The best lactivism

After our trip across the state a week ago, I realized that El Paso is a lot more breastfeeding-friendly than other places. I nursed Chai every couple hours during our trip, so that required us to stop in many cities and towns across Texas, and the reaction to me nursing Chai was a lot different than the reaction we get in El Paso (no reaction at all). In other towns, as I sat in the car and nursed Chai, I got strange looks, creepy stares, and even weird comments. It showed me that in El Paso, breastfeeding is normal. People don't even notice it anymore, which is how I like it, honestly. But in these other places, it's probably nowhere near as common as it is here, so people notice it, and they stare and stuff.

That lead me to a simple conclusion. The best lactivism doesn't include telling people to breastfeed, or staging protests when a business harasses a nursing mother, or taking on the big evil formula companies for their latest shenanigans. While all that stuff is great to do, the best thing that can be done for the cause of breastfeeding is simply to do it wherever you are, however you want to. If the baby needs to eat, feed him. Don't cover up if you don't want to. Cover up if you do want to. Don't leave the room, or go to the bathroom, or sequester yourself away in a corner, unless that's genuinely what you want to do. (In which case, by all means.) No, just continue about your business, and feed the baby. People will see breastfeeding as normal, which it is, and that's how societal change happens.

You know, in Denmark, which has one of the highest rates of breastfeeding in the world, the way they made that happen (because their breastfeeding success rates used to be just as pathetic as ours) was by normalizing it. How did they normalize it? The Ministry of Public Health started an ad campaign that consisted of just putting life sized pictures of women nursing their babies, in public places like bus stops, where people would see them and just get used to it. We don't have anyone in Washington DC who's going to put up big pictures in bus stops, but we can do it ourselves, just by feeding the baby when he gets hungry, wherever we are. That's what will stop the negative reactions nursing moms still face in so many places. That's what will take away that one challenge, because I know better than I want to, breastfeeding is challenging enough without dealing with other people's BS. This is how we put an end to that kind of thing. It won't be overnight, but eventually, it will work. I'm sure of it.

This is me at lunch with my friends, at a very popular cantina here in town, and Chai is enjoying his lunch, too! See? It's normal!