Someone in one of the current posts about guilt said that they were
wondering if "guilt" hasn't become a modern buzz-word, sorting of like
"bonding" has, used to encompass a wide variety of emotions and responses. I
think there's something to that; it's become an automatic hot-button word,
on both sides. They say "oh you BF zealots are harming women by 'making'
them feel guilty if they don't BF; we say - well, we all know what we say.
But "they" can always get a rise out of "us" by invoking the G-word. Both
sides fluff up our feathers and do our little strutting routines.

I don't find this helpful or effective. I just don't do Guilt, I guess. I
don't think there is room for guilt in discussing & educating about BFing,
and certainly not in our interactions with women. The facts are the facts,
as many have said. The other factor in the work we do is that we are dealing
with *people*, mostly women people, on a very intimate level, and you can't
be effective in helping people widen their understanding or change their
attitudes from a judgmental place.

People come to us with whatever they come with (sounds stupid, sorry), and
we just meet them where they are and try to help them - we may have an
agenda for them to change a behaviour (i.e. BF vs. ABM)or an attitude, but
we'll never succeed if we get all mired down in the guilt thing. We have
information and skills to share, and we're most successful in doing so when
we just take people as they come. So we don't ignore the feelings that they
may perceive as "guilt", but we don't spend our precious time arguing with
it, or trying to talk them out of it, or trying to persuade them; just
accept what they tell us, acknowledge that we all do the best we can with
what we know at a given time, empathize with whatever brought them to
wherever they are, and move along from there.

At the risk of sounding like a new-age dope (which I'm not, ask anyone!), if
we ourselves are genuinely clear about not judging women for what they've
done or thought or believed before, or what their families or their cultures
did or believed, guilt is just not an issue. We don't put it out, we don't
attract it.

My approach to women (and other people, for that matter) is pretty much the
same one that most of us have to babies: we just take 'em as they come.
They're different colors, they have different strengths and areas that need
help, some are chunky & some are scrawny, some are noisy & some aren't, but
what the heck...here they are, needing something from us, so we better just
dig right in & see how we can help.

Cathy Bargar, RN, IBCLC Ithaca NY

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