Jenny From the Blog
Posted
April 14, 2008 at
9:05 am by
Rita
Jennifer Lopez is making big news after her April 5th People Magazine spread featuring her newborn twins. Is it because of the over-the-top ornate nursery? Her husband’s pink shirt? Or the very idea of her running down her driveway in high heels and evening wear pushing a pram for kicks? No, it’s because she said she chose not to breastfeed the twins. She gave a two-sentence explanation, “My mom didn’t breast feed and I think that was the thing for me. You read and figure out what’s the best thing for them.”
That opened the hatches and all hell broke loose. Just Google “Jennifer Lopez” and “breast feeding” and you’ll see a ton of links to blogs about what a bad example she’s setting for mothers everywhere. She’s being criticized for not only choosing to bottle feed, but also for her so-called “excuse.”
I’ve never been a fan of J.Lo. For a long time, I referred to her only as, “That Bitch Who Stole Ben Affleck,” of course that ended and the official title went to Jennifer Garner. But, I feel obligated to speak up in defense of J.Lo. now (Who knew I’d ever be pitying her?), because her rings and perfect hair don’t mean anything in the world of motherhood.
I’m a three-time breastfeeding failure. I made honest efforts with two of them (the first and third). The middle I just bottle fed from the start, because I was so anxious and frustrated after my experience with trying and failing with the first child and my run-ins with the zealous “lactivist” members, I didn’t even want to try. It still pains me that I failed with the two. I know with my whole self that I tried to the best of my abilities. That’s not to say that some other mother couldn’t have tried for longer and maybe been able to work through the same issues. But, I know that I made my personal best effort, and that’s the best I can do.
After all those years of mulling over the feelings and facts from my own standpoint, I can say that it doesn’t matter what reason a woman gives for not breast feeding. Often that reason is torn apart and criticized or it’s just not even true. When asked why I didn’t breast feed (and I’ve been asked in casual conversation countless times), I’ve found myself lying. It is such a raw and personal experience, and sometimes the truth is too revealing, leaving you too vulnerable to spit out to some doctor you’ve known for exactly three minutes, or some casual acquaintance at the park who may be genuinely interested, or may be looking to “re-educate” you about how you really could have succeeded if only this or that happened. She’ll tell you next time you should make sure you do this or that differently so you can “do things right” next time (with the implication that it’s all “wrong” with the current kid). Furthermore, some information is better not unleashed into a small, tight group of mothers who you have to see all the time and your kids have to associate with regularly. So, personally, I take Jennifer Lopez’s explanation with a grain of salt. Maybe it’s true, or maybe it’s not. The explanation was simply, from my experience, a two sentence statement to be read: This is what I chose, now leave me alone.
Maybe there should be some anonymous information bank somewhere, and women can leave detailed accounts of their experiences so that some big committee can examine it and use it to make changes to increase breastfeeding rates. Wouldn’t that be more constructive than bashing Jennifer Lopez on a blog?
Now, I know that breast feeders get bashed too. I’ve read some truly sick things in regards to public breast feeding and extended breast feeding. I know that those who choose to breast feed have their own battles, and I support them in their rights. But, really, so does everyone else. They have the World Health Organization, they have the American Academy of Pediatrics, and they have lawyers through LLL to help them with legal battles when their rights are being trampled. Being a breast feeder in today’s world is not a lonely choice. You can name a dozen celebrities off the top of your head who have breast fed and gone unblogged. But, you get this one and the world goes crazy.
Jennifer Lopez obviously loves those babies more than life. They will be raised in ridiculous opulence, given every privilege that a child could hope for. That such a deal is being made about her feeding method is disgusting. There are children born addicted to crack, with parents who abuse them impulsively or with premeditation. There are layers of festering illness that permeate family dynamics that we can’t even begin to understand. But, this woman’s feeding method is what is dominating our attention. And that’s supposed to make some sense?
I feel for Jennifer Lopez. I know what it’s like to make the unpopular choice, the choice that does not have science and world-wide medical establishments backing it. I know what it’s like to be asked to explain that choice and then suffer cruel criticism for the choice and the explanation. But, the truth is, while those who succeed at breastfeeding may be giving their children some health advantages, those of us who have treaded the territory of making the other choice get an earlier indoctrination into motherhood. This is the reality of it. You will make unpopular choices. You will choose your own sanity over the “right” thing sometime during your tenure, and later realize it was the best decision you could have made for everyone involved. You will also receive bad news at some point, and wonder whether you were the cause of it because of some choice you made on behalf of your child. Your idea of “right” will differ from someone else’s idea of “right” and you’ll question everything. This is motherhood. Get used to it.
