Offensive Boobs

I’m a dues-paying member of the local English-speaking ladies’ club, “In Touch NL.”  They have a moms’n’tots play group on Tuesday mornings that I attend when I can, and I’m on the emailing list for events and parties hosted by other members.  The women are American, British, Australian, Canadian, even a few Dutch who are married to English-speakers or want their kids to learn English.  I’ve never made it to one of their evening events.  But this month I signed up for a “cake-decorating workshop,” figuring that I would learn skills for a lifetime of birthdays etc.  So last night I decorated cakes with 9 other ladies around a kitchen table. 

It was the first time that I haven’t put Apollo to bed for the night myself.  The event was scheduled from 7:30 to 11, and Apollo’s bedtime is around 7:30.  So Carol agreed to put him to bed and Jonah to come home from work a little early, but still I told them that I would return home at 9:30.  So around 9:15, I told the ladies that I had to depart, and explained why.  I was friendly with a couple of the ladies around the table from the playgroup, but most of them I’d never met before.  One lady I knew asked, “Do you have to pump when you’re away this long from the baby?”  I said, “Oh no; maybe when the baby is 3 months, you have to pump if you’re away for a few hours, but not at 20 months.” 

Lady A said to the table, “I saw a TV news show with a woman who breastfed her 7 year old!”  All the ladies made disgusted sounds.  Lady B said, “I saw something like that too!  Her boobs hung down like a cow!  The kid would just grab her boob like this.”  Lady C said, “Well, I did breastfeed, because of the benefits, but I stopped at six months.  I wanted my boobs back!”  Lady D said, “I don’t deny the benefits, so I actually breastfed until 1 year.   But then I stopped, because I don’t want ugly boobs.”  Lady E said, “Plus, when the child is that old, it becomes sexual, and that’s sick.”  Lady F said, “Can you say creepy?”  The ladies all made some more disgusted sounds.  Then someone changed the subject.

So, in the moment, I could see what was happening.  Breastfeeding a 20-month old was equated with breast-feeding a 7 year old, both were condemned as morally repugnant and ruinous of the mother’s sexual appeal, and the ladies all signaled to me that breastfeeding a 20 month old is unacceptable, while also confirming their solidarity for “taking their boobs back” (if they ever shared them with their babies at all).

Statistically, it makes sense that in an “average” group of English-speaking woman, I’d be the only one who didn’t wean long before the World Health Organization’s recommended minimum of two years.  9 out of 10 western babies are weaned before they turn one. 

The women’s words touched on the fascinating intersection of breast-feeding, identity, and sexuality.  All the women called their breasts “boobs”—that loathsome, self-loathing word!— which, after all, means fool, idiot, blunder, or mistake.   And it made perfect sense to all of them that it was worth denying their babies access to their breasts, cutting short the breast-feeding relationship, in the hope that their “boobs” might look a little more appealing later to some boob ogling them on the beach.

I thought about speaking up for Truth—pointing out that it is much more Normal for the human animal to breastfeed until 7 than to wean at 6 months—let alone that unmilked breasts are not immune from aging, and are instead vulnerable to cancer-- but what would have been the point?  That would have only reinforced the alienation that had just fallen between us.  It was clear from their body language that they didn't want me to offer my perspective or opinion.  If I had Spoken Up, they would have seen it as the attack of the aggressive feminazi.  So I clamped my tongue between my teeth and rolled out the arms for my marzipan frog.

This was perhaps the most blatant of the encounters I have more and more as Apollo gets older, “oh my God; you’re still breast-feeding?”  One interesting thing I’ve noticed lately is how the questions these women ask reflect knowledge only of the reality of breast-feeding early babies, like the question about whether I had to pump if I went out for the evening.  Another woman recently saw Apollo nursing and asked, “Don’t you worry about him getting enough to eat?  That’s why I didn’t breast-feed.”  I was like, “Er, well he eats 3 meals a day plus snacks.  So he doesn’t rely entirely on breast-milk for his nutrition at this point.”  I was confused, until I realized that she was just rolling out this very tired old “reason” against breast-feeding at all—you can’t measure the milk in a beaker!—with no thought of its inapplicability for breastfeeding a toddler.

