Sustainable Mothering Mothering as a Human and Civil Right

Some people see gambling as a form of recreation – at least, that’s what it is. However, many people enjoy betting and lose their will to control the urge to play. It’s at this point; the craving develops into an addiction. As it turns out, having a gambling addiction could also attract other addictions such as alcohol and drugs. These ...

“Viral” YouTube videos showing up in my Facebook or Twitter stream usually make me change mental channels faster than spam about my need for assistance with erectile dysfunction. And, I am ashamed to say, I generally find Spoken Word performance pretentious (I see my feminist cred flush away). But I pushed play on this one – Embarrassed -with a “whatever” attitude and ...

In an unprecedented move, a County jail in New Mexico is providing accommodations for a breastfeeding mother to pump her breasts every few hours and have the product picked up by a family member for her four month old daughter. While there have been a few cases in the past of breast pump use allowed for short term detainees, this is the ...

Continuing (belatedly) the series in which I answer the ten questions posted at Blue Milk concerning what a feminist mother looks like. Today is Part 3. You can see Part 1 here and Part 2 here. Since Blue Milk’s post went up in 2007 and I have answered the questions over two years, my answers may be a bit skewed. See something inconsistent or that make you go ...

Back in the 1990s, I had more breast milk than I could handle. I knew then and know now that many women, due largely to the circumstances of their lives and not their biology, are not able to produce all the milk their children need. And there are breastfeeding people (some cis-female and some not) who have biological reasons why they can’t ...

West Virginia has the honor of being one of only two U.S. states (W.V. and Idaho) that has no public breastfeeding law whatsoever. Since the vast majority of states have unenforceable public breastfeeding laws, I don’t consider West Virginia’s lack of legislation a distinction with a difference. But I guess the state finds it a tad embarrassing. Which would explain the introduction this year ...

When I first heard about Slutwalk, I cringed. I thought then, and think now, that the name is awful. “Slut” is a hate word and I do not believe hate words should be used in any context other than direct quotes and then only as necessary for some specific purpose that can’t be met without using the quote. But when ...

I first saw Mothering magazine in the waiting room of my midwife in 1996. I didn’t read parenting magazines but this one was clearly written for me. Breastfeeding, co-sleeping, baby-wearing, anti-circumcision, suspicious of the vaccine schedule. I didn’t come to parenting with more than a desire to breastfeed and an academic understanding of attachment theory. Attachment parenting was not something I had heard of ...

The day after several blogs, including this one, suggested racism as a motive for Facebook’s removing a breastfeeding image from the Earth Mama Angel Baby Facebook fan page, Facebook removed the photo of the white woman breastfeeding her baby. Okay, this one does violate the “areola rule.” But in addition to the removal, Earth Mama received a new warning – one I haven’t seen before: ...

Facebook has been making news and raising ire for removing breastfeeding photos since late 2008. I have been writing about the protests here and in the late Mothering magazine. Facebook did announce the standard it would be using to decide whether a breastfeeding image is “obscene” and thus would be removed. I wrote about that in “It’s All About the Areola.” According to the official statement ...