Hi, all

Jan asked: >
>Guess my question is, given that all mammals nurse their young, why do we
>picture ourselves as cows?

Seems like this is doubly ironic since more likely than not, if a mom
decides not to bf for fear of feeling like a cow, she turns around and gives
her baby cow's milk (doctored and packaged though it may be). At least the
cow has enough sense to give its babies cow's milk.... Anything else would
be udderly ridiculous.

Another irony is that I suspect that when most folks (other than dairy
farmers perhaps) think about cows giving milk, they don't think about a cow
nurturing her young in any way. She just pulls up to the milking machine,
plugs herself in, and passively allows a machine to get the milk out. Folks
are often surprised to discover that a cow won't give milk unless she's had
a calf.

And while I'm waxing philosophical, someone (sorry, I don't remember who)
wrote yesterday about how often breast milk is not seen as food, as in "when
is that baby gonna start eating something real?" While breast milk may not
be seen as food, all too often breastfeeding is seen as ONLY a food delivery
system--an image "validated" by the cow image (since we don't think about
the cow actually mothering her calf). Curiouser and curiouser....

As for why I bf, it was out of a vague "doing what's best" notion, coupled
with a very real desire to avoid dealing with bottles and all the work
they'd entail. I think the first mom I saw bf was a woman I babysat for in
high school. Her son was a holy terror and I was the only soul brave enough
to come back. When she had another baby, she named the baby after me and bf
her.

I taught human anatomy in a public high school until I had my son in 1983. I
don't even remember mentioning breasts. Period. Strange, because we did talk
about the reproductive system at length (and this was one topic that I could
count on the students being alert for!). If I had that to do over again (and
thankfully I have no plans to go back to such!) I'd teach a much different
class.

My best friend at the time had a baby 7 months older than mine and she was a
big advocate of bf. (Found out 5 years later she was a retired LLL Leader)
She gave me a copy of Karen Pryor's book, Nursing Your Baby, and that, plus
Kim's encouragement, tipped the scales decidedly in favor of bf.

Time to moooooove on over and let someone else step up to the milking machine...

Melissa Vickers, IBCLC
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