Breastfeeding Politics

I hate politics. All the arguing. No listening. Just dissension everywhere you look. This week Facebook was once again targeted for removing photos of breastfeeding. Why can't people consider breastfeeding as a normal part of life?

I started reading The Politics of Breastfeeding: When Breasts are Bad for Business today. It was written by Gabrielle Palmer. I've only finished chapter one and I am already nodding my head in agreement. The author states, "Women have had to prove (as it happens very successfully) that they are 'as good as' men, but men do not yet have to show that they are as good as women." This statement really hit hard. It's true.

Elsewhere in this chapter she discusses how the very men who are discovering the miraculous assets of breastmilk seem to demand that no woman should bring her nursing baby to work with her. Ewww. Come on. This is 2010. Certainly we can all get over the fact that our breasts make milk. They are built to do so. This milk is the best thing ever created to grow little humans. Nothing... NOTHING... can replace it. Artificial milk has a place in those rare times when breastmilk is not available, but the truth is that human babies should be fed human milk. Not soy milk. Not cow milk. HUMAN MILK.

I have often chuckled at the phrase I've seen on countless shirts on Cafepress: I make milk. What's your superpower?

It's true. This is a miraculous substance. I have nurtured eight children with this liquid abundance. They have grown healthy and strong. They are rarely ill. They have lots of energy. All of them old enough to get tall are taller than I am. Breastmilk really does a baby good, to paraphrase the old dairy council slogan.

So... what is your superpower? I make milk that grows healthy children. I make milk that nourishes them mentally, physically and emotionally. I am proud of this fact. I don't hide it.

Bah humbug on the politics. It should be enough that breastmilk nourishes the human race as it was designed to do.