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This company and this state that just don’t have their priorities straight.
An Ohio woman was fired for taking unauthorized breaks for pumping breast milk. She sued, stating that the firing was sexual discrimination. Here’s a story on the matter.
While the Ohio supreme court ruled against her, it was a close call. One judge, Justice Paul E. Pfeifer, disagreed with the ruling, and wrote “The appellate court does not explain why Allen’s trips to the restroom outside scheduled break times were different from the restroom trips other employees made outside scheduled break times. There is no evidence in the record about any limit on the length of unscheduled restroom breaks and no evidence that employees had to seek permission from a supervisor to take an unscheduled restroom break. There is evidence only that unscheduled bathroom breaks were allowed and that LaNisa Allen was fired for taking them. What made her breaks different?”
I agree. A milk pumping break is no different than a bathroom break.
Here in Colorado, we have a law that requires any employer of more than two employees to provide reasonable break time for nursing mothers to pump breast milk, as well as a private place to do it that isn’t a bathroom stall. We have enacted this law because it is best for public health and workplace efficiency. Mothers who nurse their children miss less work because their children do not get sick as often. The mothers also get sick less often, they are less likely to suffer from post partum depression and some studies suggest that nursing reduces your chances of developing breast cancer. Children who are nursed, in addition to getting sick less often, are less likely to become obese, develop allergies, get cavaties, are less picky eaters (and therefore more likely to eat healthy as adults). Breastmilk is also cheaper than formula, which frees up mothers to spend money on more important things, such as better health care, healthier foods, better education for her child, etc.
Mothers who nurse and children who drink breast milk are healthier. This equals less work missed by the mother, less school missed by the child later in life, and less of a burden on our health care system. Both mother and child are able to be more productive members of society and more productive workers in the long run. Encouraging mothers to nurse creates better citizens and making it easier for them to continue nursing after going back to work makes their lives and jobs happier and easier, meaning they will be more productive.
It is in our nations best interest to encourage mothers to nurse and to do what it takes to make it easy for them. Apparently the State of Ohio and the company this woman worked for (Isotoner) were too short sighted to see that.
Many mother’s groups are calling for a boycott of Isotoner and I agree. I don’t buy their products anyhow, but I certainly never will now.
The CDC is talking about making routine circumcision a recommended procedure for all newborn males in this country to prevent the spread of HIV, based on some studies done in Africa that seemed to conclude that circumcision may reduce the chances of contracting HIV in heterosexual males through sex.
The studies were done in Africa, where most men are un circumcised. Volunteers came in to participate in the studies, and men were given the choice whether or not they wanted to be circed, rather than randomly assigning, which makes the studies biased right there.
The studies were also flawed in that the study groups were too small to get an accurate conclusion and there were no controls, basically setting the study up to support the hypothesis. That is not science.
How does circumcision prevent the spread of HIV? That is a question that these studies have failed to answer because they have not been conducted scientifically. For all we know, the spread of HIV in these studies could have easily been less in circumcised men because the circumcised men were more hesitant to show their unusual looking penis, and therefore had less promiscuous sex. In fact, a look at these studies makes that seem very likely indeed. Until I can be given an explination as to how circumcision prevents the spread of HIV, I can’t believe these studies. They just don’t make sense.
Furthermore, even the CDC is quite clear on the fact that circumcision would have very little effect on AIDS rates here IF (and its a big if) the conclusions of these African studies are correct. Most AIDS transmissions in this country take place between gay males and drug users, these studies say nothing about circumcision protecting from transmission in these cases.
Even if we can conclude that these studies are correct, the alleged effectiveness rate of circumcision in preventing HIV is still WAY below the effectiveness of condoms, and leagues below limiting sexual parters. I see very little justification for making a recommendation for a surgical procedure that carries a long list of risks when there are more effective, cheaper, and less dangerous preventative measures out there.
We need more scientificly based studies to confirm this alleged link between circumcision and reduced HIV rates. Remember, only 15% (most of whom are Muslims) of the world’s male population is circumcised, so clearly there are large pockets of uncircumcised populations (say, Europe) where AIDS is not as big of a problem as it is here, where some 75% of men are circumcised. Those are some large numbers that suggest these studies may not be accurate enough to start suggesting routine circumcision.
I think its seriously flawed to start telling people that being circumcised is going to protect them from HIV. It has about the same effectiveness rate as the pull out method does in preventing the spread of HIV. I’d hate to see the country take this as an excuse to no longer use condoms. Circumcised men contract and pass on HIV every day!
