I guess I don't feel I have to "buy" any woman's "excuse"; I just can't see
that as my role as a nurse (gasp! not the dreaded HCP!), an LC, a counselor,
an educator, or a fellow mother/woman/human being. I will encourage women to
breastfeed till the cows come home (which apparently will be pretty soon if
our expressed sentiments re: the use of excessive cow's milk mean
anything!), I'll work tirelessly to educate anyone that crosses my path, I
will (and have!) gone to a court of law to defend the importance of
breastfeeding, and I am fearless in the face of ridicule about my role. I'll
come to your house at 2:00 AM (well, I'll talk to you on the phone anyway)
if you need me to help you nurse your baby, and if you want to share the
secrets of your soul with me I'll be there for you, even if it's not pretty.
In short, I'm just like I bet all of you are when it comes to supporting
breastfeeding moms and babies. But I just can't feel like it's my job to
accept or reject anyone's "reason" for such an intimate decision.

I know, I know, that it's not a "choice" without all the appropriate
information. I can scream as loud as the next guy about why not
breastfeeding shouldn't even be an option, etc., etc...When talking with a
woman who confides in me that she isn't comfortable with the idea of
breastfeeding because of a history of sexual abuse, I would share with her
stories like some I've read in these postings from women who've found
breastfeeding has helped heal some of those hurts, and help her to think
about the ways that nursing her baby might be a way to remedy some of the
wrongs that have been done to her. But who am I to sit in a position of
"buying her excuse"? I'm good, but I'm not that good!!

So I can understand a frustrated colleague saying what she feels, and I
sympathize with what she's saying, but I would be very much afraid that if I
expressed myself, even to myself, in terms of "buying" a "reason" for not
bf'ing, that that attitude might spill out into the way I deal with others,
and it's hard for me to see who that would help.

Just a thought....