I always cringe a little when this topic comes up. Anyone who knows me, knows I had a very
difficult son to raise. He was breastfed a reasonable 3.3yrs. He taught me much of what I
know on how to be a mother...but he wasn't what is being described here. In fact, I feel, that
maybe one reasone he was so difficult was because he was breastfed . He had/has a mind
that has been nourished with the best with which to think and that often got him in trouble.
He tends to be very nonconformist and creative (can't imagine where he got that from) , more
characteristics that can get you into trouble in a classroom, always posing a different viewpoint .
He turned out great so far but much to my chagrin is still not the attached child that is being described
in many posts here. Children are not just products of what they are fed, but what genes they are born with: mental capacity, emotional capacity, physical capacity etc. I think we need to be careful when we make
generalization that plot breastfed kids against non breastfed ones. Yes I think they are different but
different from how they would have been themselves not different as a group.
I offer this suggestion though, maybe it is the MOTHER that is changed with breastfeeding. I know
many mothers would have given up on my son. Instead I worked WITH him to let him find his way.
I learned that through breastfeeding. I also learned all children are different, learn different and
react different. If I had bottle fed and not had the very close relationship with my baby, then toddler,
then preteen perhaps I would not have made it through his teen years...or maybe he would not have.
I hope you can get what I'm saying. The difference is not perhaps in the child but in the experiences
the child has through the mothering he receives and maybe what really changes is the mother...I KNOW
I did!
I'm sorry this is so personal but I can't think of another way to convey what I want to say. And like the
poster below I also have NO regrets and I think that is really something to say.
Ilene Fabisch, IBCLC/RLC, LLLL
Clinical Director
Mothers' Milk Bank of New England
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 08:35:55 -0700
From: Mary Anne Taylor <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Thoughts on who was breastfed
> So - if you were in a group of mothers, could you tell which ones
> breastfed
> their children? Would those long years of heightened oxytocin levels make
> a
> difference? (I'll tell you one thing, when I look back I have no regrets!)
My children have always been able to tell. When they were in the school aged
years, if friends seemed particularly at odds with their parents or were
having some kind of issues (and certainly we weren't perfect, but at the end
of the day the bonding was there), they would ask me if that child was
breastfed. Often I knew whether they were or not, and my kids were never
wrong about who was not. They knew something was missing, and it was often
very sad to watch these families not seem to have enough empathy for their
kids.
Thank goodness we had that great start to our relationship.
Mary Taylor, LLLL, IBCLC
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