Going to the library

A big event in our household is going to the library. I take Natalie with me and we go to the computer to look up books -- usually she asks to look up dinosaur books or she wants to look up one of her favorite books, Go Away Big Green Monster. What I usually do is do some research on books I would like to introduce to her and I order them online through our County's library web site, and then we pick them up.

So I was reading a recent issue of Child magazine and there was an article about a book titled Home Alone America by Mary Eberstadt. It was supposed to be a "warning" book about how much damage we are doing to children in America by "abandoning" them to daycare/family care, etc. Just the sort of thing to get me riled up, right? Well, I (somewhat foolishly, I guess) checked the book out of the library. I started reading it and after I picked myself up off the floor from the "no one breastfeeds their babies when they go to daycare" diatribe, I wanted to do a formal, scholarly critique of the darn thing. But then I came across 11D's great analysis thanks to mention of it on a DC Working Moms email list that I subscribe to.

I breastfed my daughter until she was 14 months old and I am still nursing my son. Yes, it is possible to breastfeed a baby that goes to daycare. How about thanking all of those employers out there (including my own) that opt to sponsor high quality on-site or near-site child care facilities for the benefit of their employees and their employees' families?!!!