NATIONAL BREASTFEEDING MONTH SPARKS TITILLATING DEBATE …
By Liz Gunn || So I came across quite a gem in my Instagram feed today. A picture of a sweet, angel baby getting a snack from mom’s boob. I’m sorry … what? Oh yeah. #NationalBreastfeedingMonth. Lots of other fun hashtags, too, like #itsjustaboob and #milkontap.
Clever. But my questions is why. Why are we celebrating breast feeding? I know there are a lot of people with very strong opinions on this topic, and I’m sure to piss each and every one of them off. But why are we celebrating something that is supposed to be natural … normal … not a big deal? If you truly want to normalize something, I’m not sure you’re going about it the right way.
Full disclosure here – I did not breast feed. By choice. Let the hate mail roll in! Yes, I chose not to breast feed my baby. My milk came in. I just didn’t want to. Does it make me a bad mother? Does it mean I love my baby any less? No. It means that it’s my own damn business what I feed my baby.
Lots and lots of babies have been formula fed from day one, especially thirty years ago. I was one of them. I started walking at ten months. I excelled in math and reading and scored in the top one percent of my classmates on standardized tests. I played soccer as a child, then I was captain of the cheerleading team and a competitive gymnast in my later years. I played the piano. I’m quite social. I’m just not sure I missed anything by not getting my mother’s milk.
Thirty some odd years ago it was much more common for people not to breast feed. From what I’ve read, it was even a bit of a socio-economic status statement. People who couldn’t afford other means were the ones who breastfed. I’m sure just like today, it was different in different parts of the country and in the world. My point though, is that it’s no one’s business. And it’s no one’s business what your reasons are.
I know women who breastfed because they liked the way their boobs looked in their enlarged state. I know women who breastfed solely for the calorie burn. Does it matter what anyone’s reasons are for breastfeeding or not breastfeeding? No. The only person who needs to know that I don’t breastfeed is my daughter’s pediatrician. Perhaps if I did breastfeed I’d also need to let my employer know.
I’m not in any way anti-breastfeeding. As a matter of fact, I applaud women who have it in them to commit to it. And it is a commitment. I could honestly give you a million reasons why I chose not to breastfeed. I personally never had the desire to try. Coming home from the hospital with a newborn baby is scary and anxiety inducing enough. Call me crazy, but I think it’s just as important for a baby to have a momma that isn’t a total head case, too. To me, breastfeeding felt like one more thing to add to my worry list.
Pre-birth women worry about their milk coming in, worry about the baby latching on. They worry about their nipples…yes, nipples! Not once but twice my doctor offered me some nipple cream that was supposed to help prepare them. Sounds awesome! I won’t even go there about what breastfeeding does to your boobs. Once the baby is here they worry if the baby is getting enough to eat. They worry that they can’t keep up the supply. They have to continue to limit a lot of things in their diet (as if nine months isn’t long enough?). They worry about being out in public and needing to feed, or being at work and needing to pump – and believe me when I say I couldn’t be more supportive of those things if I tried.
It may not seem like it, but I am a borderline feminist. I love and look up to strong, independent women. I hope someday my daughter will see me as one of them. But strong, independent women don’t force their opinions on you. They don’t judge you because you parent differently than they do. And they certainly don’t need to post a picture on the internet of their boob with a baby hanging off of it to prove a point.
We get it. “Breast is best.” But at the end of the day, it’s still a choice. And it’s more than a wee bit self-righteous of you to judge anyone’s parenting choices.
Liz Gunn is a wife, mom, author, businesswoman, travel enthusiast, food snob, fashionista, lover of great wine and the No. 1 Gamecock football fan … ever. A graduate of the University of South Carolina, she lives in Columbia with her husband and daughter.
56 comments
I’m not a woman, so my opinion is less than yours. I’m not offended by breast feeding. I think it’s the best form of nutrition for newborns… But in public, some people are offended by bare breasts.
Remember John Ashcroft (Bush Admin)? He had lady justice’s bare boob covered up because it offended him.
A little google searching would have revealed that it was a woman, Monica Goodling, who did the drape covering, not John Ashcroft himself. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/goodling-and-lady-justice-the-original-cover-up
ABC News reported that the decision was taken at the request of the conservative Mr Ashcroft himself.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1788845.stm
Look at your own article. 2002. Look at mine. 2007. Look up the history behind Monica Goodling if you haven’t. Plus the TPM is a HUGE liberal website that pretty much dislikes anything Republican.
Breasteses = fun for the whole family
Your article is protected speech under Roth vs U.S. where Judge Brennan noted,”All ideas having even the slightest redeeming social importance — unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of opinion — have the full protection of the guaranties, unless excludable because they encroach upon the limited area of more important interests. But implicit in the history of the First Amendment is the rejection of obscenity as utterly without redeeming social importance.”
