Michelle Tant

This year has felt like one attack after another on breastfeeding. There's been the ongoing Facebook debacle; photos of breastfeeding being removed while Playboys pages are continued to be allowed to flaunt more flesh than a whole convention of breastfeeding mothers. Then there was the ridiculous opinion piece in the British Medical Journal which many newspapers, including The Daily Fail regurgitated as fact, further undermining the benefits of breastfeeding. Just this week I saw a short piece in Practical Parenting magazine about the Chinese developing GM cows to produce human milk! One sentence says the milk will have more nutritional content in it, though its unclear whether it means than breastmilk or than formula milk. And now this. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/campaigners-livid-as-whitehall-axes-breastfeeding-week-2287445.html Our beloved government in its wisdom has cut national support for National Breastfeeding ...

It says on BBC news website today that our dear Prime Minister wants to know how happy we all are. My first instinct to that was to question whether he cares at all, then I thought I'd read it to give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps his election promises stood for something after all. Perhaps he really does care about the state of the family. He starts well... "He said the government's "most urgent priority is to get the economy moving, to create jobs, to spread opportunity for everyone". "Without a job that pays a decent wage it is hard for people to look after their families in the way that they want, whether that's taking the children on holiday or making your home a more comfortable place. "Without money in your pocket it is difficult to do so many of the things that we enjoy." But he said the government also had to focus on the long-term and he said "the country would be better off if we thought about well-being as...

I have a year of changes coming up and I find I am wandering aimlessly around the internet looking for that elusive magical opportunity that will immediately strike me as being possible and interesting enough to motivate me. First major life change is having the baby. This brings the total to three. At the time she is born, I will have 3 under 5 years old and while we planned it to be so, it brings up certain challenges about childcare etc, life balance, why did we have children etc. We love being a family and so what we really want it to be able to spend more time with said family. I also enjoy working. That is, I love interacting with people, the stimulation is necessary for my emotional wellbeing and stability. I don't rely on them for my happiness but I do rely on adult interaction for a well rounded sanity level to be maintained. So while I don't RELY on them, people make me happy (and sad, but thats another rambling for another posted blog). So my other major change is th...