TheLionRampant.net

First off, let me say that breastfeeding your children — even in the US — puts you into a camp. My previous-before-children-self liked to wear high heels and talk about literature (don’t worry, that self is still in here somewhere…) while the child-bearing mama is lucky to get any makeup on and shoes that require tying are pretty much too much hassle. But back to breastfeeding. Breastfeeding, though, can seem to put one automatically into the “crunchy granola” category, especially if you do it in public (I do) and especially if you nurse your children longer than one year (I do). You see breastfeeding, or seeing someone breastfeed, tends to weird out our no-nonsense-upwardly-mobile culture. It brings us back to our roots. It’s primal. And it reminds us that humanity is intensely physical rather than purely cerebral. So it’s a weird mix for me personally as I neither fully embrace the business-savvy world of the high-heeled suit-wearing throngs and neither do I fully fit in the herb-tastic nature-mother cohort. Trying to mix the two worlds has its challenges.

When I was working as a college professor during Ezra’s first year of life, the administration graciously gave me classes solely on two days a week so that I could work from home and take care of my son the other three days a week. On my two “work” days, Ezra took bottles of expressed milk from Bryce (on his “day off”) one day and from my mom the other day. My mom would drive to campus and watch Ezra while I taught and hand him off to me during my prep times. Let me say I was so glad I could pump, but it was a bit insane. I’d rush back from a class, stacks of books in my hands, slam shut my office door, strap on my pumping paraphernalia and pump straight for the 15-minutes I’d have between classes. Sometimes I could do this while looking over notes for the following class and praying that I wouldn’t leak all over my fancy work clothes. It was an odd juxtaposition: working lactating mother.

My own experience has lead me to consider how our society views breastfeeding mothers. What disturbs me the most is those who consider it unnatural or weird, that view breasts as only instruments of sexual arousal rather than as sources of nourishment and comfort. Consider one example: an article in The Gospel and Culture Project, “Is the Church Threatened by Breastfeeding?“, discusses the need for the Church (as one institution) to promote breastfeeding rather than sexualizing a normal experience.

That moment of anxiety in the pew stands as a metonym for all the ways in which our culture objectifies, commodifies and exploits women’s bodies for sexual pleasure and financial gain. The church that is afraid of breastfeeding has allowed culture to dictate the meaning of female sexuality.

I’ve quoted the final paragraph before on this blog, but it bears repeating:

Perhaps there is no better reason for churches to encourage nursing than for the mother herself, enabling her to integrate the physical with the spiritual, and the ordinary with the transcendent. It may be the only time all week she can slow down and listen to God. We need her, but she needs us even more.

If you breastfeed, what have your experiences been nursing in public? How do we get American culture to value the breastfeeding mother?

This entry was posted by Ashley on Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 at 12:20 pm. This entry was tagged with breastfeeding, world breastfeeding week. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.