Humor me here…. 

Sometimes I have a bit of an inferiority complex when I read the generally higher level of discourse in news articles outside the U.S.  This began years ago when I was corresponding with a certain UK group  concerned about the British system which they said was, unfortunately, adopting  practices that had already failed in the USA.  Not that this STOPPED such practices, but the Brits & Scots were complaining too on a number of lines.  California was specifically named.  I’m not a West Coast native, and didn’t quite duck my head in shame.

What IS it about California?

I don’t know whether it’s hiring former actors as and Governors, if not later President, or whether it’s Hollywood per se, or it’s maybe because the pride from having succesfully detached from England a few hundred years ago filled American think tanks with hot air, or whether educational policy — what IS it, then that causes “educated” people to lose their grip on reality, and really stupid stuff to erupt, Krakatoa-like from this part of the Pacific Rim, and drift transcontinentally, via Internet, El Nino,  (sorry wrong medium)or in the winds of change, and drop its dusty thinking world-wide, gunking up thousands of otherwise sane and at least semi-functional lives?

(More realistically, the dust driving the Dust Bowl of idiotic legal behavior, if you read yesterday’s post, is more likely Gold.  Which I could also blame on California in another century, I suppose).

Maybe it’s reverse psychology — if it IS absolutely In-ane, or otherwise quack science, SOMEONE will declare it “scientific” and a market niche is born.  Hence, PAS is now being taught in Spain, I heard, by people already discredited in the US, and we already had the Judge in Toronto making decisions on breast-feeding vs. shared parenting.

Thank God, Inane, Insane Behavior is not Indigenous to the USA!

Now here it is in Australia too.  Finally I can hold my head a little higher as an American, because another continent(‘s legal/judicial system) has sunk to our shameful, dogma-driven level (drivel?), when it comes to Fatherhood, Healthy Marriage, Co-parenting, Joint Custody with severely aggressive batterers (resulting in family-cides) and Judges (??) making decisions as to how healthy an INFANT (and Mum) are allowed to be.

Given the chaos, progress, or perhaps it is liberality that is “U.S.,” especially on the West Coast, the headline “Breastfeeding Mums forced to share care” (below) has someone like me naturally wondering at first whether this piece was about one such same-sex marriage and two Mums sharing parenting.  Gee, I hadn’t thought about THAT one yet.  My confusion is understandable, I hope.  First of all, I’ve been in family court system for many years and found out the most words in there are topsy turvy to start with (for example, “mediator,” which means, a person whose favor one must win, within 45 minutes of a first encounter, after which, the hearing process is a simply a shoe-in…), or, say, the word “family” to start with, the composition, schedules, members, relationships, and prosperity of which typically ends up different going out than going in.  The word meat grinder comes to mind…

Moreover, being as I am from the home of the brave, the land of the free, and one of the several US states that legitimized, at least for a period, same-sex marriages, and is working HARD at promoting the concept at elementary school level, the words “Breastfeeding Mums (plural) forced to share care” brings up images of an individual case, not an entire class of cases.  Perhaps if they had said “with whom” these Mums (and how many of them) were forced to share care, I might have had an easier first-glance assessment.  Don’t point the finger at me, I already know anything goes from a number of angles.

However, on actually reading the article, it appears to have been heterosexual couples uncoupling, and thereafter, as children were involved, they must go through the system and face the same old insanity — every time a couple parts, a family law judge will have to play God and juggle priorities.  Added to the complications, the children involved were not yet weaned.  No matter, a decision is here…

“Breastfeeding as parental alienation”? If so, then the judge could simply penalize the mother, about $250,000, for not sharing nuturing well enough with the children’s father, as a Canadian judge did recently.  I wonder if it was the same Toronto judge that ruled on how long the mother could breastfeed, and what her real motivations for doing so were.  Family law judges are well-known for mind-reading and intention assessing.  

In short, there appears to be no area of life which judges are not deemed to be expert to pronounce upon.  If they lack expertise, no matter, experts are at the beck and call of the court to add the appearance of logic to decisions.

By the time my children are grown and I am 100% divorced, and hopefully into a new profession not subject to first-trimester-abortion-by-child-napping or frivolous lawsuits, I will probably have experienced every emotion, and aspect of life possible, and should probably head for a judge-ship.  I will keep a coin handy for flipping during the more difficult cases, and hire a private security guard in case I mistakenly rule AGAINST a battering or child-abusing, indigent, law-breaking, stalking or kidnapping parent, thereby alienating my colleagues in the courts.

