• Previous posts

  • Aging is for the weak, and everyone else
  • More short cuts
  • Smol Ketchups
  • What’s the opposite of green juice and deep breathing
  • Living through it all online
  • The Change
  • 18
  • Ok but ALSO:
  • Midlife POV
  • Influence and Dooce
  • Horse therapy
  • You can’t go home again
  • Obsolescence
  • Before and after
  • A cringe confession on friendship

Archives from 2002-2006

Ah, Memorial Day weekend—time to fire up the grill, get out the sunscreen, dust off the bikini, and . . .

Well, or not. See you NEVER, summer.

We’re still having a good time, crappy weather and all, and I hope you are too. What have you been up to this holiday weekend? Did you attend any memorial events, or hang out with family, or go to work, or? Inquiring minds want to know.

“I’m a doula and an advocate for moms and babies and I just want to tell you thank you for providing the best nourishment for your baby that you can.”

The author wrote that this is what she often says to women she sees breastfeeding in public. To offset, she says, the negative things so many mothers hear about the topic.

“I hope that people who see you will remember that this is what people should think is normal.”

I read the above and I wondered what this woman would have thought of me back when my boys were little. The careful process of measuring out formula and mixing it, the rattly collection of glass bottles and plastic air-bubble-expelling inserts and nipples and lids. I suppose it wouldn’t have looked normal at all, to her. She certainly wouldn’t have thanked me for feeding my own baby.

It made me think of what I might say to a woman I saw formula-feeding her child. Maybe I’d tell her that I knew there were circumstances that prevent breastfeeding and I was sorry she didn’t get a choice in the matter. Maybe I’d tell her how I could sympathize with the all-encompassing curiosity people will have about why she’s not breastfeeding, because people are often not ready to respect the reason until they know what it is. Maybe I’d tell her I trusted that she had all the information she needed about both formula and breastfeeding and that she had a right to go with the decision that worked best for her and her baby. Maybe I’d tell her not to worry about what people think is normal.

Or maybe I’d just smile and tell her what a beautiful baby she had. Because anything else is really none of my damn business.

Next Page →

• My product review site:

  [Older recommendations]