Karleen - You were unbelievably courteous to all those women who commented
in a much less than polite way.  When I went to the link,
http://www.fearlessformulafeeder.com/2011/11/formula-feeding-in-disaster-sit
uations.html, and saw that they resorted to vulgar language, I felt that
they were not as well-prepared to defend their positions as their education
would have indicated.  Thanks for your advice to not reply to their
comments; however, I did "grade" your replies by clicking on "Like" to
increase the number of people who gave you credit for the work that you've
done.  It was noticeable that your demeanor had a positive effect; as I went
down the list of comments, some of the later replies became more reasonable
and less vulgar.  Keep up the good work!  It is hard to try to help the
women who reject breastfeeding; they have to become defensive.  One of my
friends says that for some people, the best defense is an offense.  All we
can do is try to stay positive.  Warm regards!

Lee Galasso, MS, LLLL, IBCLC, RLC

Westchester County in NYS, USA

"Children Are Born with the Need to Breastfeed"

            -           -           -           -           -           -
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Karleen wrote:  Thankyou Heather, Teresa and Tania for your kind words (I
slipped up more than once in my posts but have done a lot of "sucking it up"
with insults). It has been an interesting discussion. I engaged in the
discussion not to try to change anyones minds but to try to understand the
response of women who are formula feeding to the paper and to pick their
brains (which has yielded some useful information, but not quite perhaps in
the ways that the responders think they have been useful). One thing that I
have found extremely interesting is how information, presented quite calmly
can be radically misinterpreted so as to be unrecognisable. Elizabeth
Murphy, in talking about how  mothers in one of her studies sought to
present themselves as "good mothers" despite not breastfeeding said,"the
accounts advanced by these women to legitimate formula feeding can be
understood as attempts at re-alignment of self the the "ideology of
motherhood"" I think that this is what is happening in this blog.  I wish
that we could ditch the "ideology of motherhood" so that this was
unnecessary, I have no doubt that the mums posting there are loving caring
mothers it's just that anything negative ascribed to formula feeding must be
hunted down and shown to be false and hyperbole seems to assist in
demonstrating absurdity. If the way that some of the things that I said were
twisted into something completely different in meaning is any indication, it
could be that many of the experiences described, including interactions with
health professionals would appear quite different to an impartial observer.

Anyway, I think that it is worth a read but I would not encourage people to
comment. No one is going to have their minds changed by argument with a
stranger but it is worth a look inside the mind of mums feeling what they
feel about infant feeding decisions/dilemmas/problems/options.


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