Kudos

I really want to get back to knitting posts (or at least show off some funny March Break photos), but I just have to address this issue a little bit more.

Women who don't breastfeed fall into two catagories. The first group are those who WANT to b.f., who struggle for weeks and months, who pump fulltime for a year, who won't give their baby a bottle in public because they feel ashamed. They KNOW b.m. is best, they WANT to do it, they've TRIED. These women are to be acknowledged (like I did back last fall), respected, accepted, and wrapped in the love of the b.f. community. All too often they hang on to feelings of guilt, when they are the mothers who should not have any. For more about this issue, see Rev. Jan's essay about b.f. advocates, guilt, and who should feel it. It's a good article. If I knew more about graphics, and HTML, and buttons, I'd make one just for these breastfeeding
warriors (but as you can see by my sidebar, I'm just a little slow at that stuff. I really want to get more links up there, I'm not trying to ignore anyone's blogs, but I'm just slow!).

The second camp of non-b.f. are the ones I was addressing yesterday (and last fall). The ones who don't even try. Who give lame excuses like "I want Daddy to give some bottles" or "I don't want to feel like a cow" or who give up after two weeks, without seeking assistance, because it "wasn't going well" (it might be the natural and normal way to feed an infant, but not very many mothers can say it's going well in the first week!). Or "My doctor says I'm too old to breastfeed". Yup, I heard that one, by a woman around 43-44. Or, "you can't b.f. twins/triplets..." Or, like my neighbour "It'll be more convinient to bottle feed" and then they're at the doctor's twice in the first 3 days and on three different formulas already because their baby hasn't passed the meconium. How's that convinient? What was convinient was soaking through her t-shirt, flowing freely, the free and perfect constipation cure, wasted on a blue cotton t-shirt. Children are NOT convinient, LOL. These are the women who SHOULD carry the burden of guilt, but because of their ignorance about the importance of b.m. they don't harbour any shame. I just don't understand THESE women. How could you NOT want to do what's best for your baby? Or, the women who don't bother to read the stickers ON the carseat to make sure it's in correctly (I'm not even talking about the instruction manual, just the stickers in plain view). The same neighbour with the convinience excuse also put her baby in a re-called carseat, in the front seat of her truck, with the handle up. Three big mistakes. How can I take her seriously as a mother? You'll rarely hear these mothers get upset when they read something like I wrote yesterday, or last fall. Perhaps they do know, deep inside, that they make a poor choice. I'm always hopeful for that, and that if they have other kids they will try to do better.

Phew. Enough. Did you see that Miriam left me a comment? Me! Okay, she wasn't praising my knitting or anything, but she was here :) I really really love getting comments--doesn't matter if you're a 'knitting nobody' or Grumperina! I've always loved to write, and while I knew I would never make a career out of it, blogging is the perfect tool for me. Yeah, I'd love some blogging fame, be on a first name basis like "Wendy" or "The Harlot", but for now, LOL, just knowing that SOMEONE has read what I wrote, and especially that they felt moved/angered/sympathetic enough to comment, blows me away. Am I really that simple, LOL. When you're a SAHM of three kids....it doesn't take much to make my day :)

Edit: I had a picture of two of my kids making a mess in Grandma's bathtub. I've just found out that someone came to this blog after Googling "Kids in Tub" so I've edited the picture. They're still kids in a very dirty tub!