Can't resist that pun, sorry.
Tonight I asked my daughter, age 22, what memories, if any, she had of
breastfeeding.  She was 40 months and very verbal when she was weaned.  She
has no conscious memories of it at all.  Then she asked 'Did they ever force
me to drink cow's milk at day care?'.  I thought she had heard that story
(they did, in fact, force her to drink cow's milk at one day care here,
unbeknownst to me) but she hadn't.  That, she remembered though she didn't
remember telling them she didn't need it 'because I get milk from my
mother's breasts' (nor their laughter at the amazing stories kids 'make
up').

Janice, I think you are on to something when you say that they are unlikely
to remember it as momentous, because it was just a fact of life, literally -
something they had done many times a day, since birth.  Not like flying over
the Grand Canyon, or in my daughter's case, like picking and eating WAY too
many raspberries in Grandma's yard, which she remembers clearly, down to
recalling the color and consistency of what she later upchucked all over her
dad.  (Twice, in the same evening.  At a restaurant!)
I also think that when she starts mothering her own children, the ingrained
naturalness of breastfeeding will stand her in good stead.  I doubt she'll
be clumsy, not knowing how to hold her baby or position it.  She has a body
memory of BF, as I am convinced I did, so that the first time I held her to
feed her, I had an almost oppressively physical sense of déjà vu.  I know I
was breastfed for 9 months.

My mother died when my daughter was 4.  They had always enjoyed each other
immensely.  My daughter says she has no specific memories of Grandma, but
she can clearly remember the feeling of being with her, which I think was a
feeling of being bathed in unconditional adulation - who wouldn't remember
that?  How uplifting!

Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway

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