As last night’s boobs were prattling about their boobs, I thought, this is why La Leche League exists.  I also thought about how loudly premature weaners complain that they feel judged when they read or hear or see about women who do breast-feed. (Like, the phrase “premature weaning” is doubtlessly offensive.)  Lisa Belkin, Times “Motherlode” blogger, loves to do this, like when she recently criticized a photo of Angelina Jolie holding a tiny baby near her chest for both its “exhibitionism” and for making Lisa and “the rest of us” feel “inadequate.”  As if women breast-feed because of pressure from the strident opinions of La Leche “lactivists,” instead of the reality: social pressure is a major reason that women stop breast-feeding, whether that pressure comes from the overwhelming majority of non-breastfeeders, like last night, or from husbands and families.  The In Touch ladies exercised the prerogatives of mainstream/ power, to casually dump their assumptions and judgments on those who step out of line.  Then they express indignance or outrage if those assumptions, or their choices, are challenged, even implicitly, by the minority who think or act differently.

Well, it’s all about Choice, right?

Comments

[Eilat]

Bravo, Hermine!
I guess you'll not be going back to that group again, huh? ;-)

I have to admit, I never thought of the word "boob" as offensive in that way, but these women should see how fabulous my boobs are after nursing Ronen until he was 3 and now Navah. (although I am fighting off a nasty bout of mastitis right now!!!)

relevant story:
We were traveling back from hawaii yesterday and yaniv was carrying navah in the baby bjorn as we got on the crowded terminal change bus. This little (very) old lady peeked in and looked very concerned (like you shouldn't take a baby that young out of the house!) We had lots of bags and were pooped (I had a fever) and she said to yaniv "did you have to take her with you? you couldn't leave her with grandparents?" And I replied "how else could we go, I am her food!" People on the bus chuckled and the old lady looked uncomfortable. "can't you switch to a bottle for a couple of weeks?" she asked, adding, "some people do that." I shook my head "Nope. It doesn't work that way."

I would have been angrier, but she was like 80 years old and it occurred to me that in her day women were knocked out for birth. babies came out with forceps and a shot was given to dry up the milk before a woman even saw her baby for the first time come out of the nursery.

Clearly, weve got a long way to go.

[Christina]

Speaking of boobs, I'm surrounded by them. I'm still nursing Aidan at 14.5 months and I've heard nothing from my female (and married male) colleagues but how I really should have cut Aidan off from breastfeeding at 6 months. Every single time the topic of breastfeeding comes up at work, I inevitably have to hear about stories of some woman who has nursed her child until he was 9 or 10. Whenever I head off to the mother's pumping room, I have a colleague who bellows "MOO" at me. Welcome to my world!

[Mary Kay]

Another instance of women being their own worst enemy. Is this why we still have such a long way to go? How about the fact that you didn't get right up in their face? Good for you for just rolling out the marzipan frog arms and thinking what boobs they were!

[Shaun]

Your baby's health is the ONLY reason one should ever offer for nursing. All remaining reasons are selfish, or worse, vain.

Strong people need to continually reiterate this sound bite to change the norm because there is simply no argument against it. Any remaining discussion or "reasons" are background noise that distracts us from the premise of the health of the most treasured thing in our lives. Hopefully this reason alone can help women weather the mainstream pressure of other positions.

