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Dear Breastfeeding Advocates,
Happy Spring! And yippee for the abundance of rain that is coming down on us. April showers will surely bring May flowers as well as trees and shrubs and weeds and maybe even send some water down to refill our Ogallala Aquifer!
Likewise, I hope that you find Spring refreshing and refilling. Sometimes it can seem that we have been doing the work of supporting breastfeeding all our lives, to not much avail. You talk with and listen to potential parents and care-givers. They say they will breastfeed, and then they don’t. You talk with businesses and they agree to support breastfeeding, and then when you visit them a month later, they do not have a breastfeeding welcome here decal anywhere and actually cannot find it. And the birthing hospital in your community is just not interested – or able – to entertain a conversation about being breastfeeding friendly. But you keep working and working because we know that for those who are able, breast milk is a miracle first food for human and other mammal babies.
And as you keep working away, attending training, listening to webinars, participating in Section meetings and volunteering on local breastfeeding coalitions, along comes Spring with a breath of fresh air and energy. Spring comes in the form of the actual season – rain, warmth, sun and allergens. Spring also comes in the form of fellow humans. Someone says something that you have not quite heard that way before … or says something that gives you insight into yourself or how you interact with others. Or the breath of fresh air may be the indefatigable Stephanie Henry cheering us all on even as she finds time to pull together presentations for us all. Isn’t Spring great? And aren’t our fellow humans just a burst of Spring?
So just to make sure you do not miss anything, let’s listen to each other with grace and complete openness. See that differently-colored flower in your coworker. Sense that beautiful scent with which you are unfamiliar, in your fellow volunteer. Sometimes my best experiences are the new ones. Do you find that to be true too? There is absolutely something to be said for the familiar. It is the stuff of a song that my mother used to sing and that I grew up singing too – “Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.”
As we go through Spring and head toward Summer, keep an eye and ear and mind out and open for the new and unfamiliar. Rather than trying to change it to what is familiar to you, be open to how you can take it in … to be an even better human, and an even more supportive and effective breastfeeding advocate. Let’s make Kansas the place where breastfeeding is the easy choice because of the environments we help create with our openness.
Have a wonderful day and week and month. See you at our General Meeting Friday, May 12th at noon! And any time in one or more of our Section meetings of local coalitions!
Gratefully and sincerely,
Susan Lukwago
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