Michele Bachmann Strikes Again

Michele Bachmann's opposition to a proposal that would make breast pumps tax-deductible leads me to believe that she hates babies. Well, specifically, she hates black babies and the babies of mothers who work. Either that, or she hates tax deductions.

My breast pump cost $249 and was not covered by insurance. It's a good pump, but it isn't a hospital-grade pump or anything fancy. For someone who needs a pump either because she is working, or because her baby is in the NICU, or because she needs to regulate her supply, or because she just prefers pumping to direct breast feeding or formula feeding, a tax deduction could help out a lot. Especially if she needs an expensive pump, not a cheap(!) one like mine.

But Michele Bachmann is so virulently anti-Obama that she has actually come out against a proposal that is specifically designed to help infants and new parents by reducing their tax burden. My head, it spins.

Molly disapproves.

Not history-related, but I'm afraid you'll have to put up with some occasional mommyblogging from now on.

Gravestone of the Day: Hubert Russel

Hubert Russel, 1726, Cambridge, MA

Here Lyes Buried

the Body of Mr.

HUBERT RUSSEL

Who Decd. June

the 4th 1726

Aged 39 Years

Also Here Lyes one of his Children

It is commonplace to find gravestones dedicated to a mother and one or more of her children. Similar stones for fathers are rarer. I find them most frequently in maritime communities like Plymouth, where a child's gravestone also serves as a cenotaph for a father lost at sea. A few other gravestones celebrate the achievements of successful patriarchs.

Father of All Living

In Good Wives, Laurel Ulrich writes about colonial New England women's role as Eve, Mother of All Living. In that chapter, she argues that the fulfillment of a woman's role as mother came when she saw her children's children flourish.

I have found several references to women's abundant fecundity and matriarchal achievements on their gravestones, the most notable example being the Lois Cook Bartlett stone in Brunswick, ME.

On occasion, I also find this theme on men's gravestones (see Daniel Tyler, Brooklyn, CT). My most recent addition to this collection is the Elijah Shattuck stone in Pepperell, MA.

ELIJAH SHATTUCK

DIED

OCT. 30, 1841,

AE. 88.

He was the father of

8 Children,

13 Grandchildren

& 33 Great Grand

Children.