Catholic Dads » Chris Lewis

Applebee’s is anti-baby

Chris Lewis — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 02:32:00 +0000

Cross-posted over at RomanCatholicByChoice.com

My wife brought to my attention a story making the rounds on the boards at Mothering.com. A lady and 8 of her kids were at Applebee’s in Lexington, KY, June 14. She had her 7-month-old with her, and he needed a snack. Being a breastfeeder, she began nursing, and her waitress told her that her manager had indicated she needed to cover up (she had requested a corner booth so she would be in a quieter and less public part of the restaurant.) Because it was June, she had nothing to cover up with, so the manager came over and continued the harassment. She presented him a copy of Kentucky breastfeeding laws, showing that legally she was under no obligation to cover up, and what she was doing was completely protected by law. He eventually intimidated her into going out to her van to nurse her child.

She got a lawyer to draw up a letter to that Applebee’s location, which was ignored. A month later, she had another sent to that company that manages that Applebee’s location. The management company responded: “we regret that Ms. Ryan left without being served and would like the opportunity to personally invite her to return” …. “we are also considering keeping blankets in the restaurants for use by breast-feeding mothers that may not have them readily available as a result of this incident.” Talk about not getting it. We’re sorry we discriminated against you, now please come back to our store so we can discriminate against you again.

Anyway, she is gaining increasing media attention and is having a nurse-out at that location (and throughout the country, additional protests are being planned at other Applebee’s locations.) The management company spokesperson apparently commented that she must have a hidden agenda since she carries a copy of breastfeeding law with her (tons of moms do this very thing to present when they are harassed.) Applebee’s corporate responded to her that the manager acted in a “lawful” manner. The company is apparently not interested in even finding out what the law on the subject is in the localities they serve. The story is gaining momentum and has the potential to give Applebee’s a black eye if they don’t respond with a solid policy (one that follows established laws) and an actual apology.

How to sell some Pokemon Cards

Chris Lewis — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 01:08:00 +0000

My DW sent along a link to an eBay auction to me. Here’s the first paragraph of the description of the Pokemon cards up for bid:

I’m selling a bunch of Pokemon cards. Why? Because my kids sneaked them into my shopping cart while at the grocery store and I ended up buying them because I didn’t notice they were there until we got home. How could I have possibly not noticed they were in my cart, you ask? Let me explain.

You haven’t lived until you’ve gone grocery shopping with six kids in tow. I would rather swim, covered in bait, through the English Channel, be a contestant on Fear Factor when they’re having pig brains for lunch, or do fourth grade math than to take my six kids to the grocery store.

From here she goes on to tell the whole story about taking her 6 to the grocery store. She has over 179,000 views of the auction item, and over 800 watchers. She sold the cards for $142.50.
Personally, I think that 2 or 3 will be plenty of blessing for me and my wife…if He gives us more, so be it…

More Catholics in Catholic Schools?

Chris Lewis — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 02:09:00 +0000

Crossposted at RomanCatholicByChoice

H/T to Curt Jester – Australia’s Cardinal Pell says Catholic Schools should:

“re-examine how they might maximise enrolment of Catholic students”.

Also, they should:

increase the proportion of school staff who are “practising and knowledgeable Catholics”.

The general trend here in the southeastern USA, of course, is that Catholic schools are becoming more and more elitist as the tuition keeps going up. Whereas it used to be a community that was mostly Catholic, living in neighborhoods together, going to Church together, and going to school together, now it’s much more scattered – people come together at the school from all over the place, and there are Catholic and non-Catholic students (nothing wrong with this, but it’s ironic that my local parish school is 55% Catholic.

Meanwhile, Catholics who are committed to Church teachings on the family can’t afford to send their kids for $3000 or more per year (per student.) There are places in the plains states where it’s much more affordable, but not where I live. Homeschooling, here we come!

Contraception vs. NFP video

Chris Lewis — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 21:52:00 +0000

Originally posted by Chris at RomanCatholicByChoice.com:

In the same vein as those irritating Mac vs. PC commercials (we all know PC is superior ), from a group of seminarians from the Insitute for Priestly Formation in Omaha comes this excellent video which was produced on the anniversary of Humanae Vitae.

You can click on the video to leave the seminarians an encouraging comment!

Sex Ed For Kindergartners – From Sen. Obama

Chris Lewis — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 02:19:00 +0000

Over at Roman Catholic By Choice, I discuss an article from ABCNews about Obama’s advocacy of sex ed for Kindergartners. Not surprisingly, he was speaking to Planned Parenthood, when he said:

that sex education for kindergarteners, as long as it is “age-appropriate,” is “the right thing to do.”

In case you were wondering, parental rights continue to be under attack.

Read all about it!

More "Babies are bad for the planet"

Chris Lewis — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 13:13:00 +0000

Some months ago I posted on a couple of articles on how the environmental extremist movement was pushing the perpetual lie about overpopulation, tying it in with the idea that having too many children is environmentally irresponsible. Well, here we have another such article, once again praising the benevolent Chinese government for their “solution” to this problem (never mind that the put out more pollution that anyone else on the planet, and they have worked things so that environmental regulations don’t apply to them, and for that matter that they’re communists and therefore intrinsically evil.)

This one’s specifically about Britons:

The Optimum Population Trust, a UK-based think tank, made the call in a new report unveiled today, saying record growth in Britain’s birth rate was having an adverse impact on the environment.

