You may have seen already the story of the mother who is being held in contempt of court for bringing her 5-month-old son to jury duty. She applied for an exemption that was denied. Without childcare and needing to feed her son who will not take a bottle, she brought him with her. (As I understand it, this was not a trial, but jury selection - if someone knows more, please correct me if Im wrong.) This case is infuriating. Ill link to a story in the comments, & to Paa.las post which includes info on a peaceful protest at the court house. In the news piece below, one attorney says that the mother should teach her baby to take a bottle like most working moms do. Most moms, working or not, dont breastfeed, at least not to 5 months, so thats grossly inaccurate. Just under half of all mothers in the U.S. are breastfeeding at all at 6 months & only 16.4% are meeting recommendations to exclusively breastfeed at 6 months. The mother in question is a stay-at-home mom. Why should she have to make her baby take a bottle? There is a brief window of time to introduce a bottle. Not all babies will accept a bottle, especially if that window is missed. None of my sons ever would, and since I stay home, its been a non-issue. I am disgusted by the attorney, and even more so by the judge. I hope the attention it brings will help him to gain a better understanding of the support mothers need to meet the needs of their babies, and that the charges against the mother will be dropped. I also hope the attention to this case will bring about legislation in more states (or federally even) to exempt breastfeeding mothers from jury duty. This would be a good time to contact your legislators and ask them to author/sponsor such a bill. See third comment for Jake Marcus website where you can look up your states breastfeeding laws.
Posted on: Tue, 22 Oct 2013 14:02:07 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015