Okay, anonybabe seems to be coming down with another freaking cold! If I don't want her to get colds, I gotta be a lot more careful about where I take her and what she mouths, and I have to accept that if we want to go out and be social and fly in planes and travel in trains and eat at restaurants, colds come with the territory.
I need to get this off my chest: I honestly thought that if I breastfed her and and fed her good foods she would never get sick. I feel super gullible for believing this, but the idea didn't come from nowhere, and it seems to have been implied in lots of pro-breastfeeding literature I read. That pisses me off, because then I feel like I'm doing something wrong if she gets sick. Like, not just mildly wrong, but deeply wrong. I brought this up in a Le Leche League meeting and it looks like I'm not the only one who has fallen so completely for the breastfeeding = perfect health idea. I know, I know, I'm stupid for even accepting that premise, but I did and now I don't appreciate being taken for a ride.
Listen, I like the information and support I've gotten fron from LLL, and the friends I've made there, but sometimes they piss me off with their cultlike devotion to breastfmilk. It is great to encourage women to breastfeed and to give them the tools to do so, but let's be realistic please. In the last meeting I went to, the leader read another woman's internet post about how it's unrealistic to expect every woman to breastfeed, that it isn't alwasy possible for every woman to do it and we shouldn't make those who don't feel guilty about it. The leader proceeded to pick apart and ridicule this woman's post without acknowledging any of her complaints as legitimate, just because she didn't like the conclusion this woman came to. Thank god one of my cousins told me how hard it was to start breastfeeding, because I don't think I heard it from anyone other than her and I could have gotten seriously discouraged if I didn't know other people had such a hard time at the beginning.
Anyway, I have about me the wrath of the wide eyed believer who has seen behind the curtain. God, I hate feeling so naive and inadequate!
I need to get this off my chest: I honestly thought that if I breastfed her and and fed her good foods she would never get sick. I feel super gullible for believing this, but the idea didn't come from nowhere, and it seems to have been implied in lots of pro-breastfeeding literature I read. That pisses me off, because then I feel like I'm doing something wrong if she gets sick. Like, not just mildly wrong, but deeply wrong. I brought this up in a Le Leche League meeting and it looks like I'm not the only one who has fallen so completely for the breastfeeding = perfect health idea. I know, I know, I'm stupid for even accepting that premise, but I did and now I don't appreciate being taken for a ride.
Listen, I like the information and support I've gotten fron from LLL, and the friends I've made there, but sometimes they piss me off with their cultlike devotion to breastfmilk. It is great to encourage women to breastfeed and to give them the tools to do so, but let's be realistic please. In the last meeting I went to, the leader read another woman's internet post about how it's unrealistic to expect every woman to breastfeed, that it isn't alwasy possible for every woman to do it and we shouldn't make those who don't feel guilty about it. The leader proceeded to pick apart and ridicule this woman's post without acknowledging any of her complaints as legitimate, just because she didn't like the conclusion this woman came to. Thank god one of my cousins told me how hard it was to start breastfeeding, because I don't think I heard it from anyone other than her and I could have gotten seriously discouraged if I didn't know other people had such a hard time at the beginning.
Anyway, I have about me the wrath of the wide eyed believer who has seen behind the curtain. God, I hate feeling so naive and inadequate!
1 comment:
I have to laugh just because I have been to some La Leche meetings (maybe 2 only) but it can just be so funny that everyone's talking about the milk the whole time, though it is a good forum to have.
It's frustrating to have kids sick all the time but I guess going out to the fresh air isn't really an option in the winter of chicago!
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