(HEY — even the best of us have our fantasy life, right?)

Back to the topic of allotting nipple-nudging time  in a co-parenting plan.

IMAGINE being that judge:

Do I, as judge:

wield my ??-appointed authority over litigants’ health, wealth, lifestyles, and divorce, choose:

• (A) Growing baby’s health and Mom’s, as already determined by clear medical evidence (and milennia of practice, world-wide) and bend shared-parenting laws to accommodate breast-feeding, knowing (as the average adult, I hope already does) that breastfeeding is indeed in the best interest of the child on a score of physical, emotional, psychological categories, for BOTH Mom post-delivery, and breast fed babies tend to be smarter, healthier, less obese, and more disease-resistant, as well as cow’s milk has several contraindicators (first of which is, it was designed for herbivores, not omnivores, and for large-boned bovines, and more)**
• {{**Certain exceptions apply, as when Mom is abusing a substance, or possibly is so traumatized or stressed out that cortisol, adrenaline (i.e., stress hormones) are flooding her system, and as such, her nursing infant’s.  GEE, what circumstances might engender that?  (a)  possibly violence in the home?  (b) possibly knowing that her nursing infant’s/child’s saftey and future, and her relationship with this “fruit of the womb” is  totally in the hands of a family law judge?}}

OR, do I, as judge:

• Go with more recent, and far fuzzier (but currently more popular, at least with the generally dominant gender) psychological assertions that”Fathers are Nurturers Too!” and “Female-Headed Households innately are poorer, and more dangerous, and in short to blame for society’s ills” dogma (imported, I believe, from Southern California legal experts, aided by some conservative think-tanks/foundations, and policy-makers who help drive policy from Washington D.C.).  To this, I suppose I should add “Breastfeeding Sucks!” and any Mum who won’t just give it up is overly bonded to her infant, and a parental alienator — doesn’t she care about her kids’ emotional needs for two parents, especially a father? 

•  Which is it?  History, or Recent Theory?
•  
• Do I want to risk criticism from the medical establishment (which has set a clear “Go Thou and Nurse” policy, which my government has already endorsed) or
• Do I want to compromise potential funding (this blogger comments from her USA perspective) from the post-Dr. Spock, feminist-defanging doctrine from about 1980s forward, which the globally mounting drumbeat of fatherhood mongers claim is endangering their offspring’s health by removing the radiant glow of Dad’s presences from Kids’ lives?

Another possible fulcrum of the Decision See-Saw might be:

• Do I want to show I share common sense with the rest of the public, therefore possibly compromising my ambience of near-divine, esoteric insight (I’m JUDGE, right?  and no common bloke), or do I want to throw my clout around?

(And DO I CARE that newly-divorced, or restraining-ordered, irate fathers are still dropping kids (excuse me — GIRLS) off bridges, or otherwise killing them, if not themselves also, on visitation, throughout my country, and others).

 My imagined judicial angst probably didn’t last long, if it ever arose.  There probably was no wavering, no virtual see-saw.

This is FAMILY Court.  It’s a no-brainer:  Given the obvious, do the opposite:  Throw the kid in a carseat, share “parenting”, and “let’em drink (cows’) milk half the time and breast milk the rest.  Or make Mom pump extra for 3 days a week.  Why cry over spilt milk from both sides?   

Moreover, throwing in some inanity shows who’s the boss in court.  The next uppity woman who comes through here will know better and make our lives easier.  Don’t they know, men don’t like to WAIT in certain matters??

With judicial rulings -and poorly prognosticated legal concepts — like this, who needs Parenting Education (or for that matter “Healthy Marriage” promotion)?

The only other sarcastic “Good Grief!” leverage I could get from this article is to comment that with examples like this, we really don’t need “Healthy Marriage” education in either Australia, or the USA!  Just make them read the news…

MY CONJECTURE:  Any couple that separates before a child is weaned either (and very possibly) had domestic violence as an issue (in which case, sole custody would be more advisable) or wasn’t too bright to start with – – if they read newspapers, they would surely learn, as of 2006 in Australia, that any child conceived would go through carseat, attachment, and digestive hell unless the parent stuck it out a little longer.  Or, she was indeed using him to get a baby.  (Not that men have never done this of a woman, either….)

