Suck on this

I read two very interesting posts on the eternal and mind-numbing breastfeeding debate this week. The first was from Her Bad Mother, suggesting that it may be high time we embrace the breast as a symbol of sexiness and as a source of nourishment, instead of engaging in a neverending cycle of "nursing-shaming" and retaliatory "slut-shaming." ("Ew, nursing! Boobs are gross!" / "Nursing isn't gross but your epic cleavage is, you whore.") The second was a response by Carolyn Castiglia over on Babble, in which she discusses the difficulties she had nursing and the embarrassment she felt when she needed to nurse in public. I didn't open the comments on HBM's post, but I did on the Babble post, at which point my common sense utterly deserted me and I decided to leave a comment of my own, admitting that I do feel a bit embarrassed about nursing in public and telling a very short version of Nico's nursing story.

After that, a few self-styled experts took it upon themselves to anonymously inform me that I didn't read anything about babies before I had one, to imply that I let my baby scream in his bassinet in the hospital, and to assure me that if I'd held him enough / fed him often enough / not made excuses / understood what he was really crying about (i.e. not hunger), then nursing would've been easy and natural and perfect for me. Well hot damn, anonymous commenters! It's too bad I didn't have your infinite wisdom at my disposal when my baby was wasting away. Oh, wait. The doctors were wrong about that. He wasn't wasting away, or hungry, because a mother's body not having enough milk to sustain the baby is just a myth. Clearly those commenters are right and (I quote) "people very obviously do not know their babies." I think the richest part of all is that I'm doing what they insist every mother should -- exclusively breastfeeding my baby -- but they're still ragging on me for not doing it fast enough.

All this is a long intro to me saying, look, after reading the original two posts I had planned to write a thoughtful post of my own about breastfeeding. But I'm sick of talking about it and figure I've been insulted enough by people who know more than me for one day. Instead, how about some five-minute book reviews? That sounds better, right? At least with those, no one can accuse me of not reading anything!


Visit the book blog for my quick and dirty reviews of the following books: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, Angels, Vampires, and Douche Bags by Carla Collins, The Map of True Places by Brunonia Barry, The Red Tent by Anita Diamant, and The Help by Kathryn Stockett


Reading:  His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

Playing:  Drunken Lullabies by Flogging Molly