ABSTRACT
As the months wore on, I slowly adjusted to motherhood, and Sesha helped make the adjustment easy. Jeffrey and I shared all aspects of par enting, except that I did the nursing. One wise nursing book, I no longer recall who wrote it, advised against a baby nurse for the nursing mother. Instead it urged that the father (grandmothers, friends, and paid help, if affordable) should help care for the mother and take over all tasks except the care and feeding of the nursing baby. This would allow her to regain her strength, and to nurse the baby in a rested condition and peaceful frame of mind. I was fortunate enough to be able to follow that advice. In fact, I recognized then and have come to believe still more deeply that this advice contained a profound principle: that to nurture a dependent being well, and without damaging the nurturer, requires that the nurturer herself be nurtured.236 This advice embodied the egalitarian ideals of marriage and parenthood that I shared with my spouse.
