes my two year old son to come into the kitchen, and with a scrunched up face, ask “Mommy, what are you talking?” In this blog world, typing is not so nutty as mumbling. Usually.

So stay tuned for a peek into my thoughts and words. And if you have a comment, feel free to reply--though I might be startled to find that anyone was listening. Because the laundry and the dishes usually don’t talk back.