Broken

[mamagotcha]

In the "duh" department: Cesareans can harm lung growth

But this won't affect THAT many moms... only 30.1% of US women will have c-sections.

And obviously the "Just Say No" abstinence campaign of the current administration is working beautifully. Right up there with those Purity Pledges (88% of the Pledged Pure had sex before marriage; increased oral/anal activity; pledges waited an average of 18 months more than unpledged kids to engage in sexual behavior).

And when Mom has to go back to work, at least she can use artifical hands to cuddle her baby. This product makes me sick to my stomach!

On the home front, the same right-wing Xian fanatics that launched a grand jury attack on magazines and dildos have started the same process to harass Planned Parenthood.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, between the 1950s and the mid-1990s, the overall death rate for children in the US declined... yet during that same period, the violent death rates more than tripled: "...the United States has the highest rates of childhood homicide, suicide, and firearm-related death among industrialized countries."

Parents represent the greatest risk of violent death to US children: "Among children under age 5 years in the United States who were murdered in the last quarter of the 20th century, 61% were killed by their own parents: 30% were killed by their mothers, and 31% by their fathers."

Missouri and Kansas rate fifth and sixth worst among the 50 states regarding child well-being. More children are abused, beaten, starved, raped and murdered here than in most other states (only Connecticut, Arizona, Nebraska and DC did worse).

That's why I wanted to work on that parenting magazine. I wanted to support families who choose to conscientiously birth and raise their children in a way that gives them a secure and safe start to their lives. I think that we're too scared of treading on tender sensibilities and hurting peoples' feelings when, instead of being all PC, we should be outraged that it's OK in our national culture to do so much damage to our kids. Worse than OK... it's encouraged, and if you go against the prevailing attitude, you're considered an oddity.

There is something badly broken here in America. Living in the Midwest has only brought it into sharper focus for me. I only hope that I can contribute to the healing, or at the very least, slowing down the rate of injury.

I think this is one of the biggest reasons I cannot tolerate living here much longer.

Comments

[cheesepuppet.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what to say. I guess I'm incredibly horrified, as someone who had two c-sections (one emergency, the second elective), to be told I'm in the same camp as right wing christian fanatics and parents who murder/rape/abuse their kids.

I guess you don't think I'm being conscientious about raising my kids? I have no idea what you must think of me, but it can't be good. I'm not going to defend my decision here, because I don't think I should have to, or that any woman should. I think the propaganda that women who have c-sections don't care about their children is both stupid and shameful. Some of us watched our kids almost die getting born the "natural" way. Whatever.

[jinxleah.livejournal.com]

I knew that I'd moved to the wrong place before the ink was even dry on my lease. My brother-in-law and I had gone to a Memorial Day family picnic, Zig's Pig, last year and a plane flew overhead with an anti-abortion banner, complete with full color bloody abortion picture on it. Yup, I might have made a mistake! I still can't believe that someone had the balls to fly that over a Memorial Day picnic with kids around.

But...Zig's Pig is a great event. Everyone from bikers to hippies to rednecks and everything in between. All races creeds and maybe even religions. Always at least two bands and everyone happy and smiling. Its one of the events the I'm going to try to make it back up to when I move back down to Austin.

[via-lens.livejournal.com]

I don't know why some parents have so little regard for their children's well-being, but I do know that many parents all around the world and here in the US, and even in Missouri, love their children with a love that knows no bounds.

And frankly, if you start out your parenting career with that basic tenet, there are lots of things you can do differently, either from the norm or from what other people think is the only right way to raise your children, and still be a good parent.

I think it's important to remember, too, that people who were born during the years of Twilight Sleep and raised on formula because pediatricians wanted to be able to know exactly how much of what nutrient was going into each baby at what time are now some of the women who waited until they were in their 40s to have babies. In the 60s and 70s the assumption was that science could triumph over nature. Now we're trying to find our way back to balance again. The pendulum doesn't have to swing all the way back in order for it to be progress.

I was born by C-section. I was fed formula. I went to daycare, and I attended public school. And my parents wanted a baby more than anything, and they loved me more than anything else in the world, and I never doubted that. I turned out pretty well.

But maybe for people who are less sure about being ready to have children, who feel like they have no other options, having all of that medical and scientific intervention serves to make it easier for them to distance themselves from their progeny.

[genderfur.livejournal.com]

You said this: I wanted to support families who choose to conscientiously birth and raise their children in a way that gives them a secure and safe start to their lives.

You don't state what the families' choices need to be, just that they should give the children a "secure and safe start to their lives". It seems very hard to argue with that statement.

And yet some of your commentors seem to be projecting a *lot* of judgement into your posting. I know that moms get hit with outrageous amount of that from outsiders, but I don't see it in your posting. All I can say in reply to them is, "Wow."