That is all.

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.

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.

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.

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………