However, your article does encroach upon the limited area of more important interests at Fits News…like the Michelle being a Tranny. How about an article on Michelle having to masque his manliness to assuage the prurient interests of President Obama?
You, my friend, are one boring fuck.
Non-fiction, we want non-fiction. If you get down to it, if breast feeding is your cup of brassiere, go for it. This author simply pointed out Michelle is a tranny and it must turn on the President. There must be an associate editor on Fits’ payroll who can wax poetic on that topic.
Regardless of the topic, you my friend, have always been ONE BORING FUCK.
Good bye
…. tweak that humility thing just a little & you’ll be about perfect.
I’ll suck your boobies.
I second that.
Where’s your Southern manners? Treat the lady with respect.
If I was at a bar and heard someone say that to a lady that had no affiliation to the guy, I’d ask him to go out side so I could feed him knuckles.
You’ve come to the wrong place for Southern manners.
But the right place for Southern Charm, apparently.
Be careful showing boobies or pics of boobies in Kershaw County. Their morality police, Jim Matthews, will get you if you don’t watch out.
http://www.wistv.com/story/26223595/kershaw-teens-open-themselves-up-to-trouble-with-purge-pages
Breast is best, but other thing are more important.
1 Peter 2:2 – As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.
Uh, okay.
Darlin, South Carolina has always been in the forefront of the tit sucking movement
Take the first settlement down in the Holy City. While the local leaders were trading beads and blankets for Indian Land their men were in the bushes sucking on local tawny beige Indian maiden tits
Then during the Revolutionary War many a patriot distracted lobster backs with their powdered cleavage and a nipple or two
During both World Wars there were thousands and thousands of troops who passed through South Carolina and left with fond memories of sucking on a Carolina tit
However in the past few years most of the tit sucking at been at the mouths of appointed and elected officials. These cockroaches have been pulling, clawing and sucking on Mother Carolina’s tits like there is no tomorrow
Just in case willie lets you venture out of the box and allows you to post pictures of titties owb’s preference is blue veined ones, if at all possible
If you don’t know what I mean look in willie’s archives and you should find a nice one he posted a few years back that had a “I have voted” sticker covering the sweet spot
thanks for your insights – I’ll have a glass of milk tonight with my bed time cookie – would prefer to pull it straight from the tap but the carton will have to do
10+.. you’re on a roll today!
10+.. you’re on a roll today!
SC even has a town called “Sugar Tit”!!!!!
I’m personally tired of the whole dumb hippie “crunchy mom” movement myself. Formula won’t kill your child. Non-organic won’t kill your child. Plain diapers won’t kill your child. Vaccinating your child won’t kill your child (but not vaccinating them might). There’s plenty of this crap clogging up social media and the internet in general, chock full of mothers who think they are god’s gift to the world and that anyone not following the tiniest part of their cult-like following is a bad mother who they have to shame publicly in front of their stupid crunchy mom friends. Oh, but they aren’t talking about yoooouuuu, they just mean other mothers!
If people want to breastfeed, good for them. If they do it in public, I don’t care. It’s a natural part of life. Try to be nice and have something covering yourself, that really isn’t asking much. There are also perverts out there. If you don’t like getting stared at by a pervert, then excuse yourself to somewhere more private.
10+
There’s this scene in one of the early Ray Donovan episodes where his creepy Dad(Mickey) is on a plane flying out to California and sees a women breastfeeding her kid a row behind him….a creepy smile develops on his face and when the young mother looks up and sees him staring he gives her a wink….lol…funny as shit.
Pervert my ass… a good pair of tits are just as hot being sucked as behind a see-through blouse.
I agree to a point. I’m a hippie dad to a certain extent so I’ll forgive that portion of your remarks…but what worries me more is this new wave of Jenny McCarthy-ites who refuse to vaccinate their children based on anecdotes, discredited science, religion or social hysteria. They are endangering their own kids and mine!!!
One admittedly esoteric / minor point regarding breast feeding in public: I grow weary of the militant “You will look at my droopy-ass titties in public by God because it’s a natural part of life!” Taking a shit and screwing are natural parts of life, too, but I try not to do either in the line at Fresh Market.
Titties and beer, titties and beer.
Apparently FITS is looking to build the female base. Let’s skip the milk honey and stick to the meant & taters.
I say MEAT & Taters but my right index finger has gotten a mind of it’s own lately. Must be all the fun I’ve been having.
This related article “popped” up a few minutes ago…..
http://t.entertainment.msn.com/the-shortlist-for-aug-7-2?toc=celebs#image=2
What does little bastard child Ravanel get?
Fitsnews promotes itself as also presenting “Pop Culture” , but what is it..? Yep, it’s here!
