Tuesday, January 05, 2016

The Pied Piper

At 7 am on my morning commute, NPR news relayed the new open gun carry laws that go into effect on college campuses. You know, because Sandy Hook never happened. And, since we are not doing anything to help working mothers take the time to bond with their newborns…what difference would it make whether those children are dead or alive anyway?

In conversation with a long-lost school friend over the weekend, it came to light that she (by the way, she holds a degree in Computer Science from UIUC no less, and has patents to her name in attempts to come up with a product idea that she’d hoped would eventually launch her startup – no such luck, she works for a leading bank now) started working from home 2 weeks after her scheduled Caesarean surgery and returned to work full-time a month from that date.

I don’t know what the biology books say about the recuperation of the human body after a surgery, but I have been through 3 by now and can tell you from experience that’s not nearly enough time for a human body and mind to recuperate from invasive surgery. She is obviously a motivated person and wanted to return to work. But, you couldn’t mistake the wistfulness in her voice as she blamed herself for the lack of bonding with her son. She could provide breastmilk to her son for a month after several attempts, stuffing herself with galactogogues and even Reglan, a prescriptive medicine that supposedly enhances lactation. Mothers go above and beyond to protect their children, blame themselves for wanting to have both a career and a home life, and at the end of all that heart-wrenching white-knuckled determination, frustration and hard work….they are supposed to send their children to schools and colleges to be killed by psychos the country doesn’t have the good sense to run mental checks on before issuing gun licenses.

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