Total Money Makeover is, hands down, the best personal finance book I’ve ever read.
To be fair, its the only personal finance book I’ve ever read.
I’m not good with money. Never have been. I’ve got substantial debt for a person who’s only ever owned two credit cards (one of them, I didn’t even understand I was applying for a credit card when I got it!). My credit score is on the lower end of so-so. For years I’ve been wanting to pay off my debt, but I just haven’t had the motivation to do the things necessary to do so.
Having a baby complicated the matter further. Single mothers aren’t known to be living in the lap of luxury. Nearly half my paycheck goes to child care. Throw diapers, food, clothes, and all the other little expenses that kids cost on there, and I don’t know how anyone who makes less than I do can afford to have children. I’m not paying for fancy stuff (except the diapers, I do buy Seventh Generation) either.
That’s why I think every single mom should read this book, especially if you don’t already have good financial habits. Dave takes you through everything you need to write up a budget, stick to it, save up an emergency fund, pay down debt, and then start investing. He advocates living entirely on cash. No financing anything ever again! I don’t know if I’m 100% behind that. Things like student loans can be a godsend, and I don’t think its the end of the world to get a mortgage to buy a home. But other than that, I’m totally with him. I will certainly never finance a car again!
Dave’s tone is a little harsh, but I find that motivating, personally. Since listening to his book, whenever I go to buy something I hear his voice in my head asking if I really need that. Would I rather have that, or a debt paid off? Would I rather have that, or be able to quit working full time one day because I have no bills to pay?
His tips are simple, practical, and within reach, I think, of every single mom out there. His faith obviously plays a big role in his life and comes through in his book, but if you take the Bible quotes the same way you would take a fable with a moral from some other culture, I think even atheists can get a lot out of this book.
I definitely recommend this one on audio, because he is a riot to listen to. The same material might be pretty boring on paper.
I just want to start this out by saying that I don’t think being a single parent means that your child is going to grow up to be a criminal. I think that the children of single parents, given that everything else in their lives is the same as children in dual parent households, are just as likely to become criminals as any other child.
I think we’ve all heard people (particularly people of certain political bents) talk about how being a child of a single mother is the #1 indicator of whether or not a child is going to grow up to be a criminal, or a drug addict, or another single parent, etc. On the surface, the statistics sort of lean that way, so I can see why people might come to that conclusion. But statistics are notoriously inaccurate, and can be made to say anything.
If we were to conduct a scientific study to determine whether or not those statistics do represent the truth, we would need to observe from conception to adulthood, a large number of children who were all EXACTLY the same (in economic status, education access, education level of the parents, the parenting style of their parents, work habits of the parents, number of siblings, number of aunts/uncles/grandparents/cousins, how far extended family is from them, type of community grown up in, dietary preferences, cultural histories, etc) in every way, except half of them would come from single parent homes, and half of them would come from dual parent homes. We would need to observe them from conception to adulthood to make sure all variables stay the same, and see how many of the children from each group became criminals. We would need them to be the same in every other way so we can isolate the status of their parent’s marriage as the only possible contributing factor towards whether or not these children become criminals (that’s called a control).
Obviously, this could never be done. You’d be hard pressed to find four kids who could fit this description, let alone the thousands it would take to get an accurate scientific conclusion. So to start with, we have to take any kind of interpretation of the statistics with a grain of salt. How many other factors could contribute to the children becoming criminals? There are no controls in those studies.
But lets for a minute, pretend they are true. Pretend in some magical universe we were actually able to scientifically prove that being the child of a single parent makes you more likely to grow up to be a criminal.
What in God’s name would make anyone think that this is the single mother’s fault?
These people go on and on about how important it is to have two parents. So why isn’t it the dead beat dad’s fault that the child grows up to be the criminal? Why are we placing blame on the one parent who actually sticks around and lives up to their responsibility? If both are so important, don’t both bear at least equal responsibility?
If dads are so important, then isn’t it their fault if the children grow up to be criminals in their absence? I mean, its at least as much their fault as it is the mothers, right? So why does all their blame fall on the single mother?
Single mothers are bad parents?
Dads who abandon their children bear no responsibility for any negative outcomes abandonment produces?
Now, there are lots of different kinds of single mothers. The Anne Coulters of this world seem to have it out for single mothers by choice. Women who, for a variety of reasons, choose to have children outside of marriage. Of course, only single mothers who willfully deny a father to their children are bad, right? The Anne Coulters of this world do not seem to take into account us mothers who did not want to be single mothers, but are doing the best we can to raise our children on our own, because the men who sired them refused to take responsibility. Single mothers NOT by choice far outnumber single mothers by choice, and we did not push our childrens’ fathers out, they abandoned us. They abandoned their children.
