It's World Breastfeeding Week so here's a song, written by a nursing student, about the subject.
I don't usually
do a long narrative for my Music Monday posts but I'm got to say that
I'm so amazingly proud of Shea for the dedication she put into
breastfeeding Pace for over two and a half years – never spending more
than 24 hours away from him in all that time (actually, she might not
have done so to this day!)
Breastfeeding
(and especially extended breastfeeding) is one of those things in life
that you feel like you can't talk up because it's (sadly) such a
minority position. Shea once mentioned to a friend that part of the
reason we haven't had a second child yet is that it's so draining to do
extended breastfeeding and she feels like she's just finished doing it
for our first child even though he was now three.
“Well, you don't
*have* to do it that long” the friend responded. Now this friend
wasn't one of those new mothers who leaves their freshly hatched baby with the
grandparents when the baby's three (weeks, not years! 😕) to go on a jaunt to Vegas. In fact, she's fairly “crunchy” (eg.
hippy-esque) in most ways. But still that suspicion of extended
breastfeeding comes through when you hear comments like that – even from
people who you'd expect to be a bit more open-minded.
Another
friend who's otherwise extremely intelligent brought out the “I was
formula fed and I turned out okay” argument. True, this person is smart
but apparently not smart enough to recognize that a sample size of one
is statistically invalid! 😀
Anyhow,
I didn't mean this to be a rant (and I'm very aware that's how many
“lactivists” are thought of within larger society. Or should I say,
that's how they're portrayed. There are some very powerful corporations
and special interests who stand to benefit greatly by marginalizing
breastfeeding and making it shameful.)
But one of the ways that Shea's influenced me is by making me an even
bigger believer in breastfeeding than I hope I would have otherwise
become. (It's not something I probably thought a lot about before
getting married and having kids. But I'm pretty sure I would've been a
breastfeeding believer on some level – if for no other reason than the
common sense science of it. Hmm, something the human body has evolved
over thousands of years as the perfect food to give a newborn every
advantage or…a powder made in a factory?)
We happened to
just watch *Grown-Ups* the other night (thanks to the staffer at “Live
with Regis & Kelly” who put it out as a torrent! 😈) and one of the running jokes was that one character's wife is still breastfeeding their child at four years old. “Oh well, at least extended breastfeeding is getting some publicity?” I said to Shea.
On the other end of the pop culture spectrum from Adam Sandler fart and poop movies is the supermodel Gisele who is a proud breastfeeding advocate,
saying it helped her regain her figure after giving birth and if she
could, she would make it law that new mothers have to breastfeed for a
minimum of six months. (Yes, I know all the arguments about “My milk
didn't come in – I had to bottle feed” or “My baby just refused to latch
so I had to bottle feed” but that's a whole other post for some other
time.)
So anyhow, given a choice between a supermodel and Sandler, I know who I'd pick!
Comments 2
You don't know how much it means to me when I read about breastfeeding from a father. I guess I get emotional because somewhere deep inside I hope that one day before I die that my husband will notice and say these things. Even if not too me, but to someone else around me.
It's one hard thing to do, extended/natural duration breastfeeding. We are on almost 3.5 years now, I intend to keep going until she is ready, whether it be until 4 or 5 or more. There are some days where I don't think I can do it one more time. Then I always reconsider. There are too many good things that I would be giving up, and I know neither of us are ready too.
Your wife is one lucky gal 🙂
Like I said in my post, a lot of my strong pro-breastfeeding feelings got enhanced by seeing how important it was to my wife. So don't nag him or anything but realise that you should be the biggest advocate for extended breastfeeding for your husband. If you keep showing how much it means to you, hopefully he'll realise it should be important to him too – just like any other shared value in a marriage.
Thanks for saying Shea's lucky to have me – I'm lucky to have her too!