But, what I hope from new mothers is that they won’t get so defensive of their methods that they cross the line and become malicious to other mothers who make different choices. We should give each other the benefit of the doubt, and assume that unless we’re shown otherwise, that other mother loves her child as much as we love ours. She’s as bright and caring as we are, and she’s reached her decision with as much thorough deliberation as we reach ours. And whatever that deliberation consisted of is none of our business. Because babies don’t need to be rescued from formula. They don’t need to be saved from baby-carriers or strollers and put in Maya wraps instead. Cribs are not cages. There is a very clear line in our legal system as to what constitutes abuse, and it is only insulting to those suffering from actual abuse to be focusing so much of our collective hostility on these differences of parenting practice. It’s almost like we’re looking for an excuse not to get our hands dirty with the real issues. And, ironically, so many of the little girls suffering this very minute in those real abusive conditions will be mothers themselves someday, and when asked what could have been done to help them succeed at breast feeding, they’ll give some flippant, unrelated answer, but they may be thinking You could have helped me fifteen years ago, instead of ranting about what a horrible mother Jennifer Lopez was.
Tags: blogs, breast feeding, breastfeeding, child abuse, feeding choices, formula feeding, J.Lo., Jennifer Lopez, motherhood
 |
9 Responses to “Jenny From the Blog”
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Leave a comment
Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately in an effort to remove commercial messages, irrelevancies, excessive foul language, racist/sexist/hateful comments, spoofed/cloaked IPs and/or personal attacks and will be edited/deleted at our discretion. Thank you for your patience.
Entire Blog
1. Allison G said:
April 14, 2008 @ 3:45 pm | Quote
Awesome post, Rita. I too, tried my best, and failed, at breastfeeding. As did my mother and sister. When my sister had her 1st baby before me, I just assumed that she “didn’t try hard enough”. Those thoughts quickly flew out the window when I finally had my 1st baby. No one explains how painful it is. Or when the baby doesn’t have ‘a good latch’ and is really just sucking to pacify themselves. No one told me how incredibly hard it would be.
Your quote: “Because babies don’t need to be rescued from formula. They don’t need to be saved from baby-carriers or strollers and put in Maya wraps instead. Cribs are not cages. ” I couldn’t agree more with. The breastfeeding zealots act like we’re feeding them poison!
I think they’d be of better service to society if they just raise their kids the best way they can, while I raise mine the best I can………
2. julymom said:
April 14, 2008 @ 5:42 pm | Quote
Excellent post.
3. Philly said:
April 14, 2008 @ 6:00 pm | Quote
I never breast fed my children.
Not because I tried and failed, because I just didn’t want to.
It’s all about choices!
4. Rita. said:
April 15, 2008 @ 8:08 am | Quote
The thing is, I would like to see us become a society where breast feeding is the standard. Where the supports are there for women who don’t have physical or psychological barriers to breast feeding and are given all the support (through flexible options at work, in the hospital, in their day-to-day life) to succeed. It does have proven health advantages, and it is the way nature intended.
The formula companies have had the monopoly on infant feeding for a long time, and they’ve made good profit from it. Some of them do practice bad ethics here and in other places in the world. I am very big on empowering women and their female abilities, so I’m certainly not campaigning for the formula companies here.
But, being a woman who wanted to breastfeed, supported it and then was presented with insurmountable obstacles (which no amount of education about the benefits or mechanics of breastefeeding, or support at the time I had my children could have helped), the current methods of breastfeeding advocacy left me feeling just bad about myself.
There has to be a way to normalize breastfeeding and promote its benefits without villianizing formula. This isn’t twenty years ago when information about breastfeeding benefits was new and people were skeptical. Today, people are informed. Those who insist that there is no difference between breastmilk and formula are those who have been exposed to the information and are choosing to not believe it. That’s something besides ignorance. I know for myself, I can acknowledge that there are statistical differences between breastfeeding and formula feeding. I’ve read the studies and I understand them. But, how they’ve played out in my own kids is unrecognizable.
