Serving doubles at the breastfeeding bar, straight up with a twist of peaceful parenting.
This weekend, I joined with advocates from across the nation to Chalk The Walk with our favorite peaceful parenting messages.
As always, this is a family-friendly event and all ages are welcome to participate. Perfect for us — especially this time with a 1.5-day-old baby and a 3.5-year-old kiddo in tow!
A variety of peaceful parenting topics were on display: Informed birth choice, breastfeeding, nighttime parenting (no CIO), cloth diapering, babywearing, gentle ‘discipline’, genital autonomy…
Last weekend I hosted a Peaceful Parenting table for Intact Houston/Intact Texas, local chapters for Saving Our Sons (the not-for-profit organization Peaceful Parenting/Dr. Momma‘s focus on circumcision).
My challenge was to include genital autonomy as one crucial component of the peaceful parenting lifestyle … without calling it by name.
I had spoken with a marketing director at my local Babies ‘R’ Us about setting up inside the store to hand out information. After browsing the Dr. Momma web site, she said she’d love to have us there. In fact, as a company they’re very welcoming toward many of the topics mentioned, she explained. Ones like co-sleeping, breastfeeding (they hold regular classes there for newbies) and child-led weaning, babywearing (regular classes at Babies ‘R’ Us for this too), encouragement of gentle discipline and alternatives to punitive parenting (i.e. spanking and crying-it-out) and so on.
But…(there’s always a but, isn’t there?)
So you breastfeed. And your child loves it… and you love it… but what else is there after, you know, weaning? How else can you share this overflowing passion in your heart? If your fondness for natural child nurturing goes beyond summer fling status, perhaps you’ve found your calling. Here are a few ideas that just might be the answer for you.
I spent most of this weekend with The Designated Dad talking to people about circumcision — mainly the two most common types in our country, which are neonatal male “medical” circumcisions in hospitals and religious circumcisions with mohels.
Our location: B.I.R.T.H. Fair (the acronym stands for “Bringing Information and Resources to Houston”), which is a hugely popular event that features more than sixty vendors, speaker sessions, giveaways, and education about pregnancy, birth, and parenting.
Our mission: Make it easier for people in our area to know better so they can do better… the result of which would see them bringing their whole babies home ❤
Read on for a collection of memorable stories and interactions from our day at the event.
1.) TRIVIA TIME
Post breastfeeding trivia on your social media. Here are a few fun fact categories to start you off:
2). SAY THANKS TO MOMS
Thank a mother for breastfeeding. Put one of these cards in the hands of a mother you see nursing in public — or if you’re the shy type, leave it on the windshield of her car or tell her “I think you dropped this” before scampering off. So long as she gets the message, mission accomplished!
Check out a selection of cards here (Spanish version also available).
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling to legalize gay marriage gave men and women who desire same-sex partnership the right to autonomy of their hearts.
Well-deserved, the celebration owed to this phenomenal development should last at least as long as the history of gay injustice. Still we cannot help but see this historical moment as a telling reminder: we’ve only just taken the first steps toward ending a collection of outdated oppressions targeting LGBT people in America.
The protection of a particular other human right is still withheld from a significant portion of the gay community (and their straight supporters and non-supporters alike).
650 million males currently living worldwide are victims of genital cutting (compared to 100 million victims of female genital cutting). In the United States, more than a million boys are cut every year; about 3,000 every day. Based on the (probably low) estimate that about 10% of the population identifies with being primarily homosexual, that means 65 million gay males have been circumcised.
Mama's Milk, No Chaser 