[Imc] Good Article (long) Anything Further?

[Paul Kaiser]

Hi all,

I have only been with you guys for about 4 weeks now. I'm getting a good
feel for what's going on in this group and such. I think I will be able
to supply good news from an environmental and human rights perspective.

Anyway, I have a question regarding the following article I have pasted
in here. The article is from the Chicago Tribune, regarding an "abuse"
case here in Champaign. I thought the Tribune article did a good job of
presenting both sides. There is really nothing more that I would add to
this story.

In this type of situation, would we bother to do anything with this
important story, since it has been well represented thus far?

I do know that yesterday (Monday) the judge ruled that "abuse" had taken
place and the boy will not go back to his mother. It remains to be seen
how well any media will cover the trial results. I thought perhaps
trying to interview the woman, or the judge, or DCFS, or ??? I am
looking for your guidance and suggestions.

Here is the article...

// ---------------------------

---Forwarded article----------------
> Mother who breastfeeds boy, 6, faces custody fight
>
> By Sue Ellen Christian <BR>and Julie Deardorff
>
> In an exceptional case, Illinois child protection authorities have
> taken a 6-year-old boy from the custody of a Champaign mother because
> she was still breastfeeding him, allegedly against his wishes.
>
> In the view of the mother fighting for the return of her only child,
> the battle pits American norms about parenting against her right to
> raise her son as she sees fit—a style that includes allowing the
> boy to choose when he quits nursing.
>
> To state child welfare officials, the case is about abuse.
>
> Authorities at the Department of Children and Family Services took the

> boy from the 32-year-old woman's home after a baby-sitter called an
> abuse hot line and the child subsequently told investigators that he
> no longer wanted to breastfeed, they said. The mother says she told
> investigators her son never indicated he didn't want to nurse and that

> she would continue to breastfeed as long as her son wished.
>
> The agency has determined that the child's living situation
> constitutes sexual molestation and risk of harm.
>
> "Breastfeeding a child is not the issue," says Deborah Kennedy, DCFS
> regional administrator in the central region. "It's after he has
> stated that it is unwanted and she had that information and didn't
> indicate she would halt that activity ... then you have unwanted
> behavior on his part and that constitutes abuse."
>
> She added: "In general, any contact between a sexual organ against the

> will of the child constitutes abuse ... because it's breastfeeding,
> it's a sensitive issue."
>
> On Monday, final arguments are scheduled in the family court case in
> Champaign County, which alleges emotional harm to the boy. The case is

> to determine whether the boy was neglected or abused and whether he
> should return home to his mother.
>
> The mother says the misguided case is based on society's narrow ideas
> about what constitutes good parenting.
>
> Research shows that while rare, it is not unheard of for a child to be

> nursing at 6.
>
> Indeed, some pediatricians and child-rearing experts have come to
> espouse a revival of old parenting practices, such as extended
> breastfeeding and sleeping in the same bed with children—what
> some call "co-sleeping."
>
> DCFS has said that co-sleeping was a factor in its decision to take
> the child from the home. DCFS investigators say the woman slept naked
> with the boy, which she denies.
>
> "They are saying because you're not practicing Dr. Spock
> American-style parenting, you're a bad mom," says the petite, feisty
> woman who was born on a farm in Downstate Illinois. "What about all
> those places in the world where the family sleeps in one room and that

> is co-sleeping and you're telling me all those people are maladjusted?

