The talk about the controversial Time Magazine cover continues. It's totally apparent now that they hit a central nerve in our country's parenting culture. As an attachment parenting mom to babies (ok, one of them is a preschooler) who also has one foot in the school age world, I have many thoughts.
I do not consider myself a militant AP'er. It took me years to come to really realize that I am an AP mom. I've always followed most principles of AP, but it's only been in recent years that I learned it had a name, and really started to go with my gut instinct, which lead me to be very solidly AP. I understand why some people aren't AP. When you're young, or single, or totally frazzled, the idea that not only are you going to have this baby and attempt to breastfeed it, but you will also sleep with it and wear it in a sling, sounds like a recipe for a Prozac prescription, and for many people, it probably would be. I'd never condemn someone for not being perfectly AP. I have no trouble understanding why someone may not want to cosleep, and as long as they don't let their baby cry it out, I've got no problem with that. I understand how hard breastfeeding is (do I ever understand this!) and I understand that some people don't succeed at it, despite the best support, accurate information, and Herculean effort. While I have a hard time not judging those who don't even try, I understand how failure happens, and I don't judge those who gave it their best shot and ended up with bottles anyway. I also totally understand how people would not want to babywear. Before I had good carriers to use, I hated it, too. It isn't comfortable if all you have is a front pack carrier like a Baby Bjorn, or a really crappy sling, and these things are all I had until a year and a half ago. When I bought an Ergo, it changed my life. A lot of people don't ever buy an Ergo, or any good carrier, and some just don't like babywearing even if they do have one. It's ok. I don't judge people who push strollers. In fact, you might see me pushing one from time to time... a Raven Black double Valco, to be exact. I say these things to attempt to exonerate myself from the stereotype of the AP mom as a judgmental bitch who doesn't accept people who do things differently than her. I have taken the three major premises of attachment parenting (breastfeeding, bed sharing, and babywearing) and told you that I understand how you may differ from me on them. Remember this. You're going to need it.
Now I will copy a quote from a friend of mine, a fellow AP mom, which pretty accurately describes how the past few days have been for many of us in the community.
"
I'm
fixing to completely "unplug". Every non ap parent I know, and some who
aren't parents at all have messaged, texted, called and FB me, acting
like I belong to the Taliban. Even my mom! I'm fixing to give everyone
a spoon so they can eat it."
Mind you, this woman is incredibly sweet and I have never heard her say a judgmental thing about anyone. She is not a militant AP'er. She's a lot like me, minus the fact that she came to these ideas with her first kid. People are treating her like straight up garbage just for being AP, for nursing her son past a year, for being strong in her choices even though they differ from the mainstream. This is happening. It is real. No, we didn't bring it on ourselves. Most of us do attempt to educate, and correct misinformation when we see it (like people who believe LOTS of women can't breastfeed, when, in reality, 97% of the female population is physically capable of breastfeeding), but most of us also make an effort to do this kindly, and we don't deserve to be treated like we belong to the Taliban over it. (She couldn't have chosen better wording for it.)
I'm tired of being told that by being honest about the benefits of breastfeeding, or more accurately, the risks of formula feeding, that we are making formula feeding moms feel guilty. I am tired of being told that by discussing the benefits of attachment parenting, that we are making mainstream parents feel guilty. If factual information makes you feel guilty, you need to examine your reasons for making the choice that you made.
I'll give you a great example right out of my own cache. I formula fed Erin. I tried to breastfeed her. It lasted about a week. Then a lactation consultant gave me a bottle of formula to give her so my nipples, which looked like hamburger meat by then, could have a break for a couple hours. I never nursed her again after that, because the ability to feed her without pain was so liberating that my life almost felt bearable at that point, which it hadn't since the moment she was born. I'd never considered formula feeding before that. I didn't really know anyone who bottle fed. It wasn't a normal thing to me. As far as I was aware, babies nursed, and that was that. I had never been told it was ok to bottle feed, or that not breastfeeding was an option. I still ended up formula feeding, and you know, I don't feel guilty for it at all. At that point in my life, it was the right answer. I had a choice to make. I could tough through and nurse Erin, and resent her so much I would probably never forgive her for it, or I could formula feed her, and be mostly ok with what my life had become. I have never felt one ounce of guilt over choosing the latter.