A close friend of mine who is as thoroughly disgusted with my case’s many years in court, not to mention child-stealing, unprosecuted, after I’d just stabilized the household, believes — and it appears to be serious — that people should have breeding licenses.  In the current climate, I think a thorough course in the legal system (including recent fads) and the domestic violence statistics, plus a thorough understanding of the cost of attempting to separate, when kids are involved, should be requirements.  

Chalk this one up to the hands of the anti-VAWA people.  No one in their right mind would subject a child to this, it’d  be better to stick it out, and have a safety plan each time someone loses it emotionally in a relationships, than to send a growing human being through this official-DUMB.

Please forgive me, but one more shot:  Surely this shared parenting law could NOT have come from legislators who actually breastfed before; it’s like salivating — your body acclimatizes to supply and demand, and let alone jerking the child around emotionally, how about them breasts?  (or, to become a judge, possibly, one must act like a man, including as to schedule, and therefore women judges would skip the attachment phase, use formula, or get us to pumping in the lady’s room between hearings?

Incidentally, and Mums would also know this — what comes out the other end is MUCH less offensive when it came from a human teat, not a cow’s one, via pasteurization, or formula, which isn’t even that healthy.  So there could be additional causes for grievance, as in, “child was habitually returned to mother with a real stinker.”  Good grief!  Let the kid nurse.  When it’s older, it can see Dad more, and will recognize him well enough.

The legendary , proverbial “King Solomon” — who was noted for taking his inherited kingdom down in good part by too many expensive wives and concubines (no, that was NOT a sideways snipe at the US Congress)(perhaps) supposedly saw two women (were they breastfeeding?) who claimed one child; the other one had been rolled over and smothered to death in sleep.  Threatening to enforce “Shared Parenting” by “raised sword” the real Mum piped up and said, “let her have it!” and the real wise king recognized the real Mum, and she got her baby back.

Guess what with all them wimmen in his life, he knew a thing or two about nursing, even vicariously.  Or, he’d remembered the story of Moses.  Their cultural baby factories, I guess, included wet-nurses, not nurturing Dads vying for kids’ allegiances and affections. 

OK, I’m through.  If you’d gone through the co-parenting with a controlling personality, thereafter losing your  kids scenario (I did, if you’ve read other posts, and at a   huge cost, and after a very dedicated motherhood lasting til they were more than half raised), you might be tempted (as I was, and obviously succumbed) to make a point with this Caroline Overington article from “The Australian.”

(The headline is the link also.)

Breastfeeding mums forced to share care

Caroline Overington | June 10, 2009

Article from: The Australian
THE Family Court is placing infants who have not yet been weaned from the breast into shared care arrangements with their separated parents.

A study by academics at Flinders University has found that infants less than a year old are spending one week on a diet of cow’s milk, and one week nursing at the breast, so that parents can share their care, as recommended by the Howard government’s shared parenting law.

Others are spending up to three hours a day in a car, shuttling between homes.

The shared parenting laws, introduced in July 2006, are attracting complaints from a range of professionals at the coalface of family law.

The study on the shared care of infants after divorce was conducted by Linda Sweet, of the Flinders University School of Medicine, and Charmaine Power, an associate professor at the School of Nursing and Midwifery.

Their report said the shared parenting law placed “expectations on both parents to participate equally in care, regardless of the child’s age”.

The report said there was “ample evidence that breastfeeding is the best form of nutrition for infants” and the Australian government’s dietary guidelines espouse breastfeeding as the optimal food for children for the first six months of life.

“It would be expected that breastfeeding infants would not be ordered into substantial shared parenting arrangements, ” the report said. “However, many infants regularly are.”

One mother, “Georgianna” , separated from her husband when their child was seven months old. The magistrate ordered week-about shared parenting, saying the boy could have his nutritional needs met by means “other than breastfeeding” .

“Georgianna’ s milk supply became erratic as a result of these week-long absences,” the report said. At the time of interview, her son was receiving breast milk while with her, and cow’s milk while with his father.

“Trish” separated from her husband when their child was five months old. The court ordered shared parenting of seven days a fortnight, but no overnight stays, with dad. The distance between the homes meant the child spent three hours a day in a car seat.

The authors concluded that “national and international guidelines on optimal duration of breastfeeding” have less sway with judges than the benefits of time with fathers. “This in itself is not a bad thing, and all women in our study encouraged father contact,” they said.

Breastfeeding was at issue in a Family Court matter heard in Cairns last year, involving a couple who had been married for less than a year when they separated. Their daughter was five months old. The mother was committed to “attachment parenting” and demand feeding, and would not allow the child to stay overnight with her father.

