To be clear, I have absolutely no problem with the fact that that child is nursing, and I have absolutely no problem with seeing it in public, on a magazine cover, in a restaurant, wherever. I am 110% in support of full term breastfeeding, yes, even in public. Most of the comments being made about this disgust me. There's nothing like a really sensationalist article and picture about something as divisive as parenting methods, to flush out the idiots in droves. I'm having a really hard time being even remotely coherent here because some of the things that I have read and heard today about this have really been just, mean, bad, wrong, misguided, shitty... Choose your word. Any will work. The reaction of society to this article, which supposedly flings the doors open on the AP movement, is the opposite of a warm fuzzy as far as I can tell.
I take issue with the fact that so many people think they can let their own personal preferences and discomforts dictate what should or should not be done or seen in public. And might I add, Americans, you are pretty much all hypocrites. Put a giant pair of boobs on an ad for jeans, or beer, or breast cancer research, and everyone loves it. Attach a baby, a toddler, or god forbid a preschooler, to one of those boobs, and it's all of a sudden disgusting. You've got to be kidding me. Listen to yourselves. You call this deviant, sick, wrong, yet look at the billboards you pass on the freeway on your way home. You see more skin than this, and it is DELIBERATELY sexy for the express purpose of selling you something. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. I don't see the human body as anything particularly incendiary. I think we need to apply equal protection to this. If it's ok to show boobs to sell beer, it's ok to show boobs to feed babies, or toddlers, or preschoolers.
I also really dislike the way people are putting an arbitrary age limit on it. Everyone thinks they know what age is appropriate to breastfeed in public, and which isn't, but really, there is NO hard and fast rule. None. Some people might never be comfortable seeing a baby nurse in public. I cannot even tell you how many dirty looks I got in Savannah for nursing in public when Orren was a week old, and again when Chai was 9 months. I notice, as Chai approaches his first birthday, the dirty looks, and implications that I should be weaning him, come more and more frequently. Why? He's still a baby. He can't even walk yet. He only has four teeth. He babbles and smiles and giggles like a baby. If I weaned him now, he wouldn't understand. All he would know is that his main source of comfort for his entire life, is gone. The entire premise of attachment parenting is to avoid that kind of shock to the system. I honestly don't care if you or anyone else is comfortable seeing it or not. If my baby needs comfort, or is hungry or thirsty, I'm going to tend to his needs. He comes first. This was true when he was a day old. It's true now at a year old. It'll be true as long as we continue to nurse. Do I see us going as long as the mom and son on the Time cover? Honestly, no, but that's not the point. The point is, it's not wrong for a mom to tend to her child's needs, and society has absolutely no right to attempt to dictate on the propriety or impropriety of that.
I also had a real laugh about the fact that it seems to be a widespread thought that AP families do the things we do for the good of us, the parents, rather than the good of the babies. Are you kidding me? Don't you think it would be easier to formula feed, and let someone else feed the baby from time to time? Don't you think it would be easier to sleep train the baby and make him conform to our schedule? Don't you think it would be easier to use the various "baby container" devices that exist, instead of wearing the baby on our backs as we go about our day? Don't you think Thak and I might like to have our bed to ourselves for a whole night, just once? AP is NOT for the faint of heart, and it's NOT easy. We do this because it's best for the baby, because this is what our primal instincts tell us to do, because it's biologically appropriate. It's definitely not for our benefit. It's exhausting sometimes. That's not to say I don't want to be AP. Thak and I are AP because we believe in it. We see how well it works. We see how outgoing and independent Orren is becoming, and how sweet Chai is, and we know that they are confident in their attachment to us. We see no compelling reason to use the practices that have become mainstream when there are simpler primal practices that work just as well. We answer our babies' cries. We tend to their needs as they happen. We don't make them fit our schedule. How in the world would anyone actually think we're doing this for our own benefit? It's exhausting. It's totally worth it, but it's exhausting.
I think the thing I take issue with the most is the headline on the magazine cover. "Are you mom enough?" I get what they're getting at. It's that constant pressure within the AP movement to be even more so, to do more, to be the AP'est AP'er in all of AP land. There's always that person who's just a little more AP than you, and seems to rub your nose in it in your darkest hour (whether that's real or perceived, who knows). That's where the doubt comes from. Am I mom enough? Susie Johnson never even CONSIDERED weaning her son until he was 4, but here I am at 11 months feeling mighty touched out and having a hard week because my kid just learned how to bite. Am I mom enough? I am feeling cramped in a Full size bed with sometimes as many as 2 kids, but Jane Doe cosleeps full time with quadruplets. There's always that pressure, and it's at least as much internal as it is external.
The problem is, that's not what mainstream society is taking from this wording. They think they're saying that AP'ers are "mom enough", and mainstream parents are not. While I may agree with that somewhat on a personal level, a national publication isn't the place. We really didn't need that line drawn any deeper in the sand than it already is. I am not, and will never be, one who claims that all parenting methods are created equal. They're not. While it isn't black and white, it's nowhere near as idiot-proof as a lot of the mainstream ones would have us believe. You definitely can screw this up, even though that's not as easy to do as some of us lead ourselves to believe. What I am saying is that we really don't need the national news media to egg this conflict on by painting AP'ers as crazy and obsessive people who think we're superior (Asking if you're mom enough and all...) Honestly, we're not doing this to make someone else feel inferior, and that allegation is common enough that it just really needs to stop.
Time Magazine had a great opportunity here to show real AP families, even on the more radical fringe of our community, for the everyday people that they are. I think that would do more for people in general than any of this other stuff. We're so divided into camps that we hardly see each other as human anymore. I know people see me as homebirthing-breastfeeding-cosleeping-babywearing-extended rearfacing-minimally vaccinating-cloth diapering-intactivist-organic food mommy, but really, behind all that, I'm Anna. I drink Sam Adams after the kids go to bed, and I like to belly dance, and I think at least half of my in-laws are at least a little bit crazy. I'm just a person, kind of like you, and kind of like that mainstream mommy down the street whose parenting methods make me cringe. I think if we saw each other as people, and were less entrenched in these parenting camps, that would probably do more good than anything else. Time Magazine had a chance to show the human side of AP families, and they didn't. I think that disappointed me more than anything else.
No comments:
Post a Comment