We haven’t discussed breastfeeding in a while, so let’s do that. In particular, we’re going to react to an attempt at shocking and shaming as breastfeeding promotion. Hooray! Our side is looking super reasonable right now.
I think we’re pretty aware that I’m in love with Fearless Formula Feeder — because even when I don’t agree all the time1, it’s the website I credit for making me genuinely examine my assumptions about breastfeeding (ones I made on an almost ideal set of circumstances in my own situation) and realize that yes, breastfeeding is totally a feminist issue — but not one that can exist without having the choice to say, “No, that’s not something I want to do.”
You know, sort of like reproductive choice, only way less serious.
So, when she linked to Amy West’s post, “Smug Breastfeeding Advocates Strike Again!” post about the meme below, along I happily go to see what’s up. And this is what up.
I… Hm. I’m not overly surprised that this came off The Alpha Parent’s Facebook page, because this is her style. I’m sure the woman running The Alpha Parent is a perfectly pleasant person. I’ve seen her contributions on other blogs that I did not disagree with — makes sense, since we’re ideally on the same side. However, everything from the name to the tagline (“The Snobby Side of Parenting”) rides my nerves and runs counter to how I approach parenting. We are simply two bloggers who are not meant to agree.
However, she is flat out wrong here. I’m usually not comfortable being definitive about anything — I’m very live-and-let-live. But nope, this is just wrong.
“Cheating” on Breastfeeding
I’m not talking about her facts — in the comments she’s made it clear that supplementing damages supply, and even tells people who successfully did both that their situation was atypical. And it’s true: when you skip a breastfeeding session, you’re teaching your body to not produce milk at that time.
Of course, one of the beautiful things about breastfeeding is the flexibility of it. When I eventually had to make the decision to supplement Miles during the day while I worked — months after he was already nomming on solids — I worried that it was the end of breastfeeding for us. I didn’t want that, but there was no other option.
Then, this thing happened. It’s true — my supply dropped off so that I did not feel like my breasts were going to explode like overfilled party balloons… during the feed that would have occurred while I was at work.
See, the anecdotal advice I was able to find said to nurse before I left for work. That was easy, since I worked at noon. Then, I nursed immediately when I got home between seven and eight. By utter magic, my body managed to adapt so that it didn’t make a ton of milk in those eight hours, yet still made plenty of milk during the usual morning and night feedings. And somehow my breasts just kept making milk for another two years.
I’m not qualified or educated enough to refute the point made in the comments that introducing any formula dilutes the benefits of breastmilk. But just looking at this logically: isn’t a diluted benefit still better than no benefit, when those are the options?
And even if we remove anecdotes and actual advice on combo-feeding — we still have one woman saying to other women, “No, your experience is wrong. It has no value here.”
That’s not okay.
Thoughtless Comparison to Infidelity, Woo!
Okay, I have a hair-trigger on the topic of infidelity these days, this weird shame/anger response — a feeling I do not feel about combo-feeding — but we’re not going to talk about that. We’re just going to talk for a minute about how using a bottle of formula is nothing like cheating on a partner. Absolutely goddamn nothing. I sort of summed it up in the comments of Amy’s post:
One act is an act of incredible disrespect. It does irreparable damage to families and individuals. It’s hurtful at its core, even when it happens with the best of intentions.
The other is, you know, a nutritional decision you make for your child in the first couple years of life.
I get that it was just a convenient cheating metaphor for the writer. But we couldn’t have said, “Breastfeeding is like Monopoly” or maybe:
“Research before supplementing — a heat of the moment decision may cause an irreversible drop in your milk supply.”
Sure, it doesn’t fit as cleanly next to the image of a woman torn over a bottle, but I feel like it gets the point across without the “shame on you!” undertones and without trivializing actual infidelity. It also values the fact that a single bottle is not cheating at breastfeeding, and that there is a place for combo-feeding in the breastfeeding spectrum.
Here, it’s not hard:
Sure, it’s not a work of art and as a writer I’m not sold on the wording, but it gets the job done without saying YOU’RE A CHEATER.
To The Alpha Parent’s Credit…
I do agree with The Alpha Parent on two points I’ve seen her make in the comments. They have nothing to do with breastfeeding.
1. It’s not cool that Amy associated this woman as slutty because of her midriff. I understand why, in the context of the meme, that she did — she wasn’t saying, “We can see your stomach, you whore!” but wondering if the meme intended the viewer to do so. This is a pretty ingrained habit in our society, to look at a woman and make assumptions on her clothing. It’s pretty nasty, even unintentionally, and I feel like we ought not to do that.
2. It’s also not cool at all the people going, “That woman has never had a baby!” Just like The Alpha Parent discounts the experience of combo-feeding women, that attitude tells women who did snap back to their bodies that they somehow haven’t earned their Mom Merit Badges.
Our culture of parenting has this neat aspect where we’re reclaiming our changed bodies as a beautiful reminder of our motherhood, rather than calling ourselves destroyed. But either through really hard fucking work or blessed genetics, some women get back to their midriff-ready bodies before the end of the first year. Some really amazing women fit into their pre-baby jeans long before that.
It may seem like a cruel joke to those of us who did not get through pregnancy and breastfeeding with a model-ready body, but we don’t get to look at a woman and say, “You obviously don’t have a baby,” based on her figure.
1. Protip: I don’t agree with anyone 100% of the time.