The report’s author, Professor John Guillebaud, said the Government should introduce “stop at two children” or “have one less” policies.

“Each new UK birth, through the inevitable resource consumption and pollution that UK affluence generates, is responsible for about 160 times as much climate-related environmental damage as a new birth in Ethiopia, or 35 times as much as a new birth in Bangladesh,” Prof Guillebaud’s report says.

“A voluntary stop-at-two guideline should be adopted for couples in the UK who want to adopt greener lifestyles.”

“Optimum population trust” – what an interesting name. Also, note that the word “government” is capitalized?

What about the fear of underpopulation, as in Australia?

In Britain, the think tank argues, economic and political pressures to lift the birth rate “are hopelessly simplistic and should be resisted”.

“Far from panicking about baby shortages, almost every country can welcome fertility rates at or slightly below replacement level,” it said.

China introduced its strict one-child family planning policy in the late 1970s.

The policy is believed to have prevented millions of births.

“Believed to have prevented?”

Your baby lies to you!

Chris Lewis — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 03:07:00 +0000

Believe it? A researcher says that your baby learns how to lie to you at 6 months old, initially by crying when nothing is wrong to see what will happen. Then it evolves from there. Certainly, I have seen my two-year-old being deliberately deceptive – if she goes into another room and is doing something she knows she shouldn’t be doing, she immediately changes activities when I walk into the room. Or, when she’s loading up a diaper but is too busy playing to have it changed, she denies having filled her pants.

For a baby of 6 months, though, I wonder if it’s so much being deceptive as it is checking to see if mommy’s still there even though baby can’t see her. I have a hard time believing it’s deliberate deception at that early an age.

More!

Crossposted at RomanCatholicByChoice!

Disciplining our kids

Chris Lewis — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 02:11:00 +0000

Following up to his post yesterday, Gerald at The Cafeteria is Closed has posted asking about how we discipline our kids, sharing stories of how he was disciplined as a kid, etc. I along with others have posted a good bit there (interestingly, Catholic Wife and Mother hasn’t commented there…)

"Feeding Freedom"

Chris Lewis — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 02:37:00 +0000

My lovely and gracious wife alerted me to this, so I decided to throw a post up about it.

For those of you whose kids were born in the hospital, and I know that’s most of us, you probably remember receiving a “free” sample bag from one of the major baby formula companies. Nice bag, equipped to carry bottles, and even came with a couple of free samples of formula.

Now, ignoring the point about Nestle’s repeated patently evil actions in 3rd world countries regarding formula, we all know that this is an economics game. The formula companies give hospitals monetary kickbacks as well as reduced price formula for use in the NICU, in return for the hospitals giving everyone one of these bags. I’m of the opinion (and science supports me) that breastmilk is the far superior food for newborns, and that physical and emotional health of both mom and baby are substantially enhanced by breastfeeding as long as possible (in my case, my 2-year-old continues to nurse, albeit briefly, even as my wife is pregnant with another.) Conversely, physical and mental health of mother and baby are compromised by the use of inferior product – formula – as the primary means of sustenance.

Still, the bags are being handed out, and you have to figure that their availability is influencing new moms, at least to some degree. The response to this is a website called banthebags.org, a new website set up by concerned moms citing evidence that there’s just too much evidence that moms are in fact being influenced by these “free” samples. They’ve even been featured on NPR.

Not to be outdone, there’s now momsfeedingfreedom.com, which advocates for not banning the bags. It was set up in direct response to the banthebags movement. It’s all about how important it is for the bags to be distributed because not distributing them denies new moms adequate information and education about their options. The site pays lip service to the “breast is best” concept, but it ignores all sorts of scientific evidence and you can just tell it’s a pro-formula site. In fact, it’s sponsored by the International Formula Council. And yes, that means it stinks worse than formula spit-up. Out the window goes any appearance of being objective. The cool thing is, there is a blog on the site, and the majority of the comments are pro-breast and anti-formula.

So, Catholic Dads, as we know, breastfeeding is a key part of natural child spacing and therefore NFP…so if any of your wives are militant breastfeeders as my wife is, have them check out the above sites and include their two cents.

Disclaimer: I am a La Leche League Dad – I am unabashed in my support of breastfeeding mothers. I believe breastfeeding is far superior to anything else for babies. That said, I do understand there are rare situations where it just doesn’t work for one reason or other. I do not condemn anyone for their personal decisions. Rather, I condemn the aggressive marketing of the formula industry as well as the cultural mentalities that have made formula feeding so mainstream. Don’t string me up, please!

Teach your child to say bizarre things your dad taught you

Chris Lewis — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 02:05:00 +0000

Okay, maybe I am anomalous, but my dad said a few odd things that stuck with me, and also carried some of my and my sister’s early pronunciations long after we learned to talk; for example, I called a vacuum cleaner a keemo, my sister called ice cream otts moo. My dad would sometimes “slip up” and use one of our old pronunciations as we got older. Well, the habit stuck, and now I do the same thing. So my little one went to the grocery store and I couldn’t resist telling her that when I was little I called it the “docie dor” and now she calls it that too.

This made for great fun when my parents visited this past weekend, and I demonstrated some of these odd pronunciations I have taught Caroline. See, she knows how to pronounce a lot of this stuff right, but she finds it really funny when she purposely mispronounces it! So, am I a weirdo or do any of you guys ever do this?