I wasn't breastfed at all, since it never worked alright for my mom, and I was delivered through a c-section. Since I'm 6'2" or so tall, at least my growth wasn't stunted *grins*
The food police can indeed go fuck themselves, they really do kick on the people that are down and needs the least amount of kicking.
Yeah. I have a friend who is dealing with post-partum depression and who is finding that continuing to breastfeed her baby is actively interfering with her ability to bond with the baby. She is that odd combination of defiant and apologetic when talking about her decision to stop breastfeeding, and I wish she didn't have to feel that way on top of the depression on top of the very sore breasts.
And this feels like it is YET ANOTHER one of those things where mental health problems a) can't possibly be real enough to wreck someone's life and b) if they are, can totes be made all better with medication and 50 minutes of therapy every two weeks. Which...NO.
Or when you all brought lunch and launch into a lecture on why your lunch is the healthiest, what's wrong with everyone else's lunch, or what you do and do not eat.
FFS. IT'S CALLED MANNERS, PEOPLE! My four-year-old knows she'll get in trouble if she goes on about what she does and doesn't like to eat - BECAUSE IT IS RUDE.
The one that particularly infuriates me (especially when it's my immediate supervisor doing it) is the whole "let's be good" and "let's be bad" thing, because, y'know, actually enjoying food is totally contrary to being a moral human being - not because the food might have been produced under exploitative conditions or whatever, but simply because enjoying something with more than, say, 100 calories is BAD.
Any kind of self-appointed police can go screw themselves as far as I am concerned. Those self-righteous people have generally very little idea what they are talking about. And, yeah, a choice is your choice. It may be influenced by a lot of things though, like medical conditions that may weigh heavier than breastfeeding and exercise and diets. So those who pass judgment are not worth our replies, nor our anger. "The caravan moves on" as they say.
So those who pass judgment are not worth our replies, nor our anger. "The caravan moves on" as they say.
I disagree. People passing judgment of this nature are not isolated random asshats. They are everywhere and they are frequently people with actual authority (everyone from the President and First Lady to the principal of my daughter's school). The caravan might move on, but in the U.S. it just moves on to more of the same, and to avoid exposing oneself to it at all is to choose near-complete isolation from the mainstream of society.
Feeding you baby is something so private and personal that I can't understand how people even dare to interfere.
It's ridiculous on all sides. On the one hand, a lot of conventional medical practitioners are uninformed (at best) about how it's supposed to work. On the other hand, there are a lot of breastfeeding support groups that are so full of their own superiority for being breastfeeders that they don't recognize the difference between ordinary learning-curve issues and a serious medical emergency and as such they teach scared new moms not to trust their doctors.
The problem here is that the fanatics (of whatever stance) are often the ones who are in positions of power or who are at least holding themselves out to be experts. And as such, they need to be debunked, over and over and over again if necessary, to minimize the harm they do.
*applauds* I am with you on so many ways in this... and I also realize that I can be prejudiced in ways that I don't want to be, even if I'm intelligent enough to realize it's wrong and am trying to change them. (for instance, there are days that I think "just eat a sandwich already" about thin/underweight people, though I know it's nowhere near that simple.)
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The food police can indeed go fuck themselves, they really do kick on the people that are down and needs the least amount of kicking.
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And this feels like it is YET ANOTHER one of those things where mental health problems a) can't possibly be real enough to wreck someone's life and b) if they are, can totes be made all better with medication and 50 minutes of therapy every two weeks. Which...NO.
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FFS. IT'S CALLED MANNERS, PEOPLE! My four-year-old knows she'll get in trouble if she goes on about what she does and doesn't like to eat - BECAUSE IT IS RUDE.
The one that particularly infuriates me (especially when it's my immediate supervisor doing it) is the whole "let's be good" and "let's be bad" thing, because, y'know, actually enjoying food is totally contrary to being a moral human being - not because the food might have been produced under exploitative conditions or whatever, but simply because enjoying something with more than, say, 100 calories is BAD.
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I disagree. People passing judgment of this nature are not isolated random asshats. They are everywhere and they are frequently people with actual authority (everyone from the President and First Lady to the principal of my daughter's school). The caravan might move on, but in the U.S. it just moves on to more of the same, and to avoid exposing oneself to it at all is to choose near-complete isolation from the mainstream of society.
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It's ridiculous on all sides. On the one hand, a lot of conventional medical practitioners are uninformed (at best) about how it's supposed to work. On the other hand, there are a lot of breastfeeding support groups that are so full of their own superiority for being breastfeeders that they don't recognize the difference between ordinary learning-curve issues and a serious medical emergency and as such they teach scared new moms not to trust their doctors.
The problem here is that the fanatics (of whatever stance) are often the ones who are in positions of power or who are at least holding themselves out to be experts. And as such, they need to be debunked, over and over and over again if necessary, to minimize the harm they do.
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Thank you for this post.
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