When I read the first post, before I clicked on any link or scrolled down, I thought to myself: immigrant from Africa.
Why? Because that's how they feed babies in Africa, when there is meat. It's a tribal thing, to give soups and "liquidized" meat to children, because breast feeding, especially in the poor areas, will draw the mother down to emaciation. They are often weaned early (from the breast), and put onto meat and grain very, very early.
As for her being a nurse, I look at the cultural thing. While I agree it was totally and completely wrong, the cultural aspect (it's what her mother did for her and her siblings; and likely what she saw others doing with their infants) is a very strong one. Ghana is an exceptionally poor country, and breast feeding is a very culturally linked activity; like I said above, breast feeding can be hard on the mother, and moving the child as quickly as possible to solids will allow mother to keep those calories to herself, and/or return to work (whatever that work may be).
And as a nurse, let me be clear when I say that there are a lot of 'levels' of nursing; CNA (certified nursing assistant), LVN (licensed vocational nursing), RN (registered nursing), BN (Bachelors of (registered) nursing) on up to Dr. Nurse.
Each level is a trained position, but each level has increasing responsibilities, and each level has different specialties. For example, I'm intending to go into the ER; I know just about nothing about babies, other than what I was taught in school and learned during a short rotation on Partum and Peds. Each area have specialty education, too. I will say that very, very little nutrition education is given to students (at least in my school)...and we are taught to respect cultural differences.
I am so sorry Diamond died. I am not happy with the mother's actions, but I'm also not sure it's "murder"...or even, in her mind, abuse (but it is in my mind). I think it's a fair bet to say that the mother is not quite as disturbed as some might think, but is definitely suffering from cultural issues.
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Herding Cats