The Bauhauswife Blog

Looking down at my two-month old baby as he nurses hungrily, and then, hours later, collapses on my breast in a stupor, all I feel is gratitude. I am so lucky.  As a culture, I believe we drastically misunderstand the importance of the breastfeeding relationship as simply a delivery system for what is arguably the nutritional "best". Instead, it’s my profound conviction that the actual food infants receive from their mothers is only a small part of a countless number of aggregate needs that breastfeeding fulfils, including physical warmth, love, care, socialization, relationship, the basis for a healthy sexuality, the...

Last night we trekked to Killarney lake at dusk and stayed till dark, building sand castles and moats and swimming under starlight—drinking in the dregs of summer to the very last. • It was so late and everyone was so tired when we finally arrived back home (a couple of kids fell asleep in the van), that we went to bed grubby, and woke up late this morning, remembering just in time that the boys had early appointments at the barber shop for back to school haircuts, and we had to pick up our vegetable order from the CSA. •...

The end of August feels like change, but of course, everything changes, all the time.  What did you do last summer? I went to the beach, made some art, did a lot of birth work, edited part of what is proving to be an enormous book, and nursed my beautiful baby, Ignatius, who is delightful, sweet, smart, serious, funny, cuddly, and lovely, and astonishingly, two months old already.  We also spent the last week hosting two houseguests—the beloved young children of one of my very best friends, who is on a healing journey and needed a break from full-on mothering. ...

Recently, in my province of New Brunswick, Canada, a nurse in the city of Moncton was recently "fired over suspicions that she gave [pitocin] to patients without their consent." Six friends sent me the CTV article the morning it was published. I guess I'm supposed to be outraged. And I am. It's horrifying. Without their consent!!!! The thing is, I've been outraged about this for twenty years.  Because the “consent” medical personnel require to administer pitocin “legitimately” is almost always extracted from women through coercion: either under extreme duress, or manipulated out of them with lies about its necessity and...