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For the past week I’ve been thinking about how judgmental I’ve become as a mom. I’m not the only one who is, and I’ve been wondering why.
An article by Hanna Rosin, The Case Against Breast-Feeding started it off. I was furious reading this article, I was seething and almost couldn’t finish it. How DARE she say that breast-feeding isn’t just the greatest thing ever invented. How DARE she try to convince me that it would be okay if I decided to stop. And, since one of the things I worked very hard for in therapy is the ability to question my very strong emotions, I stepped back and tried to calm myself down. I finished the article, trying to maintain a distance.
The article is well-written and well-researched. And it isn’t the first thing that has made me question some of the fanaticism of the breast-feeding brigade. (The first being a poster which mentioned that for every 9 formula-fed children who get sick with some disease, only 1 breast-fed baby gets sick. This is just a really, really tricky use of statistics.)
So, great article that doesn’t tell me not to breast-feed, why would it piss me off? It has nothing to do with me or my decision to breast-feed my son. Why did I find myself wishing to print it out so that I could tear it into tiny pieces and light it on fire?
Because it questions my belief that I am the best mother ever.
Yes, I know I’m not the best mother ever. I even realize that I’m not always the best mother I could be. But I try. And I am trying really hard to find what is best for my family. Making these decisions is not easy. And they feel like the heaviest decisions I’ve ever had to make. I look at my son and see a potential person; what if by not reading him this book today he will grow up to not love reading? What if I hold him too much and he grows up to become needy and high-maintenance and thus has no friends? What if staying home with him turns him into a misogynistic, clingy asshole afraid of strong women? Every day is fraught with the perilous possibility of making the wrong decision.
Except for the decision to breast-feed.
I have done my best not to look down on mothers who don’t breast-feed. Even when it all goes perfectly and easily, like it has for me, it sort of sucks. Don’t get me wrong, I love every moment with Ben, and it’s a sweet moment between him and me, but sometimes I wish that it could be a sweet moment between Dad and Ben just as easily. I wish that in order for Ben to eat I didn’t need to feed him or pump (though I got lazy and stopped giving him a bottle so now he won’t take one. Damn.). It really is a decision that each mother needs to make. On her own. Without my disapproval or any one else’s. (But definitely with support, everyone needs support!)
But not looking down or thinking that they’re bad mothers is NOT the same as not thinking that I’m better than they are. I mean, deep in my heart. The way that you think that you’re the better person because you flossed this morning, or because you see someone with a brownie on their plate when you have the salad. We do this. We compare ourselves to others every day. Because we want to be the one who wins.
Being a mother means you play that game for two people. You need to win and your child needs to win. And if you can do the winning thing for your child you win that much more. And you can’t win unless someone else is losing. And this breast-feeding thing was the one thing you could be sure you were winning with. And this article took that away.
In the end, though, this information is freeing. It says that no one is losing. I’ll take Amy’s “license to be the best mom you can be” over winning a “best mom” trophy any day. I choose to breast-feed. I enjoy breast-feeding, and it’s cheaper than formula. And I would have chosen it regardless of the studies. The studies just made the decision easier. And, in having that easy decision, I should stop my holier-than-thou attitude and let other moms nourish their adorable infants in peace.
Because, seriously, isn’t motherhood hard enough, beating each of us up every single day. Shouldn’t we at least get a little slack from our fellow moms?
I adore Half Full, which studies “the science of raising happy kids.” Not only does it report on interesting studies and help teach practices for mindfulness and gratitude, I always feel as though they stress “good enough” instead of “perfect” in raising children. Also, I find a lot of the articles help me in reprograming myself to be happier.
