Monday Free Write
Happy Monday!
You know I do a lot of reading on the internet about parenting. (And I also skip a lot of parenting articles too). And really you can find any parenting advice or story you could ever want.
And since August is National Breastfeeding Month, right now there are a billion articles up about the importance of breastfeeding and how we need to normalize breastfeeding. (Which we really need to do. Breasts were designed by nature to feed children, not for men to sexualize. But I guess I'll talk about that later).
Somewhere in the midst of all those articles I stumbled up this articles from Anxious Toddlers. Its a letter to all those breastfeeding fanatics that take things too far. (They bully and attack women who made a choice to bottle feed their babies. As if its any of their business how another baby gets fed) and how perhaps they need to lay off and accept that not everybody is going to breastfeed or get breast milk to feed there babies.
And I sincerely love this letter. Both of my boys were bottle fed. (I like to claim now that I got the "white privilege boobs"; You know back when white women wouldn't or couldn't breastfeed their own children and instead had their black slaves do it for them.) And right after we had Blue I struggled for a long time with the guilt of bottle feeding him. All I could think was:
(The guilt did go away after; especially I heard Tina Fey talking about how she too struggled with breastfeeding and tried pumping only to pump for an hour and end up with an ounce or two.)
You know I do a lot of reading on the internet about parenting. (And I also skip a lot of parenting articles too). And really you can find any parenting advice or story you could ever want.
And since August is National Breastfeeding Month, right now there are a billion articles up about the importance of breastfeeding and how we need to normalize breastfeeding. (Which we really need to do. Breasts were designed by nature to feed children, not for men to sexualize. But I guess I'll talk about that later).
Somewhere in the midst of all those articles I stumbled up this articles from Anxious Toddlers. Its a letter to all those breastfeeding fanatics that take things too far. (They bully and attack women who made a choice to bottle feed their babies. As if its any of their business how another baby gets fed) and how perhaps they need to lay off and accept that not everybody is going to breastfeed or get breast milk to feed there babies.
And I sincerely love this letter. Both of my boys were bottle fed. (I like to claim now that I got the "white privilege boobs"; You know back when white women wouldn't or couldn't breastfeed their own children and instead had their black slaves do it for them.) And right after we had Blue I struggled for a long time with the guilt of bottle feeding him. All I could think was:
How could my body not do this one thing it was supposed to do?
It didn't matter that I was a bottle fed baby and I turned out all right. I had planned on breastfeeding and I just knew everything would turn out right. But then it didn't... my milk took a while to come in and what did come in wasn't enough to feed my ever hungry baby boy. And so I really had no choice but to bottle fed Blue and I knew the likelihood of breastfeeding any other children would be slim.
Now it doesn't bother me that I bottle fed my babies because they are happy healthy little boys. But I still don't talk about because I don't need to be judge or attacked for it. I did what I had to do to feed my babies. (I assure you, you weren't there when I tried to breast feed Blue and he screamed for days on end because he was hungry and I was convinced my breast would get it together. Only to have to rely on formula to feed his ever hungry self and so I could finally get some sleep.) And I make no apologies for that.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that we as mothers need to start supporting other mothers instead of attacking each other. We all know that breast is the best option for babies. But bottle feeding is a great substitute if you want it.
(The guilt did go away after; especially I heard Tina Fey talking about how she too struggled with breastfeeding and tried pumping only to pump for an hour and end up with an ounce or two.)
Comments
Post a Comment