A week or so ago, on the Tonight Show, Jay Leno asked a guest (I can't remember who it was) what her earliest memory was.  I can't remember what she said, but Jay said that he remembered his mother breastfeeding him!  The guest appeared a bit embarrassed and it sounded like some of the audience was too.  Jay seemed a bit surprised by that reaction.  I have read Jay's autobiography and, while I don't remember it saying anything about breastfeeding in it, it is quite obvious from it that Jay absolutely adored his mother!

Of the four of mine who self weaned, Thomas, who was four and half at the time, remembers nursing, not surprisingly.  Julia and Joseph, who were both about 25 months, don't remember actually nursing, although Joseph has vivid memory of being in my arm with his little hand in my shirt, rubbing the mole on my upper chest.  Joanna, whom I had to encourage to keep nursing a little bit until she was 20 months old, has a vivid memory of nursing.  

I suspect that, in many people who breastfed long-term, there is memory of times feeling comfortable, safe, secure, etc., that actually come from time spent nursing, even if they don't remember that they were actually latched onto the breast.  

About gender and breastfeeding, I think it is important to be able to help mothers explore their feelings.  I wonder if, at least in cases where a mother has only had children of one or the other sex, a lot of it is just the fact that some women find it difficult to envision feeling as comfortable with intimacy, with a hypothetical child, or even a newborn, as they do with the child they have already become attached to.  Second time mothers sometimes feel guilty that they do not feel as close to the new baby as to their first child, not realizing how much their love for that first child had grown since its birth.   I would encourage mothers who have doubts to avoid making predictions about what their feelings will be with a new child, and just give themselves a chance to learn to bond with that child too.

I remember reading something in an advice column, years ago, where a reader had written in and suggested that mothers should only breastfeed boys, because breastfeeding would turn baby girls into lesbians.  The columnist answered that, if that were true, throughout most of history, the world would have consisted on heterosexual men but no heterosexual women, which would not be expected to result in many babies being born!

Aloha,
Darillyn

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