The Breastfeeding Lesson: How Twitter Beef Helped Me Get Over
Is this "normal"?
Yesterday on twitter I got unfollowed. I would say I got into an altercation, but I was mentioned by the person who unfollowed me, who proceeded to make their account private and then talk about me without me being able to defend myself. Let me give you a little background info…yesterday, I was asked to go thrifting with a friend of mine. Both of us have 4 year olds and were worried about their behavior in the thrift stores, and I said I would bring my stroller just in case my twins got antsy or tired of walking through several stores. That lead me to take to twitter and FB and ask how old was too old to have children in a stroller. From that series of questions and answers, another follower of mine asked how old was too old to breastfeed. I replied “If you MUST include breastmilk in your childs diet after they grow teeth, PUMP. Do not have Tyrone’s 3 y/o ass hanging from your breastmeat.”
Now while you may be offended by the wording, take into consideration I am admittedly abrasive. Regardless of how it was stated, I stand behind the fact that I think it’s odd to breastfeed after 2. I think once a child becomes a pre-schooler, they are learning acceptable social behaviors, they are maturing, and they are becoming more and more independent of their mother and father. If you eat at the table, shouldn’t you drink there too? But, there is apparently a whole community of people who disagrees with me. As I said, not only was I unfollowed, but my mentions flooded by women upset about my comments, slinging very false accusations my way.
One woman suggested I sexualized breastfeeding, and that since we were mammals, our breasts were made only for feeding, not sexual pleasure. Another suggested I must think breast feeding is disgusting, and must have had trouble doing it so I am punishing the amazing, wonderful women who CAN do it by vilifying something that is natural and beautiful. Another woman suggested I wasn’t educated because a child’s first set of teeth is called “milk teeth” for a reason, and since children don’t lose milk teeth until around age 5, breastfeeding until they are all gone is natural and normal.
That’s when I got angry. I could honestly care less if a woman who loves nursing doesn’t want to follow me anymore. What I HATE are people making assumptions about me and my life and thought process. Immediately I took to my timeline to complain. In doing so, though, I completely recognized I was just as bad as the chick that had to hide behind a private profile. People are going to misjudge me. People are going to take ONE thing I say, and run with it, making assumptions about me and my life and my abilities. One of the hardest lessons in life that I have had to learn is that I DON’T HAVE TO CARE.
Work in progress.
For the record, I praise breastfeeding. Any of my friends who are mothers can tell you I wholeheartedly think it’s the best way to provide THE BEST nutrition for your infant. In addition to the fact that you provide the best start for your child, you develop a beautiful bond by breastfeeding. I LOVED breastfeeding. I was a milk producing fiend. I produced so much milk, it used to amaze me because the twins would finish eating, and sometimes it would literally shoot across the room. I never had trouble with the twins latching on. It wasn’t painful. Breastfeeding was amazing. Especially with my daughter (who breastfed longer than my son for medical reasons) I remember bonding with her for so long and just starting into her eyes and rubbing her hair until she fell asleep. When I stopped breastfeeding, I missed it so much, I took fenugreek to increase my milk flow and tried to start it again when the twins were older. My son was born with an underdeveloped digestive system. What we originally thought was colic turned out to be an issue more closely related to him being born at 36 weeks, and being smaller. He was unable to digest my breast milk, and had to be put on a special formula. BEFORE I put him on formula, I removed items from my diet one by one, to the point where I was making myself sick (I am anemic, and was removing some key elements from my own diet) in order to figure out what I was eating that was making him unable to digest. I would have rather starved, or gone without something I was consuming than to make him unable to nurse. I rarely pumped to feed my children; I only pumped because I was engorged. I had so much milk saved and frozen; I had to stop saving it. All of that said, I still think as much as I loved it, and as much as I loved being able to bond with my babies by doing it, a 2 year old is too old to nurse. And, interestingly enough, I personally nursed past 2. My mom confirmed this morning. She wanted to stop nursing at 18 months, but ended up going until about 3 months after my second birthday. No one in my family thought breastfeeding was disgusting. I don’t come from a line of people who made me think of it as a bad thing.
However, even as a person who personally nursed after age 2, I wouldn’t have nursed my own past 2. And I didn’t .But you know what? NONE of the people who wrote those horrible things about me are going to read that paragraph. They are going to continue to think I am anti-breastfeeding. They are going to maintain that I am insensitive and sexualize it or couldn’t do it. They will think that I am ignorant, even though I know that in addition to “milk teeth” nature also has us grow 4-8 extra molars (known commonly as wisdom teeth) because we used to lose teeth by chewing tough and undercooked or raw meats from animals like mammoths, so by the “milk teeth” logic, we should also go out and kill and eat elephants so we don’t waste these good years with our wisdom teeth, right?
