I will give you fair warning, right now, I am about to go on a rant!
If you have never had problems breast feeding, fantastic for you. If you breast fed your babies till they were 1, 2, 3, 4 years old, great! I am tremendously happy for you, BUT I would appreciate if you tried to understand the flip side of the coin.
You see, most women want to breast feed, and if you don’t, I’m not judging. Here’s the thing, it’s embarrassing when you are unable to feed your child. It’s humiliating to have to try so hard when others just do it naturally. It feels like failure when you can’t do something that people expect you will do with ease.
You don’t think it crosses our mind that, if it weren’t for formula, our babies would die? Do you think that feels good?
My milk never came in with my first baby. She was formula fed from 3 weeks old.
You know who this is?
This is my healthy, well-adjusted, smart, active, 7 year old—who was bottle fed.
With my second child, I did breast feed. I breast fed her until she was 5 months old. That was when she was no longer interested and preferred having a bottle, that’s when my milk started to dry up, that’s when I started doing some freelance work and wasn’t home with her all the time.
Thankfully, that year, “They” decided you only needed to breast feed till 4 months. Phew, I past “Their” expectations. This year, “They” may change that and say you only need to breast feed till 3 weeks, then I could feel really good about myself, or maybe “They” will say we should breast feed till our babies go to college. Either way, it doesn’t change what I have done.
You can tell me your statistics all you like, you can give me your opinion, and you can choose to do what you you think is best. What I don’t want you to do is judge what I have chosen to do. What I don’t want is to feel inferior because you insist on pushing your beliefs on me.
Parenting is a difficult job, one that I do with great pride and pleasure. Stop sucking the pleasure out of it!!
Printer-friendly version