Mindset makes bonding hard

Jacinda Ardern has said she’s finding it hard to keep up with the feeding demands of her baby. She was commenting on the Government’s decision to increase production of goat milk, having been advised it is the closest in nutrient make-up to human breast milk.

What a pity Ardern has the attitude that she can’t ‘‘keep up with’’ her daughter’s nutritional needs through breastfeeding alone. In truth, given the appropriate conditions, very few women are unable to supply the entire food and drink needs of their babies till at least six months old. The conditions mothers require are: Sleep, nutritious food, fresh water, time, flexibility, desire.

If all these conditions exist the baby is blessed with having all their food/fluid needs met and mums are blessed with healing and a sense of wellbeing.

The mindset that some women don’t have enough milk to supply their baby is a cultural one that has evolved to suit the desire of some women (and men) to have women in the paid workforce in order to fulfil their version of what success and women’s rights are.

In truth, the foundations of success and women’s rights lie in bonding/caring for our children.

Kirsty Bassett-Burr, Lower Hutt [abridged]

Interpreters key

How corruption is creeping into our culture (Aug 25) discusses limited-English speakers taking unfair advantage of our driver licensing system by having an ‘‘interpreter’’ assist them with their practical test.

The remedy is simple: always engage a well-trained interpreter who is affiliated either to a reputable interpreting agency, or is a member of the professional body, the NZ Society of Translators & Interpreters.

Such interpreters are bound by a code of ethics, the primary tenets of which are to interpret accurately (not adding or omitting anything), to keep matters confidential, and to remain completely impartial.

Even better, have the agency running the tests engage the interpreter directly (by all means passing the cost to the client), so they can vet them. Let’s have people driving so they can get to the jobs or training they’ve come here for (often at our invitation), and fix the interpreter problem at source. Robyn Pask, chief executive, Interpreting New Zealand

‘Racist’ labels

It is partly hysterical nonsense that majorities in the US are falling for old-fashioned racism or fascism, but there is also an agenda of extremely bad faith from the Left, that seeks to establish moral justification for draconian measures against any and all political opponents by lumping them all in with a tiny minority of extremists on the Right-wing fringe.

Deploying large-scale slanders against masses of ordinary decent people is a guaranteed way to lose their support, as Hillary Clinton discovered.

The Democrats and the mainstream media are doubling down on this bad faith instead of learning the lesson.

Philip Matthews’ Why did America fall for the alt-Right? (Aug 25) includes a perfect illustration of how the Left creates a ‘‘racist’’ label. Stefan Molyneaux, in Australia, ‘‘delivered a long criticism of Aboriginal culture’’.

But he said nothing that would be unfamiliar to Christian creationists regarding the criticism routinely levelled against their beliefs, which is a route to applause and celebrity status from the modern so-called ‘‘secular’’ establishment. And since when was culture or religion, ‘‘race’’?

Philip G Hayward, Naenae [abridged]

Columnist offensive

Re columnist Joel Maxwell, how offensive can one get in a hate-filled rant? Let’s start with ‘‘then woman-hating Pa¯ keha¯ weirdos arrived’’. To class an entire ethnic group as womanhating weirdos is racist in the extreme. I am surprised it was published.

Maxwell then goes on to contemplate if he was born ‘‘a thin-lipped, blue-eyed middleclass god of worldwide destruction. You know, born Pa¯ keha¯ ’’. Wow, so many inaccurate racist stereotypes in one sentence. I was born

Pa¯ keha¯ and am neither blueeyed nor middle-class, let alone a god of worldwide destruction.

Maxwell needs to provide factual examples of where white New Zealanders have been gods of worldwide destruction. I think his derogatory sentence requires some explanation.

He also states if he was born Ma¯ ori, as he claims to be, he faces ‘‘jail time, poverty’’. I doubt Maxwell has spent any time in jail and, as a middleclass journalist, I doubt he faces the poverty that I and many of my working-class Pa¯ keha¯ friends face.

Darren Long, Hamilton