The Challenges Of Single Working Mothers

I could have titled this post "The Challenges of Single Working Parents" so that it becomes more inclusive. Reflecting the travails of single working fathers out there raising their children on their own. Because you know they exist. 

The fact is there are way more single working mothers around the world than there are single fathers. Because in many cases the mother is often the primary caregiver. 

This is not to take away from the single fathers that are primary custodians, kudos guys! I click my stilettos in admiration.
Before my critics swoop in, yes, I have often been criticized for championing the causes of women.  Let's face it, all around the world, women still have limited rights. It is still a man's world, Minstrels still sing about it.

Parenting is the hardest job on earth, nothing prepares you for it. You have to be a parent to understand the struggles of another parent. No one who is not a parent can fathom the travails that lie in the underbelly of being a parent and I mean a "Hands-on Parent".

This past week there was a furor about a college professor at the American University, whose baby was sick, so could not be at a daycare center, and she brought the baby to class.
Absolutely nothing wrong with that, I have taken my child to work more times than I can remember. At some point, every working single mother does. Because sometimes, you just cannot get a babysitter, or your babysitter has an emergency, with no backup care, and you have to be at work.
 

Your only alternative is to take your child with you wherever you go.
So Prof. Adrienne Pine takes her sick infant to class and during a lecture, the baby starts to fuss and she had to breastfeed it. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. Breastfeeding a baby is the most natural thing in the world like the sun rising in the East and setting in the West.
 

Some have criticized her and I think it's wrong. 
Breastfeeding a child is the most natural thing in the universe and anyone who cannot understand that needs to grow up!
Could the Professor have interrupted the class to go somewhere else to nurse her baby, I really do not think that was necessary? 

Pine, angered that her actions were seen as provocative, fired back -- hard saying she was "annoyed that this would be considered newsworthy" and that she "had no intention of making a political statement or shocking students. I merely had a sick baby who I couldn't leave at daycare on the first day of class. As it turned out, the baby got hungry, so I had to feed it during the lecture. End of story."

More times than I remember I have had a patient breastfeed her baby while we are in the middle of an eye examination, not an ideal situation but when a baby starts to fuss, a mother has to give her the required attention.

Our society needs to cut single working mothers' slack. Especially when it comes to breastfeeding an infant. In Africa, no one would bat an eyelid over a mother breastfeeding a baby no matter where. 

In the West, especially the United States, sometimes you would think people are scared of the woman's breasts as being a source of nourishment for the next generation, except when it is emblazoned on billboards, the front pages of  Sports Illustrated, and Playboy magazines.

 The primary purpose of a woman's breasts is surely to nourish babies. Feed the next generation, and propagate nature. Let's hope that when next you see a woman breastfeeding a baby, you act as normal as you should. It is the most natural thing in the world