The Anne Coulters of the world over look the fact that the children of single mothers by choice are much less likely, according to the statistics, to grow up to be criminals. Single mothers by choice are more likely to be financially stable, well educated and healthy, they planned their pregnancies and had preparation opportunities that unplanned pregnancies don’t have, among a variety of other factors that very likely play a significant role in whether or not a child grows up to be a criminal.
So if the majority of single mothers who are “creating” the statistic that these people deplore are not single mothers because they want to be, but rather because the men they were with ran away and refused to take responsibility, isn’t it the dead-beat-dad’s fault that these children are growing up to be criminals (or whatever) and not the moms fault? Isn’t it the fault of the person who ran away? The person who created the single parent household?
Anne Coulter recently wrote a book with a chapter titled, “Victim of a Crime? Thank a single mother”. She is entitled to her unscientific review of the statistics, I suppose. But I don’t understand why she wouldn’t title the chapter “Victim of a Crime? Thank a dead-beat-dad”. Why is it the mother’s fault that these children grow up to be criminals? Why isn’t it the dad who ran away’s fault? What Anne is basically saying here is that an absent father does more good raising a child than a present mother does. That a mother alone is a danger to a child, and only the presence of a father can undo that danger. But the absence of a father is not a big deal, as long as the child isn’t left with a mother.
If this is the case, perhaps then the Anne Coulters of the world should support gay adoption. Surely two fathers are even better than a father and a mother! Of course, I suppose they would be REALLY against lesbian adoption. Two mothers must be even worse than one single mother!
Its just ridiculous. These people are just spiteful and sexist. I would have a lot more respect for their views (even though I disagree with them) if they would hold all parties equally responsible.
This society does not hold men responsible for parenting (as the “single moms are responsible for violent crime” hypothesis proves), and yet bemoans men’s lack of parental rights. I have said it a million times, rights exist only in conjunction with responsibility. When men have equal responsibility, they will get equal rights.
Disclaimer: After seeing him on the Colbert Report a few months ago, I totally have a crush on Michael Pollan. He is not a bad looking older dude. And his environmental values are right in line with mine. SWOON. Yes, I know he’s married and has a 16 year old son. It’s not going to happen anyhow. But my crush is not biasing my book review. His books bias my crush.
Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
These are the first words of Michael Pollan’s brilliant book, In Defense of Food. I got it on audio book from the library and it was so good, I listened to it twice.
This book is sort of a sequel to The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which I haven’t read yet. I don’t think you need to read it to appreciate this book. Pollan starts out the book talking about the history of nutrition science and what its results have been for our health as a nation. Of course everybody knows that we have massive health issues in our country, not the least of which are obesity and diabetes epidemics, but I guess I never put two and two together before. For decades, we’ve been receiving advice about how to eat from nutritionists, food manufacturers and the government, and it hasn’t made us any healthier. In fact, in almost every respect, we are less healthy than we were before the nutrition scientists started advising us.
The part that blew my mind entirely was when he criticized the official dietary sanction put out in the 70’s to eat a low fat diet. Apparently, there was little to no scientific evidence linking dietary fat to heart disease, obesity, or any of the other diseases of civilization. What there is evidence of is that in cultures where the people lived on a traditional diet that was low in animal products, diseases of civilization (as they are called) are almost non existent. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the fat in animal products were causing the problem. Perhaps, as Pollan points out, the problem is something else in the animal products, or perhaps its that in diets heavy in animal products, we tend to eat less plants, and plants prevent the diseases of civilization. We simply don’t know. But what we do know is that the advice to replace animal fat with hydrogenated fat (trans fats) is perhaps the worst piece of health advice anyone could ever follow, because hydrogenated fat is the only fat that has been scientifically proven to cause heart disease. We also are relatively sure that the advice to cut out fat led to adding more refined carbohydrates to our diet, which is very likely at the root of rising obesity and diabetes rates, and to a nation wide deficiency in Omega 3 fatty acids, which can have a disastrous effect on brain and nervous system function, in addition to lots of other health problems.