Because the truth is, at least with my kids, the feeding method was just one choice I made in their upbringing. There are so many other choices that I made along the way that could mimmic the benefits of breastfeeding (consistently good nutritional choices, feeding on demand, providing a stable and loving home, living in an area where there is clean air, having good health care, and so on). Just as there are other elements that can undermine breastfeeding benefits (smoking in the home, being “detached” in parenting, careless nutrition, living in poverty, having poor health care). Breastfeeding alone guarantees nothing. All of those other parts of parenting intermingle and work together.
Yes, I’ve heard the argument that it doesn’t have to be exclusive. A mother can breastfeed and provide all of those other elements to raise the optimum child. And, after my thirteen years of doing this job, I ask you to please read the title of the web site you’re visiting. There is no such thing as perfection when raising a child. There will be bad choices made with good intentions or good choices made that turn out to be bad.
I think this issue has lost perspective. When people say things, like the stuff I’ve read on these other blogs, about how Jennifer Lopez shouldn’t have gotten pregnant if she hadn’t intended to breastfeed, it just makes me wonder what people are thinking, and it makes me want to collect up my pebbles to throw at their glass houses, which isn’t very nice.
5. Ann Marie said:
April 15, 2008 @ 10:25 am | Quote
I have to admit, when I read that People interview, I thought, oh how selfish, she just wants to sleep and let the Nannies feed them and doesn’t want to loose her nice boobs. And I think there is some truth to that. But I’m not the type of person to tell anyone what to do, it’s HER choice, whatever her motivation or reasons are. I breastfeed both kids, and it was the biggest parenting struggle I had. Like you all said, who knew it would be that hard?? I had the best hippy lactation consultant come to my house everyday for the first week, and when I had H only 12 months later, she came again (you’d think I knew how to do it by then!). It was hard.
6. Jessica said:
April 15, 2008 @ 10:32 am | Quote
Ugh. Just posted something long and lost it!
Anyway, in short, I think you’re right on (of course!)
The whole drama comes from the fact that most women can breastfeed rather easily, so it’s pretty much a lazy way of elevating one’s own self worth, be it right or wrong.
Recently, a new study came out showing that preemies actually benefit more than their exclusively breastfed counterparts, emotionally and physically, when given a highly fortified formula from the beginning. Point being, I’m not going to allow other women’s illusions of granduer, question my ability to make proper choices for my family. I don’t really care if my choice to formula feed keeps some chick up at night, now, THAT is clinical!!
Seriously, confident mothers appreciate perspective when it comes to formula feeding and the others I don’t have time for. I already have children of my own, I don’t need to be adopting grown women too.
7. Rita. said:
April 15, 2008 @ 10:53 am | Quote
LOL, that is funny. See, whenever I read about a celebrity who breastfeeds, I assume they’re doing it (or at least announcing it) for publicity. I mean very few of them actually prove it by breastfeeding in public, so whose to say the others aren’t just lying? Or that they breastfeed for a couple of weeks and then move on to formula after they’ve gotten their gold star for being a good role model?
I think the whole celebrity thing is so bizarre anyway. I mean, not to stereotype those folks but really, it does take a certain type of person to want to be an entertainer, and to do what it takes to pursue it. Most people don’t just fall into a successful career in entertainment, it takes a lot of perseverance. And I think they need to have thicker skin and heftier egos than the average person anyway. So, already they are not your average Jane. They’re some other kind of species, driven against all odds to be in the spotlight and have people admire them. So, why should any of us assume that anything they do has anything to do with the rest of us normal humans and how we live our lives?
J.Lo probably does want to get her beauty rest and have the nannies care for the babies. But, that has more to do with her personality than how she fed her babies. Cindy Crawford admitted to having a baby nurse do the night time feedings with bottles filled with previously pumped breast milk. Demi Moore breastfed and then had her body fixed up via cosmetic surgery in prep for GI Jane. Catherine Zeta Jones breastfed, but she smoked during her pregnancies. So, who cares what Jennifer Lopez does? I’d think that just being born to a celebrity raises the risks of having a weird childhood than how you’re fed.
8. Misty said:
April 20, 2008 @ 10:46 pm | Quote
This. Post. Flippin’. ROCKED.
That is all.
9. Jane Bingley said:
April 21, 2008 @ 12:37 pm | Quote
I’m amazed she even talked about it. What difference does it make to anyone whether J.LO (of all people) is going to breastfeed or not.