Quick Links: motherhood in the US, breastfeeding in Niger

Two quick links for you today, both things I’ve been reading and really agree with.

First there’s this insightful, smart piece (by a fellow alumna of my high school, incidentally) about how our modern society glorifies and vilifies mothers, while holding fathers to an entirely different–possibly non-existent?–standard; the case study at hand is the new and apparently hugely popular book Go the F— to Sleep!. I completely agree that this book could not have been written by a woman–a “mom”–and received the same applause.

Then there’s this piece by a teacher accompanying Nick Kristof on his latest journey, about traditional birth attendants and breastfeeding rates in Niger. I think Kristof and Connolly are a bit too harsh on traditional birth attendants at the beginning of this piece and in other things I’ve read by him, but by the end of this piece, Connolly really comes around and writes a heart-warming (yes, cliches and all) post on breastfeeding.

–Christina

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