I've read a lot more blogs since I took over the "What They're Babbling About" section for Strollerderby, and Breastfeeding Moms Unite! was sent my way via a "friend" on Twitter.
Not afraid to take on some of the bigger breastfeeding topics, it's worth a read anytime. But one post in particular caught my attention this week.
She asks women today if they were breasted . . . and how their relationships are with their mothers.
It's nothing scientific, and she makes clear she's not actually attributing her lack of a perfect relationship with her mother to her mom's decision NOT to breastfeed. Why then, I wondered, did she even bring it up?
Curiosity, it sounds like. And it is interesting to ponder - although entirely inconclusive. I was breastfed until just shy of the year mark. So was my brother. Neither of us has a terribly great relationship with our mother (his is better than mine). I tried breastfeeding and failed at it, and I would like to think a good relationship with my daughter is possible - at least something akin to what we have now. (I asked my husband, by the way, if he was breastfed, and he had no idea - and his mom breastfed into the toddler stage).
What's bothered me most about so many pro-breastfeeding mantras isn't the idea that breastfeeding is good for kids (because it is!) but the idea that it promotes better bonding between mother and child. Do they bond? Certainly. But better bonding? Isn't that a little subjective? A little "well, my kid loves me best?"
Because, try as we might, as parents, we can't control the feelings of our kids or the personalities of our kids. Some parents and children have horrible relationships because of bonds during childhood that were TOO tightly woven (think helicopter parenting), others clash because they as people are simply too alike. There's also the mere fact that as human beings, we all relate differently to one another.
Our own personalities as parents are distinctly different. Our personalities mesh differently with our different kids. I know some readers will take this as an attack on breastfeeding, so again, please understand, I think breastfeeding is a wonderful thing for women who do it (and something every woman should try to do). But reading through the comments on the BMU site, I pondered once again how much pressure we are putting on one small part of childhood to solve life's problems.
Take this comment: "Had I been weaned as an infant, I’m not sure I would have maintained
that physical closeness with my mom. She let me breastfeed as long and
as often as I needed or wanted, and I do feel that that contributed to
my feeling that she was always available to me, throughout my life."
That's just one opinion, but it struck me as a perfect example of the attempts to make breastfeeding into a panacea. God forbid her mother stopped at, say one year, perfectly acceptable according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, and just showered her with love, affection and a roof over her head, clothes on her back? That wouldn't be enough to retain a sense of physical closeness with her?
As one friend said when I mentioned the idea of breastfeeding in childhood in relation to an adult mother/child relationship, sometimes mothers are unhappy breastfeeders, women who did it because they knew it was best for their child's health, but end up resenting their children for a miserable eight, ten, twelve months. She posited her own mother probably had post partum depression and was not a happy breastfeeder. Today, they have a stilted relationship.
The best benefit of having a mother who breastfed? Besides the health benefits we got if we were breastfed? In my mind it's the positive role model, the knowledge that someone we know did it and made it work. If we're lucky, when it comes time to breastfeed, we have a good enough relationship with that woman (our mother) to turn to her for advice on how to proceed ourselves.
But if a mom wasn't breastfed, will it make or break her relationship? Take this comment over at the BMU site and ponder it. I think it answers it quite nicely: "You may simply be posing the question of whether or not breastfeeding
can make a significant impact on mother-daughter relationships but I
believe the answer has long been apparent in the relationships between
women and adopted daughters."
Image: EcoStreet
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