No matter how smart, or witty or truthful I am in this post, I am not going to change those minds because they won’t seek me out to even be swayed. They will mudsling, and hide behind private profiles and suggest that I am a poor thinker for following social norms as opposed to evolutionary ones. But I can’t change that. It drives me insane. I want to go into my twitter account and reply to everyone who said something mean to me with this link, but once again it’s hit or miss because I can’t force them to read it or make up their minds for them. People are going to say and think and accuse me of things that I think are unfair, biased and wrong. Wasting the time trying to change their minds though? I can avoid that. I obviously have a lot of work to do, because this post (or this one ) wasn’t exactly a super great way to utilize my time, but I want you all to know, life handed me a lesson yesterday, and I think the best thing was that I learned it.
Tags: breast milk, breastfeed, milk teeth, misunderstood, nurse, nursing, slander
Well put. I completely disagree with you, well not completely, but I think that my ego can survive with you on my twitter feed. Really if you never encounter anyone with a different opinion how exactly are you supposed to learn anything?
I happily nursed my son until his third birthday when I realized he hadn’t asked to nurse for a couple of weeks, and that was the last time. He’s 5 1/2 and is a normal healthy happy child. My daughters 3rd birthday is 3 weeks and she seems to be giving up the nummies (with a bit of encouragement). In my opinion, there isn’t one cut off date, its up to mon and baby. And if 2 was it for you and yours then amen.
What I don’t get is why some mom has to start a flame with you over it, it’s not like you took them off breast milk so they could more easily work in the silver mines. Or that you were subjectin them to unclean water and malnutrition. Maybe women just can’t give them selves enough space to be imperfect and so we must attack anyone who isn’t even
Striving for the our own brand of perfection.
I think that’s very true. I can be harsh, and critical of other people. One of the major things I have learned from my harsh criticism is that its usually a reflection or manifestation of some insecurity I have. Life is really about variety, and its important to respect each other’s preferences and differences. If I went around unfollowing everyone who disagreed with something I strongly believe in, I would literally follow no one, eventually. But more importantly, I know I try not to judge the kind of person you are, just because you have a different opinion than me. And iI certainly do not believe in the swarm/gang mentality based on disagreements. But eh…
Thank you for keeping me on your TL
Well put Kisha! We are adults and adults need to learn to agree to disagree..I don’t understand folks who get mad or bash someone b/c their opinions don’t mirror their own. I agree with Cara on this issue, while I only breastfed my 1st child, I think it is a wonderful thing, the bonding, the health benefits for mother & child (my weight just melted away when I breastfed) I think when a child is walking/talking/ and has a mouth full of lil teeth he/she shouldn’t even be on a bottle, let alone a titty. All of my children we off the bottle before the age of 2 but that was MY preference. I see 5 year olds walking around with bottles and riding in strollers with their feet dragging the ground still in diapers and I cringe but those aren’t my children so I silently judge, I would never tell another parent what I think is wrong for their child unless there was serious danger involved.
My girlfriends son used to go get a diaper hand it to her, lay down and put his legs in the air…NO! put that stankin ass on a toilet. I just rambled so much I forgot my main point..oh yeah I agree with you Cara on this but even if I didn’t there is no reason to be mad, unfollow and cowardly bash you where you can’t defend yourself, we need to learn to respect all opinions and have healthy debates and hopefully learn something new in the process.
I agree with Cara as well. I could even go as far as to say they should stop when they are clearly able to ask for it verbally. “Mommy, may I please have some nummies?” Um, no u may not Lol. (And my child was blessed with the gift -or curse lol- of clear speech before 2) I happily breastfed my now 4 year old for her first year of life, and encourage all of my soon to be parent friends and associates to do so. However, I could not imagine breastfeeding a child who has full on adult conversations with me! If you are still producing milk when your child turns 5 and feel it is healthier for him/her to consume breastmilk, why can’t they drink from a cup?
Good Job Cara Mia!
I don’t believe It’s necessarily about sexualization, but more’s about independence. But that’s just my 2cent
mmm breastmilk.
jk
A lot of people are stupid, and shouldn’t be able to freely communicate on social networks without being coached first. People don’t understand that there are people out there with different views than them. They also can’t comprehend that if someone thinks differently than they do about an action or whatever, that it is NOT a personal attack. If I like fish and say “people that dont like fish are stupid” and you happen to like fish, who cares what I think about it!? Do you! Sheit.
But back to the milk shooting across the room….
<3
Well. its because NO ONE is right but Elita. She’s the smartest person EVER dontchaknow.
lmao. I just saw this comment. You’re such a thug.
This is a great article, so completely not a waste of time as you put it in the end but I think it reminds us that we all have our own time tables. I believe in the benefits of extended breastfeeding and did so with my kids. I went twenty months with my son and eighteen or nineteen months with my daughter. With my son I could’ve gone longer and would have if I didn’t need to return to work and, no, I didn’t really have the support I needed. With my daughter, I just ran out of patience. I was hard on myself about that at first but I’m good now. In light of this Time mag cover, I don’t think I could’ve made it to three or four years old but just because you’ve stopped breastfeeding doesn’t make you a bad mother. You do what’s best for you and your baby and that’s all the lesson that I needed to learn.