It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.
I’m referring, of course, to my ongoing effort to reveal American homebirth midwives (CPMs, LMs, lay midwives) for the pathetic, incompetent, ignorant fools that they are. In that endeavor I have no greater ally than homebirth midwives themselves.
Case in point: this website and e-book entitled Birth – What’s in it for me?
I couldn’t have come up with a better satire of the narcissism of homebirth no matter how hard I tried. The problem? It’s not a satire. It’s the product of Deb Puterbaugh CPM.
Who is Deb? According to the website of one of her many projects:
Deb Puterbaugh is an interior designer, retired midwife, social activist, mother and grandmother who brings years of experience in both birth and design to your project.
With her dedication to human evolution, women’s empowerment, and cultural change, Deb practiced midwifery from 1977 to 1995 in both Alaska and Santa Cruz, California. After retirement in 1995 she earned a degree in interior design and for the last 15 years her company, B. Design Inc., has created nurturing environments for both commercial and residential clients…
Actually, Deb is yet another avatar of the silliness, stupidity and narcissism that characterizes homebirth midwifery. Let’s take a look at the introduction to her site, shall we?
Let’s Begin With a Definition of Reality
To have a scientific and intellectually significant conversation about birth procedures and customs in the world we are living in (the first world industrialized corporate world) it is necessary to understand the significates of culture on the social morays (sic) and reality of the birth women who are living in these cultures…
O tempora! O mores!
The first world industrialized corporate world? The world where Deb Puterbaugh is an interior designed of birth centers? Apparently. That same world where Puterbaugh is also a feminist anti-rationalist.
Deb’s website is a veritable cornucopia of nonsensical claims meant to sound deeply philosophical:
You are literally creating the future of humanity … ONE BABY AT A TIME!
Which means what, precisely?
I suggest that most of the pathology we are seeing surrounding fertility and childbirth is culturally created.
All those mothers and babies who died in childbirth since the beginning of time were duped. They weren’t really dead, they only thought they were dead due to the pernicious influence of culture.
And, my personal favorite:
I ask you to ask yourself this question; BIRTH, what is in it for me?
Ummm, Deb. Come closer and let me whisper in your ear:
What’s in it for you? THE BABY, YOU FOOL!!
In your entire 764 word definition of reality in the context of childbirth you don’t mention the word baby even once! Are you truly so narcissistic and desperate for self-affirmation that you think that birth is about you and what’s “in it” for you, and not about the baby?
I guess you do, and I am truly grateful for this demonstration of the “thinking” of homebirth advocates. I can only tell people that homebirth midwives are silly, self-important, narcissistic fools, but you can prove it.