When I stopped to think about the period after having Elijah, I remembered that as soon as my milk production was well established, about six weeks after his birth, I proceeded to go on a low fat diet. I lost a minimal amount of weight, almost had to quit nursing because my milk supply went way down (and never fully came back), and I suffered from post partum depression and something I could only describe as brain problems. I could not remember anything (seriously, there was a time I had to call my mom to ask her how old I am), I couldn’t concentrate on anything, I couldn’t figure out how to do new things, and I often would be listening to someone speak to me, but be unable to process what they were saying. It basically felt like the connections in my brain had been cut, and even more than a year since I had pretty much abandoned the diet, I was still feeling that way. Pollan proposed something in the book that made it all make sense to me. The brain is 60% fat. The greatest concentration of Omega 3s in the body are in the brain. If I was deficient in fat, it seems reasonable to assume that it might have had a negative effect on my brain, an organ that is primarily fat. I immediately went out and bought some almond butter and flax seed oil, and then I set to researching the links between fat intake and PPD (in between spoonfuls of almond butter and flax seed oil laced fruit smoothies). Apparently, there is much talk about this subject out there, but I was only able to find two actual studies, one confirming a potential link between Omega 3 deficiency and PPD, and one that found that increased fish consumption (fish is high in Omega 3s) did not seem to have any kind of affect on PPD. Some of the doulas I knew emailed me siting other studies that confirmed a link between healthy fat intake and PPD, along with a slew of personal experiences.
But Pollan cautions against following any food trend in which one nutrient is demonized (low-fat, low-carb, etc.) and one is glorified (protein, Omega 3s, etc.). The whole point of the book is that the value of food cannot be measured by amounts of known nutrients. Food is complex, and there is always some new nutrient being discovered and hailed as a miracle nutrient, or a toxin. Often, the nutrients go in and out of vogue with nutrition scientists so quickly that we don’t even know what’s supposed to be healthy and what’s not (the history of the egg is a perfect example). Instead, Pollan says that we should consider foods over nutrients, and eat a well balanced diet without worrying about the nutritional content.
Thus the rule, eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
There are some sub rules, to make the primary rule more clear. For example, don’t eat anything your grandmother (or great-grandmother, or great-great-grandmother, depending on how old you are) wouldn’t recognize as food. He targets GoGurt while explaining this rule, which made me smile, because GoGurt is a product that grossed me out from the minute I first saw a commercial for it.
Other rules include don’t eat anything with unpronounceable words or things that you don’t know what they are in the ingredient list, especially high fructose corn syrup (I would add aspartame and hydrogenated oil of any kind to that list). Cook your own meals from scratch, always eat at a table, of the plants you eat, most of them should be leaves/fruits/vegetables (as opposed to grains), and eat slower. That’s not all the rules, but it gives you an idea of where he’s going. I don’t think he says a damn thing that any doctor could really argue with (who can argue with a varied diet based primarily on fruits and veggies, then whole grains and nuts, then animal products?), although nutrition scientists and government officials might take offense at his review of the work they do.
I have not eaten the same since reading his book. I have found it easy to abstain from I Can’t Believe Its Not Butter Spray and Skinny Cow Ice Cream. I have been eating a lot more veggies throughout the day (I can’t give up snacking, like he suggests, but I don’t think it’s so bad if you snack on fruits and veggies, right?). He has convinced me to try anchovies (as soon as I find a good recipe for them that might make them seem more palatable). The changes I made to my diet haven’t been that dramatic, but I’m hoping that I can report a positive difference once I’ve been doing them long enough. I’ll keep you all posted.
I am dead serious about this. I read while I drive. Even when Elijah is in the car.
I know you’re all waiting for the punchline (if you haven’t guessed it yet), so here it is. I’ve discovered audio books.
I love to read. I always have. I was reading before I was in school, and its always been my favorite past time. I never thought I would ever stop reading. Until I had a baby.
Maybe I didn’t stop reading entirely, but my reading time was severely cut back, and most of what I was reading was parenting books, and then doula books, and now midwifery books. While I love reading this stuff, I miss reading fiction, and other subjects as far as non fiction goes. But I was working more, commuting more, and when I got home, I had a baby to take care of. When did I have time to read? I did most of my reading while pumping breast milk at work, two or three half hour breaks a day (my work was super generous and accomodating for pumping milk, more companies should be like my work was). Other than that, I didn’t get to pursue my favorite past time really at all.
At the same time that I had to give up one of my favorite past times, I had to increase one of my least favorite; driving to and from work. I HATE commuting. I’m not much of a fan of driving in general, but the worst is driving in rush hour on the way to or from a place you never really wanted to be in the first place. I have a 50 minute commute to work in the morning and an hour commute home at night (traffic is better at 6:30 in the morning, when I leave, than it is at 5 in the evening, when I go home). Trust me, if I could take the bus to and from work, I would, but there are no lines that will get me from my house to my work in a reasonable amount of time (less than three hours).
