I am a mother and I am proud to be one. It is definitely hard work but my three children are my treasures and my main source of joy and happiness!
I have discovered long term breastfeeding with my youngest and I can say that this is one of the most beautiful experiences I have ever had. Having the privilege to breastfeed your child for a long time is an amazing journey: it makes the mother happy and the child satisfied.
It is, of course, an exhausting journey: breastfeeding requires a lot of energy from the mother and it means that she has to wake up several times in the night, even when the baby is well above one year old. Bottle-fed babies tend to sleep much better.
I chose to breastfeed for a long time because it suited me personally at this stage of my life. However I was not at all prepared for all the negative judgement I would start receiving once my baby got older.
It does not seem to matter that such a recognised institution as the World Health Organisation recommends breastfeeding your child for the first two years of their lives! The health benefits for mother and child seem widely accepted by the medical community. Yet, not many people seem to know this. By the same token, it does not seem to matter much to most people that most traditional societies see breastfeeding as a natural process that should last as long as it works.
The negative comments and looks I have endured breastfeeding my child much longer than the six months widely accepted have made me feel like an alien: this amazing experience was not understood by most people, including some people among my own family and friends. And yet, if I had known the incredible bond that breastfeeding creates between mother and child, I would have breastfed my other kids much longer too. But, at the time (blame Elisabeth Badinter! ), I thought the insistence on breastfeeding was all part of a big plot designed to trap mothers and prevent them from being free and equal to the father.
I have also known of mothers who did not want to breastfeed their baby or were totally unable to do so and who were also negatively judged.
Where is the mother’s choice in all this? Who on earth has decided that the mother’s breasts are some sort of collective property? This is a very intimate part of our body that we should be able to rule ourselves and breastfeeding or not should always be a personal choice.
And after carefully reading arguments on various sides, it seems to me that formula and breastfeeding are both very healthy options for the baby.
The choice between the two can also be down to very material and practical aspects: it is harder to breastfeed a child for a long period if one has to go back to work quickly, if one has no help to look after other children or do basic chores. Breastfeeding a child, particularly for a long period of time, can be a privilege that only a few mothers are able to accommodate in their lives. But it can also be a sacrifice for the mother: to not go back to full time employment and thus earn less money, to do less activities or none at all in the evenings, to spend less time alone with her other kids…
A friend of mine recently told me that she chose to breastfeed her baby for a long time even if it meant that she was going to become poor because of that. This is not acceptable!
The medical establishment is giving mothers a norm – breastfeed as long as you can and ideally up to two years – which is impossible to fulfil in current material conditions. In order to respect that norm, one would have to have a two years maternity pay. This would mean that the mother who is nursing her child does not need to also work or to rely on her partner to do so.
Society is giving us another norm – don’t breastfeed too long because it is disturbing and it prevents you from going back to a normal capitalist form of “earning and spending” – that is not easy to follow either for some people.
As in other contexts, these contradictory norms impact on women’s self-esteem: are they good mothers even if they do not breastfeed? How can they give enough to their child if they need to go back to work , not only for financial reasons but also to develop other aspects of their personality? And if they do breastfeed, the questions they ask themselves are: how are they going to keep a career and sustain their family?
Even if the stereotype for the “good mother” seems to imply the biggest dedication for their babies and kids, mothers are also subjected to other norms (such as the one that tells them to achieve professionally) and to material constraints.
But, at the end of the day, mothers are also human beings who might have their own needs and desires totally independent from all these factors (the expectations of the “perfect mother”, the norm of the professional achievement and the material constraints): they might want to be free to imagine and put in place their own approach to the “good life”, beyond all the other achievements expected of them.
So, next time you see a mother with a baby, always remember: whether she is breastfeeding or not, be kind and understanding. Remember that this mother is doing her best to love and nurture her child and that she is always pressured to do more, for others, rather than for herself. Because this is one of the most shocking aspects of the norms on motherhood (and on womanhood in general): the focus on others’ needs and aims, rather than our own.
For more on my approach to gender , see:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Genre-libert%C3%A9-Vers-f%C3%A9minit%C3%A9-repens%C3%A9e/dp/2806102073 /
Food for Thought - Sophie Heine 