Letters to the Editor
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Thank you Salon
I want to thank Salon for highlighting the positive, open supportive letters that are posted here. It is a shame that there are so few.
What I find valuable in this piece is the revealing of the struggles to make good decisions.
I nursed my daughter until she was a little over 4. Choosing to nurse and to continue to nurse had it's challenges all along. In the end, it was a quiet decision that it was time to stop. It simply happens. There are no case histories of a child who has refused to stop breast feeding. And no case histories of a child who had some kind of sexual dysfunction due to child-led weaning - that is, where the child decides when it is time to stop.
I, too, found the nursing to be painful for the first few weeks. It's something that isn't talked about, but this is quite normal as the channels in the breast are opened up for the flow of milk. As natural as the act of nursing is, it doesn't come easily. I wish I had been told about this, so that I didn't think something was 'wrong' with me.
Why is it ok to have Victoria's Secret ads on billboards and TV and music videos that present women as nothing but sexual objects but it can be called 'obscene' when a mother nurses her child? I can't help but wonder if breasts have become such a sexualized obsession because of all the people who weren't breastfed.
With all the ugliness in the world, one would hope that we would find our way to supporting this loving, nurturing action. (This is not mutally exclusive to supporting mothers who make a loving and informed decision not to nurse.) Parenting is the most emotionally complex and relentless job you can ever have. We must support each other in every way that we can. How else will we maximize the chance that our children will become compassionate adults who bring down the level of hatred in the world?
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The milk of Human Kindness
I am appalled by the many mean spirited and clearly ignorant letters posted in response to this article. In a world that undervalues children and stigmatizes mothers who choose to honor their children's needs, these letters are not surprising. They are truly sad, though.
I find that close-minded, judgemental, uninformed scolders are really afraid of the power of the lactating breast, freed from the bondage of sexual connotation. They are fearful of the nursing, dedicated mother to alter their small orderly, and sterile worlds. They hate what they do not understand and seek to impose that hatred on devoted mothers and their precious children. This is truly tragic.
I nursed my first son for 3 1/2 years, sometimes whether I wanted to or not. His desperate need to nurse often mystified and frustrated me. Little did I know that my son is autistic. Nursing was his way of finding safety in a sea of chaos. When he latched on he was able to close off the bombardment of information that crashed into his fragile senses. Food was strange and overwhelming; momma's milk was always the same, sweet, warm, and good smelling. Bright light was painful to his little eyes; snuggling close for a while let him rest his eyes and sooth the pain away. Noises were terrifying; the breast and momma's arms were still and quiet, offering an oasis of calm amidst the clamor. Transitions were chaotic; the breast was always there for him, regardless of the place or time, providing the ritual of sameness, so despearately necessary for organizing his emerging mind. Touch was frightening, but momma's warm body was soothing and familiar. Nursing provided my autistic son with exactly the cessation of sensory input he needed to begin to make sense of this ever changing, harsh, and often mean world into which he was born and expected to survive.
Autistic or neurotypical, children instinctually know what they need. Is the comfort of strangers, the ignorant judgement of those who have never nursed a baby, or been nursed themselves, the convenience of the child-free more important than offering the milk of human kindness to the fragile young child and honoring that child's needs? No, it is not. All children have the right to seek comfort and nourishment from their mothers, for as long as necessary. Dedicated, extended nursing mothers know this. Our milk of human kindness overflows, and contributes to the greater good, the healing of this broken and hurting world, one nursling at a time.
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Sounds more akin to thumb-sucking than breast feeding
Ms. Woodburn's article touched me in two very different ways.
First, I felt the twinge of regret and sadness I have felt repeatedly over the last year reading the latest breast-feeding coverage--I stopped nursing my son at five months. I wish I would have tried harder to keep nursing, but I was an exhausted, single mother with no family nearby, navigating a tenuous relationship with my son's father. I just wasn't producing enough milk to feed my son. Even when I pumped so his father (now nearly six years later my husband) could feed him and bond with him, it took over an hour to get less than a quarter of a cup. I felt even more inadequate because my breasts were huge--JJ cups--yet I couldn't feed my child. I enjoyed and cherished the closeness of nursing and wish it could have lasted longer.
Second, what Ms. Woodburn is describing with her son sounds more like what we went through breaking my son's thumb-sucking habit. He had sucked his thumb since birth and finally broke the habit this summer after finishing kindergarten. He used to suck his thumb all the time--when he was bored, when was upset, when he was hungry, when he was tired. We had finally gotten him to stop nearly all the time with a combination of bribes, peer pressure and stories of what he was doing to his newly sprouting permanent teeth. But he still couldn't kick the bedtime habit. With the thumb, bedtime was an easy, story-telling cuddling 30 minutes. Without the thumb it was a difficult, whiney, tear-filled hour or more. He kept saying "It's too hard." When he asked for a new "big boy" bike we finally found the right incentive. We charted his progress with stickers and after two minor setbacks he went 10 consecutive days with sucking his thumb he got his new bike. He hasn't sucked his thumb at bedtime or any other time since.
I think the Ms. Woodburn should think about her nursing at bedtime like a habit that needs to be broken--especially since there is really no milk involved. If her son was sucking his thumb or a pacifier at this age she too would start to get serious about breaking the habit. I bet if she found the right incentive after four or five nights it would start to get easier and easier. This isn't about breast-feeding it's about her son learning to calm himself to sleep.