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The Pride and Shame of Feeding a Baby

8/8/2017

6 Comments

 
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World Breastfeeding Week recently ended and I realized that although breastfeeding has been such an important thing for me as a mother and as a woman, I have never written anything about it in this blog. I don’t know at what point I started to think about it as a controversial topic and preferred to avoid it. The obsession with what "the best" is, can be a dangerous territory and it's hurting us.
 
FEEDING A BABY CAN BE A STRUGGLE

Some people who are very dear to my heart struggled with breastfeeding, one of them being my own mom. She nursed me for an incredibly painful month and a half and decided to stop when she found me spitting blood from her injured nipples.

She had absolutely no support. There were no lactation consultants she could talk to and her own family was very far away, on the other side of the country. She is, of course, not the only one who has been failed by a system that tells parents breastfeeding is best but gives them no tools to overcome the many challenges they might face.

THE SHAME OF FEEDING A BABY
As a woman and as a parent, it seems like no matter what you do, you can be shamed. Some formula feeding parents are shamed for "not doing the best" or "not trying hard enough." Some mothers who breastfeed are shamed for doing so in public and carefully scrutinized on how they do it (for how long, how often, etc.)
I personally had to defend my choice to feed on demand, my choice to not give my 4 month old any water during the hot months of Mexico’s Northern dessert, my choice to exclusively breastfeed during the first six months. My choice to continue nursing all the way until my son was three and my milk dried up during my second pregnancy.
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Breastfeeding my oldest child on his first birthday.
Either way, after a while, it's easy to become defensive.
THE PRIDE OF FEEDING A BABY
There is pride on reaching your goals, especially when you had to overcome big challenges.

There is pride on formula for saving lives and providing nutrition when breastmilk is not available.

There is pride on breastfeeding for its many benefits to mom and baby.

And more than anything there is pride on finding solutions that work for you and your unique situation while muting the noise of unwanted advice and opinions.


But the way in which you feed your baby is not the bar by which to measure how good of a parent you are. There is no such bar.

CHOICE
I’m a fierce feminist and I strongly believe in people’s right to chose whatever works best for them, but I want these decisions to be well informed and supported. And definitely, I would hope those decisions are not influenced by abusive cultural attitudes like the objectification and shame surrounding the female body or the constant blaming of mothers for whatever choices we make.


If you're one of the mothers who struggled with breastfeeding week, I feel you.

If you're one of the mothers who has been shamed for breastfeeding in public, I feel you too.

I can only hope that our culture keeps progressing towards supporting parents and stop the comparison madness that is coming from these "us vs. them" attitudes.
6 Comments
Ashley link
8/14/2017 05:35:12 pm

I'm lucky (I guess) that I never had anyone say anything to me about nursing in public, but still I always felt way too conspicuous doing it. It took me a long time to get comfortable with nursing wherever and whenever. It's so true about the shame aspect, on so many levels, and you've touched on them all. Great read!

Reply
Margaret link
8/15/2017 12:57:36 pm

Oh, I resonate so deeply with this post. I have two kids, and felt equal parts pride and shame in feeding them both-- even though one was bottle fed and one was breastfed. Looking forward to welcoming my third in (gasp!) just two months from now, and going into this experience with much thicker skin towards what ANYBODY ELSE has to say, and a much more tender heart towards my little baby. Feed on, mamas!

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Toni Botas link
8/17/2017 07:20:05 am

With my first baby I remember being so self conscious about feeding in pubic, and it prevented me from going out into public for the fear of her needing to nurse and someone making a comment. By the time I got to my 2nd and 3rd babies, I would whip it out wherever and whenever. I think so many moms feel so much pressure from both sides when choosing how to feed their kids that they honestly don't know whats right. You get to a point where you get fed up and just start doing things how you want. I also never made it passed 6 months breastfeeding any of my kids, and to me, that was sufficient. I learned to tune out any voice outside of myself, and do what worked best for our family dynamic and my sanity!

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Meg Kant
8/23/2017 06:52:28 am

I LOVE THIS SO MUCH! Oh my goodness, you word this so beautifully. Thank you so much for sharing.

Reply
Rhondda Smiley link
8/28/2017 09:53:46 pm

Love this, Marissa! Yes - pride and choice!

I breastfed through some pretty huge obstacles, and spent part of my breastfeeding career exclusively pumping my breastmilk and offering it by bottle. THAT was interesting - the assumptions and judgements people made about what was in that bottle and why I was giving it. I realized that as a mom, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

It's not really about how you fed your baby. The patriarchal culture (that is so pervasive that many women are participating in it) will determine a woman's worth and value. And that value is NEVER enough. Or else it's "too much". Whatever - it's never right, and we'll never win, until we decide that we are the only arbiters of our own worth.


I found myself

Reply
Steven Hillhouse link
11/1/2022 12:45:16 pm

But the way in which you feed your baby is not the bar by which to measure how good of a parent you are. There is no such bar. Thank you for taking the time to write a great post!

Reply



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    Marissa Rivera Bolaños is a doula and visual artist with a passion to create change around the way our culture approaches women's health.

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