Well, here's my 2 cents worth, prompted by that ignoramus in Toronto (no,
no, not Dr. Jack - that Harder or Harding guy or whatever his name is, with
the column about the rabid BF supporters, following the fluff-up about the
woman nsg. her child at the Y). This is my bottom-line analysis of why so
many people get their undies in a twist over breastfeeding: people are
jealous of the close attachment between the mom & the baby, almost certainly
because they didn't "get enough" when they were young. Enough what?
Unconditional, total, all-encompassing love, the kind that flows between a
nursing mom & her baby. That love can certainly be there without
breastfeeding too, but I think that when many people see breastfeeding,
which is such a graphic picture of that kind of love, it goes right to that
spot in most of us that says "ooh, I want mine! I didn't get enough of it,
and I carry the pain inside from not having had enough of it, and why should
that baby get what I haven't had for my whole life?" But of course we all
know it's disgusting to have a grudge against an innocent baby, so the
negative gut response gets turned against the mom and the process of
nursing, and the poor soul having this response doesn't allow himself to
feel all that pain and hurt and longing, he just spews out some trash. It's
like a hidden, lifelong grudge. Why else would ANYONE give two hoots about a
mother feeding her baby in the way nature intended?
Obviously, the "indecent exposure" thing is totally bogus, when you look at
everything else breasts are used for in our world. At least in a society
where women and their body parts are frankly acknowledged as being too
disgusting to be seen and are kept under wraps, there is consistency in the
taboo. But in a society of such hypocrisy as ours, where not an eyebrow is
raised at the display of women's (often surgically-augmented) breasts to
sell booze, cars, or anything else, I can't come up with any explanation
other than that we're a society suffering massively and painfully from lack
of love in our collective youth. That loss, that "I never got enough" place,
is just too painful to take out and look at directly, so it just goes
underground and poisons our souls. And who EVER gets "enough"? Only a very
few of the luckiest of us, 'cause "enough" is a big huge bunch!
That's what I think about why people are so nasty about BFing! Now 20 of you
on this list will tell me I'm naive, or cutting the world too much slack,
but this is what observation, intellectual analysis, and my intuitive sense
tell me, and I trust both my brain and my intuition. It's why "education"
alone isn't enough, and why even the ignorant hard-core types have to be
dealt with with more gentleness than their words and actions deserve, and
it's what keeps me from shouting "You stupid idiot %^&*&^%" at lots and lots
of people. And it's NOT the dreaded "psychobabble" either!
Cathy Bargar, RN, IBCLC
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