Orren was a different story. I also had lots of difficulty with breastfeeding him, and at Thak's insistence, I stopped when he was just a week or so old. I will never forget the last time I nursed Orren. We were laying in bed, and the sun was shining through the window. It was a Sunday, and it was warm even though it was January. I was wearing a grey slip and he was wearing a blue onesie with fish on it, and I knew it was the last time I would nurse him. It was excruciatingly painful, but I still clung to it, because I knew it was right to breastfeed him, that that was how he was supposed to eat. On some level, I knew I could make it work, but all Thak saw was that I was in tremendous pain, and completely exhausted, and he made the command decision that we'd be switching to formula. I felt terrible about it every day, and when our pediatrician told me I needed to re-lactate and get away from formula, I jumped at the chance. I went to my midwife that day for herbs to help with the process, and she even was able to help me hand express a few drops of milk (which we, of course, gave to Orren on our fingertips!) and then I had Thak take me to Target for a good pump. He felt awful, and bought me the most expensive pump there, but I'm glad he did. I did manage to produce a little bit of milk for Orren. Even though he never latched on again, he did receive a little bit of breastmilk every day of his life for a few months. I felt awful about giving him formula, because I knew it was wrong.
Do you see the difference between the two situations? The only thing that differed was how I felt about my decision. Nobody made me feel guilty about giving Orren formula. Guilt comes from within. It is what you feel when you know you didn't do your best, or when you know society or someone else got the best of you. It is what happens when you know you could have done better, and for some reason, you didn't. I've been there. I know where it comes from. It doesn't come from accurate information, or people who have done what you know you should have done. It comes from you. Only when people really understand this can we do away with the biggest hurdle we have to the change that is on the horizon. The "don't make them feel guilty" quip that is inevitable whenever someone talks about something that is best practice, is holding our society back. "We" do not make "them" feel guilty. "They" make "them" feel guilty, and they need to deal with that within themselves and get right with whatever it is they did so that we can move forward.
I do believe we are on the edge of something big. I think our society is changing. Time Magazine picked us AP'ers a fight we didn't want, but ultimately, we are a disproportionately intelligent and well educated lot (consult the statistics. It's a fact.) and we see that this is really an advantage, because even though it's a jungle out there right now, Jamie Lynn Grumet's picture on the cover of Time is doing more to normalize breastfeeding (public breastfeeding, full term breastfeeding, ANY breastfeeding) than a thousand La Leche League posters and all the "Every Ounce Counts" billboards on the highway in El Paso, combined. Time reaches a way broader audience than the typical outlets for this information, and the image is provocative and cutting edge, and it gives people a strong and visceral reaction. While my reaction is more "You go girl!", and society's reaction is more, "That's disgusting!" we are all reacting, and it is a good thing.
Ghandi said, "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." From where I sit, it looks like the 90's were the ignoring phase. Dr. Sears published
The Baby Book in 1992, and the AP community was small and easily ignored until recent years. I have seen the laughing before, too. Time brought us to the fighting. Next comes the win. We're right there. We're on the verge of something big. Our culture is changing. People are railing against it right now, but change is inevitable. We are a small community, but growing by the day! I hear so many moms who seem really mainstream when I first meet them, say they're going to nurse as long as their babies want to. I see them every time I go to La Leche League. I see them every time I go to an AP group playdate or babywearing meeting. These aren't hippies. These are suburban yuppy housewives, the wives of Company Commanders and business men. Change is here, and society absolutely will warm to it given time. I fully believe that by the time my kids have kids, the AAP will have joined the world's other medical associations in recommending two years of breastfeeding as a minimum, and that at any given park in the US, nobody will bat an eye to see a toddler nursing. We're creating the change now, and it isn't pretty yet, but it will be.
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