Being Present

I am coming to the realization that being present in your own life, in your own experiences and choices is vital. By taking responsibility and being accountable for all of your actions, you empower yourself.

Being a parent means that you now have complete responsibility for the life (not just childhood!) of another person! It is not something to be take upon lightly or pushed aside as unimportant.

Just in becoming a parent you either choose to have a child or you create one unintentionally. That single act in itself can change everything. It can change the way that the child is raised and parented. Because each one of my children has been fully planned and intentional, I feel that it makes them a more accepted part of my life. I started their existence with intention and continue to make choices about their lives with the same degree of intent.

Birth can be something that you choose to control or you can choose to pass the reigns off to someone else, usually a doctor, like most women do. You can take charge of this experience and make it what you want it to be (at least as much as you can influence yourself), or you can just stay along for the ride and risk becoming a "victim" of the system or worse, your child becoming a true victim of it.

The choices a parent makes are sometimes unclear and uncut but they are choices none-the-less. Take the choice of giving your child her birthright of your milk or giving her highly processed artificial milk. I have encountered women who have told me that they never even considered breastfeeding, like it wasn't an option for some reason. I don't get that. You have a baby and your milk comes in. You choose whether or not to put that baby to your breast and it is fully intentional, whether they admit it or not. Most women have to go through the pain of engorgement and the nuisance of unwanted milk until the body finally gives up and stops producing.

To empower yourself means to educate yourself on the subject and then proceed to make an informed decision. Read about crying it out! Read about home-birth! Read about starting solids or spanking or birth control! Whatever it is, if you take the time to find out about your options and the truths behind them, you are empowering yourself to be present in these decisions and to make better decisions. When it is your children on the line, it is too important and impactful to neglect consideration.

Fact: women who are educated are much more likely to breastfeed because they are aware of the benefits of it as well as the risks of artificial feeding. This just makes sense. Gain knowledge; take it and make a smart choice!