We interrupt this regularly scheduled blog for a word from the shameless plug department:
It is indicative of how preoccupied I have been these last couple of months that I am only now posting this when I received my copy at the beginning of February. That being said, I am still very, very, very excited!
La Leche League International's new book on working and breastfeeding is now available and guess what?
I am Texas.
The book tells the stories of mothers who combine breastfeeding and working from all over the world....including mine, from Texas! I am so excited that you would think I had written the whole book instead of one tiny story in it!
The book, edited by Jennifer Hicks, is called Hirkani's Daughters: Women Who Scale Modern Mountains to Combine Breastfeeding and Working. There are many wonderful stories in it - much better than mine - and I feel honored to be part of such an important book. I think the book marks an important moment in the herstory of La Leche League, an organization that has helped so many mothers and babies. La Leche League has probably always offered more assistance to families in combining work and breastfeeding than any other organization on the planet, but it has always been done a bit wistfully, in my opinion, as though there were hopes that such help would not always be needed. With this book, I think La Leche League acknowledges that work is where most mothers of babies are likely to be found across the world, so working mothers are not just a special group to help, but a main constituency, and that helping them will always be a main part of what LLL does. The book offers women's stories, information about laws all over the world and advocacy information. I hope you like it!
4 comments:
Huzzah! Go you.:)
Nice to meet you, Texas. I'm Page 68 myself. I'm supposed to be North Carolina but they listed my state as Georgia. Oh well, mistakes will happen on such an undertaking.
I was Googling the book because I wanted to send someone a link, when I found you. We are no longer on amazon, and I am very upset! The LLL website is down again as well.
I reread your chapter, my fellow pumping queen. As you say in your post here, LLL does need to focus more on the needs and contributions of working mothers. There is an undercurrent of prejudice against working mothers, and most of the Leaders are SAHMs, so they only have booklearnin' when it comes to counseling on working and breastfeeding. That's why I became a Leader, and that's why this book is a great start. It should be helpful to working moms as well as the LLL Leaders themselves.
I thought when they solicited submissions for the book, they would include only excerpts like in THE WOMANLY ART. I was pleasantly surprised to see my entire essay (only slightly edited). I haven't quite finished the book - I'm up to Europe - though I did jump ahead to the information at the end.
I love the way it's just women telling their stories - the epitome of LLL's mother-to-mother support. The stories are touching, alternatively funny and sad and frustrating. Pretty embarrassing how the US has like the worst benefits (read: none) of any country included. And me a Republican.
Feel free to write me back. In case the links don't work right, my email is maryjoan@conninc.com. I too have a blog that I occasionally update on blogspot,
windowonthewest. It's kind of kooky, but that's what blogs are for, right? I have yet to review the book, but I hope to eventually.
Hi! How great to kind of meet you, fellow pumping queen! What a sort of amazing way to meet folks! Thanks for posting! I don't get to travel these days so I don't get to go to any of the cool events but maybe more of us will met like this. I'll check out your blog!
Hi, nice to find you. I'm page 153 :) I was so glad, that I've named my blog "Hirkani - mother can do it all" :)
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