The judge said the mother had “no time set for the child to be weaned“** and allowed the father to see the child only when a mothercraft nurse was present (the father had an annual income of more than $280,000, plus a $350,000 annual bonus, so hired help was no problem).

The judge said the father “wanted to take the child out and have her stay overnight but could not “because the mother insisted that the child be breastfed”.

The judge said the shared parenting act made it necessary to “consider whether it would be in a child’s best interests” to spend such limited time with her father, and concluded that overnight visits should begin three months from the date of the hearing.

Five months, turn that faucet off, folks!  Right?

Department of Human Nutrition and LMC Centre for Advanced Food Studies, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

There are differences between at what age industrialized countries recommend that cow’s milk can be introduced to infants. Most countries recommend waiting until 12 months of age, but according to recommendations from some countries (e.g. Canada, Sweden and Denmark) cow’s milk can be introduced from 9 or 10 months. The main reason for delaying introduction is to prevent iron deficiency as cow’s milk is a poor iron source. In one study mainly milk intake above 500 ml/day caused iron deficiency. Cow’s milk has a very low content of linoleic acid (LA), but a more favorable LA/alpha-linolenic ratio, which is likely to be the reason why red blood cell docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) levels seem to be more favorable in infants drinking cow’s milk compared to infants drinking infant formula that is not supplemented with DHA. It has been suggested that cow’s milk intake can affect the later risk of obesity, blood pressure and linear growth, but the evidence is not convincing. There are also considerable differences in recommendations on at what age cow’s milk with reduced fat intake can be introduced. The main consideration is that low-fat milk might limit energy intake and thereby growth, but the potential effects on development of early obesity should also be considered. Recommendations about the age for introduction of cow’s milk should take into consideration traditions and feeding patterns in the population, especially the intake of iron and long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids and should also give recommendations on the volume of milk.

**Perhaps instincts, observation, judgment might play a role?  Perhaps the father’s substantial income was a factor in his failing to realize that waiting can be a virtue, at times?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Object lesson:

Show a 2nd grader a picture of a calf and a baby.  Now ask the 2nd grader what the calf eats (grass).  Then ask the same child where milk comes from (“cows.”)  Ask them to talk about the differences between a Cow and a Person.  Pick a female dairy cow for the example.

Object lesson, courtesy Google Search on this phrase:

The Milk Of Human Kindness: Uses For Human Breast Milk

Every year, the citizens of the United States drink on average 21 gallons of milk. Most of this milk is from cows. Ever since I heard that PETA wanted Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream to use human milk, I have been researching about the advantages and uses of it. Here is what I have come up with.

{{I think this is actually worth a post.  Yes, I sucked onto this thread of thought and am not letting go until

What a nice comic break– some posts are “no-brainers,” when their subject matter clearly already is.  Just show the article and have a bit of fun.  

A certain  sense of personal wellbeing (admittedly not very empathetic), comes from realizing that even YOU, had YOu been judge (or, legislator) wouldn’t have been that inane, or cruel to a little, nonambulatory child as to switch its diet, regularly, and hope its intestines and still-plastic brain can figure it out:  is it time to suck (and what), or to sit in a carseat, unnurtured by either male chest or female breast, for 3 hours at a time?

With nipple confusion beginning for age one, ADHD is sure to follow by the time he gets to Australia’s equivalent of Early Early Head Start.

On the bright side, if the worldwide intent is to produce confused, passive, detached kids, adolescents, and adults (perchance,lawmakers?), who can’t digest food right, let alone information, this WOULD be the way to go.  Get ’em before they know who Mom is.  Or Dad.

Meanwhile, “Part I of II” on ‘Who’s Funding My Goverment?” is still forthcoming;

I have been researching.  Some leads were hot, some were disconnected.

Court-ordered dysfunction does not, really, proceed from well-intentioned intelligent weighing of right vs. wrong, but rather pays versus doesn’t pay.  Just imagine the parenting coordinator business that will come from these scenarios.  Child winds up with digestive problems, or a split personality, because Dad can blame Mom for breastfeeding (Breastfeeding as Parental Alienation?) and Mom can blame Dad for compromising baby’s long-term mental and physical health (and be closer to the truth, on that one).  More business for civil litigation.  Will he get lowered child support payments becauase he actually has to PURCHASE nutrition for the little one?  

The possibilities are endless, which of course is the point.