I posted the image above on Facebook and got the following response:
You want to spend 10 months carrying a fetus to a live birth… You should be expected to breastfeed to at least 2 years, you should be expected to baby wear – PERIOD. You should also demand paid maternity leave, expect an extra stipend for staying home with your child and have the support group of other Moms and professionals so new Moms don’t feel isolated…
I’ve been a hardcore feminist for over 20 years… You don’t demean or belittle the huge and amazing aspects of womanhood and motherhood to get equality – because then you are making women act like men. You support, praise, expect and demand monetary value for what women do – to gain equality. Don’t make women feel they need to sublimate or cast off their Motherly instincts to be equal- that is just as damaging as the Patriarchy’s demand to pigeon hole women.
Way to miss the point, Pamela!
[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]In natural parenting, the only good mothers are powerless mothers.[/pullquote]
I’ve been a hardcore feminist for more than 50 years and feminism is all about situating women’s worth in their intellect, talents and character, not their reproductive organs. Natural parenting, in contrast, believes that women (but not men) must be reduced to recapitulating their lowly status in nature.
Feminism is all about autonomy for women, letting them make their own decisions. It is most emphatically NOT about using pregnancy and infancy as excuses to restrict, control and disempower women.
Wake up, Pamela! Natural parenting has nothing to do with what’s good for babies and everything to do with fear of women’s emancipation. Those who are afraid of women holding political and economic power think they can force them back into the home by setting up so many rules around motherhood that the only “good” mothers are powerless mothers. And you’ve fallen for it, Pamela.
- When was the last time you saw people claiming that “good” fathers demonstrate their love for their wives and children by killing game animals and dragging them home?
- When was the last time you saw men escorted out of the delivery room because traditional societies do not allow fathers at childbirth?
- Where are the restrictions on what men can consume, justified by the desire to keep their sperm safe for maximum fertility?
- When was the last time you saw fathers harassing each other over who is the more natural father?
Never, right? And that’s not a coincidence.
It would be bad enough if Pamela were just a random vicious natural parenting advocate, but Pamela is a nurse. A nurse who had this to say about infant formula:
Can’t argue with facts- even when you may feel guilt about a failure.
Chemical compounds, synthetic ingredients and hard to digest vitamin and mineral sludge isn’t normal, isn’t great… It is abnormal and inferior nutrition- which thankfully is enough to allow a baby to survive on it.
You know what’s normal, Pamela, my friend? Women who can’t produce enough breastmilk to fully nourish an infant (5-15% or women) is normal, too. And that normally leads to dehydration, seizures and death. It’s so normal that it happens every day around the world.
The “Nature” of our pre-historic ancestors was not the Garden of Eden; it was a garden of horrors. Get bitten by a predator … die. Bleed excessively in childbirth … die. Get a childhood illness … die. The NORMAL life expectancy in nature was only 35 years. It’s entirely unnatural to live to 70, 80 or 90 as people do now.
Why, Pamela, do you get to pick and choose what aspects of life in nature women must be forced to recapitulate? There were no nurses receiving monetary compensation for careers outside the home in nature. So why is it okay for you to have a career? There were no people living in houses, using central heating and air conditioning and driving to their jobs in cars in nature. So why is it okay for you to live in a house with central heating, wear clothes and drive a car?
Most importantly, there were no people using computers to communicate with others across the country and around the world. What are you doing on the internet promoting the virtues of natural parenting, Pamela, when the internet is entirely unnatural?
Open your eyes, Pamela. Natural parenting is not about parenting in nature since that was filled with disease, disability and death. Natural parenting is a way of judging women by the functions of their reproductive organs, reducing women to nothing more than the chattel of men.
It may be natural, but it sure as hell isn’t feminist.
