Breasts are for feeding babies and children. They house the mammary glands, organs that, in an amazing feat of engineering, don't become fully operational until they're needed by the owner's offspring. The milk they produce meets all the nutritional needs of an infant for as long as a year and provides astounding mental and physical benefits that can last a lifetime:
- A jump-start for the immune system
- A higher IQ
- Fewer ear infections
- Protection against early childhood caries (tooth decay)
- Fewer allergies
- Protection against asthma
- Decreased lifetime chance of obesity
- Protection against some forms of childhood leukemia
- Protection against multiple sclerosis
- Decreased chance of death from SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome)
- Protection against heart disease, Hodgkin's disease, Crohn's disease, diabetes, and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis
Women who breast-feed their children have a lower risk of developing breast, uterine, and ovarian cancers and osteoporosis. And for you economists, breast-feeding saves mucho bucks.
So with all these wonderful benefits to breast-feeding, why the attempts to shame women who do what nature intended? It's an odd juxtaposition of puritanical demonization of the human body and oversexualization of it. Thrown into the mix are the big bucks spent by makers of infant formulas, who'd have us all believe that breast-feeding is time-consuming (ever had to clean baby bottles and prep formula?) and ties women down (hey—breasts are the ultimate portable containers!).
I'm perimenopausal and have just finished my twenty-second year of breast-feeding children off and on: my daughter for 3 months, my first son for 3.5 years, and my second son for 3.5 years (he's just about weaned). My daughter would've gotten a lot more breast-feeding if I hadn't been young enough to be really sensitive to our society's shaming.
Breast-feeding a child isn't a sexual event; it's lunch, for goodness' sake! It's breakfast and dinner and "I need comfort" and "I'm sick" and "I'm sleepy" and "I'm still your baby." Would you make an adult go eat his or her lunch out of your sight because you found it shameful? No? Then why make a child do so?
Get over it already!
5 comments:
I come from a pretty conservative (well it was and still in most parts, except the cities) country (India) where good prudent woman means one who shouldn't be wearing body-revealing dresses, but still breast feeding is very common and done publicly whenever and whereever it's required.
In the USA, women wear so much body-revealing dresses, and so I was really suprised when I heard about all those complaints against breast feeding in public in this country.
Yes, Journeywoman and KL, I think Americans have almost exactly backward. Sad. And if you think about it, such attitudes have long-term consequences for the health of an entire nation.
Hi, Katie K. Great to hear from another editor! If my husband, who loves to learn languages, were home, he'd tell me how to greet you in Turkish. :-)
I've felt the same pain at hearing a baby scream in fear because of being left alone. Back when my first child (Rebecca, now the most wonderful 22-year-old woman I've ever known) was a baby, I parented that way. It was what I'd been taught by example, and I had no idea that things could be done differently. My first husband thought it was normal to treat babies that way, too. My heart would break every time I put her down in her crib, and I was an exhausted zombie because I got up at least every 2 hours at night when she'd cry to be fed or held. Poor child! What were we teaching her?!
But I read a great deal before Neil was born just over 11 years later. And this time, I had a compassionate man as a husband, one who believes feelings are to be listened to. We put neither Neil nor his younger brother Jared to sleep in a room alone. As babies and toddlers, both boys slept in our bed. And to what would likely be the amazement of those who follow mainstream American parenting practices, we all had fairly restful nights. And are our sons independent? You betcha! Why? Because they're secure that the world will respond to their needs, not abandon them.
When someone defends the cry-it-out method, I always ask, "If your lover awoke from a nightmare in tears, would you tell your lover to go back to sleep and then just roll over?" Of course no one would; they'd offer hugs and comfort and stay with their lover the rest of the night. So why in the world do people think it's normal to leave defenseless babies, who can't talk out their fears or needs, alone all night?
Americans wonder why their society is rather violent as a whole. Is it any surprise, when we teach babies and children that their gently expressed needs won't be met, that we will respond only to vehemently expressed needs? We're teaching them emotional violence.
Keep on keepin' on, Katie K. Your building a good woman in your daughter.
Ack! Of course, in my last comment, I meant to write: You're building a good woman in your daughter. When will I learn to compose posts and comments within a word-processing program so that I can edit properly?
[begin commercial] Just goes to show that every writer needs an editor—even an editor needs an editor when she writes! [end commercial]
I love mentoring, so yes, Katie K, please e-mail me. I am on a monster deadline for the next few days and may be periodically uncommunicative, though. And I will be delighted to peruse your blog when I sneak in nonwork reading at lunch.
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