Three things to ponder:

1)  There is a difference between personal 'doing one's best' and 
professional competency.  My point was that in the professional context, 
personal 'doing one's best' is not appropriate.  You either make minimum 
standards as set out by policy, or you don't.  Likewise, in this context 
"good enough" is the meeting of the minimum professional requirements - 
it's not about a personal dis-inclination to try harder and succeed 
better at something as a human being.  So in this context, my discussion 
was about applying a professional standard to someone paid to fulfill a 
service. 

2) Therefore, I agree about 'they did their best' when they failed in 
breastfeeding.  This is a personal issue, to do with where they are in 
their heads and how they feel - not what the minimum required of them 
professionally is.  Further, my take is always that any woman who tried, 
and didn't make it - has not failed.  My take is they _were_ failed, by 
the people and support structures around them.  Individuals do not need 
to be burdened with the guilt of a system designed to make formula the 
default.  (With the obvious caveat to "all women who tried and didn't 
make it have been failed" that some women didn't try at all, and just 
say they did to get others off their back.  But this is a small number, 
and hardly likely to be the ones saying they genuinely feel bad about 
'failing'.  They are the ones you just keep your mouth shut about in 
social situations.)  Mothers who attempt to breastfeed and don't make it 
have not failed - they have been failed.  I always say it like that - 
and it is genuinely what I think.  (I also suggest to them that a 
healthier response is to get angry about this failure _of their needs_, 
and fight back, rather than internalise it as 'their fault'.  Nice 
healthy pro-active anger.  Guilt is a perfectly useless emotion - it 
acheives nothing.)

In terms of then communicating with mothers who didn't suceed in 
breastfeeding, and her guilt about formula feeding, I try and 
acknowledge the genuine risk to the infant, as well as the injury to the 
mother, and her feelings on that, and offer support in how to minimise 
such.  Acknowledge the injury and put forward a way to work with it, 
rather than suggest it's not there.  (I'm saying this as I've just had 
two mothers talk about how guilty they feel about the health issues 
their children are facing from ff-ing, and several people have 
'helpfully' poo-poohed the notion that they are ill because of the 
formula.  After all, she can't 'prove it', so she should absolve herself 
of all feelings on the matter.  I don't find that 'helpful' at all... 
and am of the opinon it's damaging to everyone.

3) On the last point... yes, this is the difficult one.  How little some 
mothers do to try and keep going, and how much others acheive in far 
worse straits.  How to be supportive of the one who gave up on the 
seemingly smallest obstacle... how to keep supporting the one who 
doesn't take one jot of notice of your advice.   The image of the 
amazing acheivements of some, blazing in your mind, as others fall at 
far less of a fence.

I keep several strands of thought in place here - or I try to.  For my 
own reaction, I remind myself I cannot know the totality of that woman's 
experience, and I cannot know how hard it might be _to her_.  I also try 
and remind myself that my way of coping with challenge, is not 
everyone's way - and what is clear to me, is probably my own prejudice 
as I see my world that way!  And as for how to deal with it with the 
woman who is asking me to comment on the circumstances, I try and use 
basic counselling language, where I am acknowledging what she has said 
without making any judgement - good or bad - upon it.  "That must have 
felt very hard..."  "I can hear how difficult that struggle was for 
you..."  and if pushed "It's so difficult the resources weren't there to 
let you know there were other things to try."  But it is a huge 
balancing act, on how to listen and support without being complicit in 
'giving up'.  And the bit I'm worst at.  What's coming out of my mouth 
(or being typed) can often be far away from what I'm actually thinking.  
I'm saying supportive, non-committal things, and in my head I'm reacting 
strongly to my perception that this person didn't actually try hard 
enough.   Again though, that's not my judgement call to make - I'm not 
God, I don't _know_ what's in their head.   I don't _know_ how hard this 
mountain was from their viewpoint.  But I do struggle, so I look forward 
to reading how others deal with it - both the scenario, and my 
'provoked' internal reaction!  :-) 

And it's worth mentioning that my hardest struggle is with people who 
don't use any of the advice or resources given.  That's an emotional 
killer to me.  I can accept intellectually that people can be so trodden 
down, or so unware of themselves, that they cannot raise them selves up 
another level.  But that's a nice sterile intellectual awarenss, my 
emotional one is not sterile, and not nice, and I find it hurts me 
terribly when nursing fails under such circumstances.  :-(  But I refuse 
to end on a negative, because that really doesn't happen as often as 
success does.  :-)

Morgan Gallagher

 Marit Olanders wrote:
> I've been going through the summers' lactnet digests. Morgan's 
> thoughts on *doing one's best* versus *good enough* really gave me 
> something to think about. I haven't really liked the "good enough" say 
> (or, its Swedish equivalent, of course) because I have seen that as an 
> excuse for not searching further, finding facts - i.e not doing ones' 
> "best". When mothers have been feeling guilty for not breastfeeding I 
> have often objected "but you did your best during the given 
> circumstances. You could not have done anything different without 
> knowing how to and without support". To me, that's more honest than a 
> smoothing-over "but you're a good enough mother even if you 
> formula-feed". The underlying message is as I see it very much the 
> same - it is not the mothers "fault" if her breastfeedig fails in a 
> breastfeeding hostile environment - we have to put the guilt on the 
> social structure level where it belongs.
> Thoughts?
> And something related - When women talk to me about failed 
> breastfeeding many say "I/She tried EVERYTHING - but still it didn't 
> work." It provokes me, as I wouldn't be so sure that all that they 
> have tried really is everything there is to try. But how does one 
> communicate that without insulting the woman who "did her best"?
>
> Marit Olanders
> breastfeeding counsellor and editor of the Swedish bf magazine 
> Amningsnytt

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