Friday, August 25, 2006

Bottles are for dummies (INQ7.net)

CHILDREN of breast-feeding mothers, it has been observed, follow suit by "breastfeeding" their dolls. "Hopefully," writes the NGO, Children for Breastfeeding, "this will instill in their young minds that breastfeeding is the most natural and beautiful way of nurturing, when they become parents themselves."

I don't remember "breast-feeding" dolls when I was a child, but I do remember that brand-new "infant" dolls came with a tiny plastic bottle and nipple enclosed in the shiny packaging. We used to think it a hoot that you could fill the bottle with water and see water seep out of the baby "down there" a few minutes later.

I'm almost sure I was bottle-fed, not just because I am the sixth of nine children, but also because, by then, my parents had decided to relocate to Manila and Mama was well on her way to becoming a "Manila" matron, determined to jettison all traces of the "probinsyana" [provincial lass] she had been. And part of the process of becoming citified was giving birth in a hospital instead of at home, and then adopting the "modern"
practice of bottle-feeding.



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