——
[Wiki] — Popular culture is the entirety of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images, and other phenomena that are within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the late 20th and early 21st century. Heavily influenced by mass media, this collection of ideas permeates the everyday lives of the society.
Popular culture is often viewed as being trivial and “dumbed down” in order to find consensual acceptance throughout the mainstream. As a result, it comes under heavy criticism from various non-mainstream sources (most notably religious groups and countercultural groups) which deem it superficial, consumerist, sensationalist, and corrupted.
Well….”Lizzie”……gotta hand it to ya. We challenge you to come out with your boots on and stompin’ and you counter punch us all with a cool sensation of York “peppermint patties”…!!!
Brian Hicks will be all over this article like a greyhound at a dog track….!!
LOL……
It is a known fact that Republicans are breast fed and Democrats are formula fed. Libertarians use pacifiers til they are 6 years old.
I need to find another blog for SC politics, I guess. Anyone got any recommendations?
Breitbart.
Haley loves her some taxpayer money folks….
Lillian Koller, ex-DSS director, sued by former employees
Here we go……the fun begins!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) –
A pair of former state Department of Social
Services employees have filed a lawsuit against ex-director Lillian
Koller alleging she improperly fired a former senior employee to cover
up inefficencies and waste in her department.
Koller is facing accusations she tried to blame the multi-million dollar failures of one employee onto another.
In the past few years, DSS has been granted millions of dollars in
federal grants to update the state’s child support payment system.
Attorneys in this case argue the woman Koller trusted to put that system
in place, Katie Morgan, wasn’t able to get it done and the state was
fined millions of dollars by the federal government as a result.
That’s when the plantiff in this case, Larry McKeown, says Koller
promoted him to take Morgan’s job and take the fall for all the
mishandling of those federal funds. Soon after, McKeown was fired.
“What Lillian Koller did, in this case, is leave the person in place
who was taking care of the failing work that they had, and put the blame
on Larry McKeown who had nothing to do, as far as our case is
concerned, with that sort of arrangement,” said attorney Lewis Cromer.
“According to Koller, Ms. Morgan is the best thing since sliced bread.
But looking at the record and the way its cost the taxpayers of South
Carolina, I don’t know if that would be true.”
McKeown was also accused of having an improper relationship with a
grant manager he was working with. He and that employee, who later
married, were fired.
Koller stepped down as DSS director after state leaders began investigating her management of the foster care program.
This case heads to trial on Oct. 6.
Just saw that heard there were indictments coming soon for misappropriation of federal grants by management at DSS.
Fun bags for all !
I had assumed the “best” was “for the baby.”
Silly me.
And Freud said babies were “me” oriented.
Liz can I have your nipple cream? No, l wouldn’t use it for that. I bet it would be great for chap lips, elbows, corns, and the bottom of your feet. Will could use it on the top of his head.
Get *Udder Butter* or similar from a farm supply store. Seriously.
I already do. I use it on my biscuits.
CorruptionInColumbia, I think you’re still having problems with disqus. I couldn’t reply. I refreshed and your post disappeared. You posted “test”.
Liz – You’re off to a bad start, with the first word. It’s bad enough when people start a spoken sentence with “so,” but to do it in writing is an abomination.
So, you’re telling me you didn’t like my post?
I can’t comment on the entirety of the post, having not read past the first sentence. The “so” affectation, or affliction, is so off-putting that I just groaned and moved on.
Don’t be so hard on homegirl…the “so, listen to how smart I am” intro is so rampant with the pseudo-intellectuals on NPR as to to be borderline unbearable.
I began noticing this nonsense at various conferences around five years ago. I can’t imagine where, why, or how it started, but it has to stop. It is a terrible speaking habit, but is at least understandable as a stall (though why one stalls at the beginning of a thought is harder to understand). There’s no excuse for using it in writing.
Absolutely agreed! I was beginning to think I was crazy, because it was so noticeable to me that it drove me nuts. I can’t be sure, but I think it’s affected, akin to the misuse of phrases like “vis-à-vis” and other lingo the speaker thinks will make them appear smarter. I’m in DC several times a year dealing with folks who are actually pretty bright, but not nearly as bright as they believe. When my folks are questioning them about the contract at hand, it’s rare that the response starts with anything but, “So…” We’re going to turn it into a drinking game.
Breast milk is best. It’s been well documented. However, when that option is either not available or not desired, then formula will also work.
My beef is the hardships that some breastfeeding women go through when trying to feed their baby in public and people give them a hard time and to “cover up” or stop doing it altogether because the sight of an engorged boob makes them uncomfortable.
Show us your tits!
So FITS is a “Mommy Blog” now? Cool direction you’re going in, bro. Just when we thought this site was turning into the T-Rav network, you throw us a bone with some random mommy in-fighting topic. Yeah, gonna need to take my clicks elsewhere.