Anyway, since discovering audio books, my commute is finally bearable. In fact, some days I actually look forward to it. And in the three months since I discovered audio books (or rather, discovered that I enjoyed audio books), I’ve read more than I have in the whole 18 months my son has been alive!
I got my first audio book quite accidentally. My Holistic Moms Network group was doing a book club for the book A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle. I had heard a lot about this book and wanted to join them, but wasn’t sure if I’d actually finish it, and I didn’t want to spend money on the book if I wasn’t ever going to finish it. One day at work, about half way through the month we were doing the book club, I got an email about a service that provides free audio books to service members through a service that works kind of like Netflix (they mail you the books, you listen, mail them back). I checked out the selection. It was mostly books on how to improve your leadership skills, not the kind of stuff I was interested in reading, but low and behold, there was A New Earth. I signed up and ordered it, along with Total Money Makeover, The World is Flat, and An Inconvieniant Truth.
The first books that came in the mail were A New Earth and Total Money Makeover. I listened to A New Earth First, and it didn’t take me long to realize that I was developing an obsession for audio books. It was great! I could drive and read! There were so many more books I wanted to get under my belt!
Since the selection at 3Leaf Group (the Netflix like service) was pretty lame, I got the brilliant idea to see what kind of selection my local library had. I had not had a library card for my local library since I was 15 years old. I had abandoned my card after the Columbine shootings, because the park that Columbine High School and my local library were both in was closed up and police taped off for a month, and I was unable to return my library books, but they continued to charge me late fees! I didn’t think I could get a new library card, but when I saw how good their audio book selection was, I had to try. I signed up for a new card online, and picked it up on my way home from work.
I am just flabbergasted at how much reading I’ve gotten done for free, without sacrificing time from anywhere else in my life. So far I have read:
- A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle
- The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle
- Total Money Makeover, by Dave Ramsey
- The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant
- The Last Days of Dogtown, by Anita Diamant
- Midwives, by Chris Bohjalian
- The Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan
- An Inconvieniant Truth, by Al Gore
- And I’m currently working on In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan
I can’t get enough. As I’m writing this, I have another window open to the Jefferson County Libraries website putting audio books on my hold list. Even if you’re not a big fan of reading, I think audio books are a great option for you. Its enough like reading to satisfy the bookworm, but its different enough from reading to entertain the person who prefers radio or television. In fact, listening to an audio book is very much like listening to a radio program. You can pick something funny, romantic, tragic, informative, whatever. Who doesn’t like to have a story told to them?
Theres a new president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and he is making post partum depression his main focus.
I suffered from a bit of PPD after Elijah was born. I didn’t find out the gender ahead of time, and I wasn’t prepared for how disappointed I was when I didn’t have a girl. The disappointment wasn’t really the bad part, it was the guilt. I felt so guilty that I could think, even for a second, that I would have rather had another baby. A little girl.
There were probably other factors that contributed to my sadness after he was born. Of course being a single mother is hard. And going back to work was very hard on me as well. Thank God for my supportive family, without them, things might have gotten very bad for me.
I saw a therapist for a while, and it helped. I also supplemented with essential fatty acids and 5HTP. Do you have any experience with PPD?
This article in the New York Times features a friend of mine from Holistic Moms. She was denied health coverage because of her previous c-section.
This brings up some interesting ideas. We have the highest c-section rate in the world, yet it has not improved our birth outcomes any. In fact, I learned in my doula training that the US is 32nd in the world for positive birth outcomes.
Obviously, caesareans can be life saving operations, and thank god we have them, but why do countries who have 10% caesarean rates have better mother and infant mortality rates than the US, who has a 30% caesarean rate? Does that suggest that maybe caesareans are being performed that don’t have to be? Does it not say that 60% of the c-sections performed in this country could probably be skipped (or prevented), with potentially better results?
Women don’t get a lot of choice about whether or not they’re going to have a c-section in this country. There are ways to avoid it, but most women are not educated as to how, or even why, they should attempt to avoid a c-section. C-sections are quicker and more profitable for hospitals and insurance companies, in the long run, and have a CYA feel to them that is believable by those who don’t know much about normal birth (which is most everyone in this country). They are even more profitable if insurance companies are able to charge customers more after they have one.
Yeah, I’m not on the list. Nor do I deserve to be, I don’t keep up with this blog enough. But I thought I’d share the list with you, because I think its a great one. I’ll be adding these blogs to my regular reading.
Who’s Who of Single Parents on the Web
Check it out!