That said, I would like to comment on some of the other "reasons" given for not nursing, until at LEAST age two (recommended by the World Health Organization):
Women need to have a firmer grip on their self-worth. It seems women readily sacrifice their baby's health so some random male they don't even know might debase them in a bar to another male with a "she's got a nice rack" comment. Isn't that what this all comes down to? We must be honest with precisely what we are seeking. So males on the beach will approach us because of our "tits"? Do we actually want to attract those types of males? So we too can feed the breast complex in this over-sexualized country? So we too can perpetuate an unrealistic standard of women? So we can "keep" the attention of our partners? Maybe the effort would have been better spent giving our partners a recommended reading list to help them overcome their breast complex if they had not already done this work before you agreed to marry them. In which case, your child shouldn't suffer for your poor judgment. Particularly if you have a daughter together, you would certainly being doing her a service, by educating the man you chose to be in her life.

Most other reasons, such “I’m doing it for myself”, are circular and still boil down to those listed above. Why does having breasts that conform to standards in Playboy make us feel good about ourselves? And then you break that down, etc.

[Eilat]

I'm not sure I agree with Shaun about the role of breasts or valid reasons for breastfeeding. I dont see any problem with breasts being dual purpose organs. I love my breasts for the food they make to grow my babies, for the way they soothe and comfort my babies and for the way they look in (and out of) a push-up bra. The best parallel would be the mouth (or lips) which can be and extremely sexual body part (e.g., kissing, etc.) but also a very basic functioning organ (eating, breathing).
I also disagree that the health benefits are the best argument for breastfeeding. Just consider the latest garbage from the Atlantic Monthly. Its so easy for someone wanting to dispute the health benefits to argue that studies are biased, etc. They may be wrong, but they end up putting breastfeeding on the defensive. You hear it all the time: "I wasnt breastfed and I went to Harvard", etc. The best argument for breastfeeding, in my mind, is that we are mammals and that breastfeeding is the normal way that our species is supposed to feed its young. period. That argument puts formula feeding on the defensive, where it belongs.
Just my 2 cents :-)

[Hermine]

I can get behind the claim that the only reason a mother needs to give for breast-feeding is that it is best for the baby's health. But I wouldn't say that it is the only reason a mother Should give, or that other reasons are less valid or supportable.

And even the first claim depends on how you define "baby's health." It is more true if it includes the baby's psychological health. The benefits of breast-feeding go way beyond the nutritional values that the scientists are (more or less) capable of measuring. The most valuable benefit of breast-feeding may be the fact that it links food and love in a foundational way for the baby. It demonstrates that the Earth (manifest in Mama) can sustain you in a way that is all about reciprocal love. Breast-feeding is so much more than breast-milk. It is a full-body experience for baby and, yes, for mother.

So, speaking of self-worth-- I wonder when women will reject the idea that it is selfish or vain to enjoy the pleasures of mothering, including enjoying breast-feeding and enjoying a happy and supported birth. The idea that valuing those experiences is selfish tends to include an implicit assertion that mothers are at odds with their babies' interests for wanting these things.

It's like that statement all pregnant mothers have heard: "All that matters is a healthy baby in the end." Meaning, "All that matters is that the baby survives the birth." Which includes the implicit: "The quality of the baby's birth doesn't matter." If the mother pursues the support to enable a natural birth, she's "selfish." When, the reality is,

1) the goal of a natural and supported birth is better for mother AND baby-- so she's actually pursuing the baby's best interest, in a way that those who treat its birth experience as irrelevant are not, and

2) in fact: the mother's experience DOES matter. Her memory of the birth will reverberate through the rest of her life, and will also shape her psychological condition in the critical days and weeks following the birth. She's not selfish or vain for caring about her experience. not to mention

3) nobody cares more about a live baby at the end than the mother. So it is just so insulting and myopic to "remind" the mothers who pursue a happy birth of this goal, when nobody on earth is thinking about it more than they are.

We're not senseless vessels (or "human potting soil," as the brilliant Katha Pollitt once put it: http://www.thenation.com/doc/19870523/19870523pollitt). We're not just tools for our baby's survival or optimal IQ score, or any man's hard-on. We're people, and sometimes we're mothers. If we can pursue our own genuine happiness-- and find the source of that happiness in our body and its knowledge, instead of some external authority-- it is safe to trust that we will naturally be pursuing our baby's happiness-- and health-- as well.