> It's cultural bias.
>
> "My son would come to me and ask to nurse," says the woman. "It's not
> sexual. It was a closeness thing. When he's ready for it, he will ask
> to end breastfeeding."
>
> A complete understanding of the case is elusive, in part because not
> all the testimony and evidence is public. The judge in the Champaign
> County case, Ann Einhorn, has refused to release any documents, and
> the state's attorney as well as the lawyer representing the boy refuse

> to discuss the case.
>
> (The Tribune editorial standard is not to name juveniles in
> investigations of sexual abuse, so the names of the child and the
> mother, who have the same last name, have been withheld. In
> interviews, the mother did not request anonymity.)
>
> The woman is the oldest of nine children in a family that she says
> practiced co-sleeping.
>
> Her current home is a two-bedroom, second-floor apartment, cluttered
> with mounds of clothes, toys, newspapers and boxes of food through
> which narrow pathways have been carved. Hoping her son will be home
> for Christmas, she has purchased about a dozen presents—a
> scooter, a book, the game Battleship—which sit stacked on the
> stairs.
>
> The mother works part time at a liquor store and takes continuing
> education classes. She never married the child's father, who now lives

> in Oregon and only recently has instigated contact with the boy. He
> did not return phone calls from the Tribune.
>
> The mother says she practices child-led weaning, which is supported by

> the Schaumburg-based breastfeeding advocacy organization, La Leche
> League International, and allows the child to determine when he or she

> is done nursing.
>
> "My child was weaning himself," she says, "he was nursing for 10
> minutes a day and on weekends a little more. I don't think DCFS has
> any right to be involved in this decision between me and my child."
>
> Natural or the norm?
>
> DCFS documents given to the Tribune by the mother indicate that the
> boy told a child protection investigator that he no longer wanted to
> nurse and had told his mom that; the mother says her son has never
> communicated that to her.
>
> The documents also indicate that the boy told the investigator that he

> still shared a bed with his mother and "sometimes when she does not
> have clean clothes, she sleeps naked." The boy told the investigator
> that he always slept in clothes.
>
> In an interview, the mother says she has not slept with him naked
> since he was around age 3, when she stopped because her son commented
> that she should put some clothes on. Though she has since moved, the
> mother says her son did not have his own room or his own bed in their
> former three-bedroom apartment.
>
> Her parenting style and the way she was raised bring to the fore areas

> of child-rearing that many of today's parents keep private because
> they are not seen as widely acceptable in society, experts say. While
> no researcher supports forcing a child to nurse or co-sleeping naked
> if that creates discomfort for a child, they also say that co-sleeping

> and extended nursing are both perfectly natural—it is society
> that makes them seem unnatural.
>
> Research shows that many women continue to nurse their children well
> beyond infancy.
>
> Katherine Dettwyler, an associate professor of anthropology and
> nutrition at Texas A&M University, conducted a study in the late 1990s

> on 1,280 children whose parents self-reported information about their
> breastfeeding practices. Of the total, 375 children were still nursing

> at age 4, 212 children were nursing at age 5, and 67 children were
> nursing at age 6, according to Dettwyler.
>
> Elizabeth Baldwin, a Miami-based attorney who specializes in
> breastfeeding cases and is an adviser to La Leche League
> International, says "there is nothing wrong with breastfeeding at age
> 6."
>
> "You cannot make a child nurse; either the child has the need or does
> not have the need," Baldwin said. "We have sexualized the breast to
> the point where we assume that it is a sexual thing rather than a tool

> for nursing."
>
> Extended breastfeeding and co-sleeping often go hand-in-hand, experts
> say.
>
> "Other countries wouldn't even know there was a question to be asked
> about where should my baby sleep," said James McKenna, a professor of
> anthropology and the director of a mother-baby behavioral sleep lab at

> the University of Notre Dame. "It is a recent Western concept
> engrained in us, an emphasis on individualism and the idea that it's a

> moral principle that early in life babies and children need to soothe
> themselves."
>
> McKenna added: "In our society, we equate nudity with the potential
> for sexuality. It may not be a sexual act at all in the minds of
> participants; it is externally influenced viewpoints that make it
> so."
>
> He warned, however, that not all co-sleeping arrangements are
> necessarily healthy.
>
> "The benefit of any kind of social behavior is determined by the
> context in which it occurs," McKenna said. "In a healthy human family,

> sleeping arrangements can enhance that which is already good, or it
> could be the case sleeping arrangements can enhance that which is
> already bad."
>
> Focus on boy's reaction
>
> The Champaign case is similar to—but also critically different
> from—a celebrated case out of New York state in 1991. In that
> case Denise Periggo's 3-year-old daughter Cherlyn was taken from her
> because Periggo had strong feelings of sexual arousal when
> breastfeeding.
>
> In the Champaign case, experts are divided on how the nursing was
> affecting the boy.
>
> A report by Champaign forensic psychologist Dr. Marty Traver,who
> evaluated the boy upon referral from Judge Einhorn, described an
> alert, relaxed child who expressed ambivalence about nursing.
>
> "It is clear that [the boy] has suffered some emotional
> problems as a result of his extended nursing," Traver wrote. "Those
> problems however do not appear to rise to the level of abuse unless
> there is evidence that [the boy's] mother nursed him for her
> own gratification."
>
> "The primary detriment from extended nursing in this case, was that
> [the boy] was ashamed of doing so and did not feel socially
> appropriate in doing so," Traver's report states.
>
> "A parent must weigh the damage done by participating in something
> society does not approve of against the positive effects and
> advantages of continuing to do so. In this case, as in many others,
> the parent and child had to keep the continuing breastfeeding a secret

> because of societal disapproval. This sets the child up to keep other
> secrets that he cannot yet understand," the report stated.
>
> Traver also said it was not appropriate for the boy to continue to
> sleep with his mother. "At this age, it would be psychologically
> harmful for him to be in his mother's presence when she is nude. ...
> (The boy) must learn to sleep in his own bed and soothe himself to
> sleep."
>
> But a report by Kate McDougall, a Catholic Social Service social
> worker who is counseling the mother and child, concluded that while
> the mother's "parenting style may be considered somewhat permissive,
> this therapist does not have concerns about [the boy's] safety

> while in her care." McDougall added that she saw no evidence of any
> abuse in the relationship.
>
> The boy "has come to feel ashamed and guilty about breastfeeding as a
> result of his being removed from his mother's care due to their
> nursing. This therapist has concerns that these feelings of shame and
> guilt will be exacerbated by further separation," McDougall wrote in a

> clinical assessment report.
>
> McDougall also stated in her report that she had no concerns about the

> two sleeping in the same bed and recommended the boy be returned
> home.
>
> The woman's public defender, David DeThorne, said Traver's testimony
> stated that the child was embarrassed.
>
> "That shouldn't be a reason the state should get involved," DeThorne
> said. "She was doing something to him outside the norm, and
> [perhaps] he didn't want to—that is open to dispute as
> well."
>
> He added: "Parents should be allowed to make decisions that might be
> out of the norm. Most parents don't breastfeed at age of 6, but it
> doesn't mean it's wrong for the child."
>
> Countered DCFS spokeswoman Martha Allen: "There is a problem when the
> mother is sleeping naked with a 6-year-old; we live in America and we
> have our norms too.
>
> "This is a case that not just DCFS but the state's attorney and judge
> determined was inappropriate and was a form of abuse.
>
> "It's inappropriate for a mother to be breastfeeding a child at 6
> years old and to be sleeping naked with him. The reason DCFS found it
> an issue was we're looking at the area of sexual abuse when we say
> molestation. There is risk of actual and emotional abuse. We are in
> the realm of sexual abuse; that is the reason that we took the child
> out of the mother's care."
>
> On Monday, Judge Einhorn will hear final arguments from both sides in
> the Champaign County case. Einhorn may decide on Monday, or she could
> wait until a later date, to determine whether the boy was neglected or

> abused. If her determination is that the child was abused, another
> hearing will be held to decide whether the child can go home or not,
> and to determine a plan for the mother to get her son back.
>
> Though she wants her son back, the mother also refuses to compromise
> her methods.
>
> "They took my son because I'm not following the DCFS cookbook on
> raising a kid," she says. "It's so outrageous, they need to admit they

> made a mistake and drop it."