When I was pregnant with Layla I, like most women who are pregnant with their first child, was thrilled and excited about all of the things I'd be able to do, including breastfeeding. I read every baby/parenting book I could get my hands on and spent nine months preparing to transform myself into the best mom ever. I figured I would breastfeed for at least a year and then make my own baby food. I hadn't even laid eyes on my baby yet, but I wanted to do everything in my power to give her every advantage possible, beginning on day one. All of my books said "breast was best", so breast it was.
Unfortunately, it turned out that nature had other plans.
I'll spare you all the specifics, but after three weeks of trying to breastfeed, trying different pumps, teas, ointments, herbal remedies, positioning the baby at every angle known to mankind and endless consultations with various (often frustrated) lactation specialists, I was diagnosed with lactation failure, a condition in which you physically can't produce milk no matter how hard you try, that effects about 15% of women in the United States. As a die-hard perfectionist and overachiever, the word failure clung to me like a bad smell. I started Layla on formula (because frankly, a kid's gotta eat) and would cry every time I fed her. So much for being the perfect mom. She was brand new and I felt like I had already failed her. Shame doesn't even begin to cover what I felt.
As is the case with most things in life, my defective boob situation got worse before it got better.
I was one of the first of my friends to get married and have kids and as a result found myself pretty isolated and invariably privy to the random moms of the playground, doctor's office and grocery store, women who would physically shudder when they saw a can of formula, whom I later dubbed "the Boob Nazis". I was years away from the tight-knit group of mom friends I have now, years away from sympathetic ears and examples of both breast and bottle feeding done right. Back when Layla was born, I was more or less on my own and the Boob Nazis of the world had no qualms about telling me how wrong my choice to not breastfeed was, despite the fact that it wasn't technically a choice. And I heard everything from "you're just being lazy" to "I would rather leave my baby with a serial killer than feed him formula" (yes, someone actually said that to me. To my face. But that one was so ridiculous that I had to laugh it off). The cruelest comment was hurled at me when Layla was about nine months old by a woman at the park with three kids crammed into a two-seater stroller who, when I tried to justify the bottle I was feeding my baby said "It's shouldn't be called lactation failure. It should be called motherhood failure". That one, I'm sad to say, I didn't laugh off.
By the time Ben came, I had come to the conclusion that I couldn't change my own personal biology and that was okay. If I woke up one morning and decided that I wanted to be six inches shorter, people would tell me that it was impossible and I was crazy for thinking I could do it, so why should my ability (or lack thereof) to breastfeed be any different? It had taken a few years, but my skin was thicker and my resolution was strong. And I was pleasantly surprised to find that once I no longer felt like a walking target, I was no longer treated like one.
So, by now you're probably wondering what that long rant had to do with the cover of Time Magazine and here it is. Within the first ten seconds of seeing the cover of the magazine, a line from one of my favorite songs popped into my head; "The steel-eyed, tight jaw say it all". In other words, the look on her face is defiant, challenging you to disagree with her, encouraging you to compare yourself to her and find yourself lacking, a Boob Nazi at her finest. The title underneath her ("Are you mom enough") is frankly the icing on the shit cake. It implies that this woman who is parading her child across an International magazine is a better mom because she continues to selflessly breastfeed her child.. I don't think she is a better mom and I definitely don't think her actions can fall into the selfless category anymore. In fact, I think that, if anything, she's exploiting her child for the sake of pushing her own agenda. Breastfeeding is fantastic, but at a certain point it doesn't really benefit a child anymore, not to mention the fact that it's just plain creepy to see someone who's old enough to write their name and ride a bike on a magazine with a mouthful of ta-ta. I question exactly how much she was thinking of her child by agreeing to be on this cover. Did she stop to think about how this will literally follow him around for his entire life? If he ever runs for a political office, this will definitely come back to haunt him. When he gets married and his best man gives a speech at the rehearsal dinner, $100 says he shows this picture. He'll be teased at school and ridiculed for God knows how long. And for what? So she can prove she's super mom? Ha!
My bottom line is this: Motherhood is not a competitive sport and I am so incredibly sick of seeing it treated like one. Showing someone up, outdoing someone, or telling a perfect stranger in a grocery store or park that they are a failure as a mother because they aren't doing things the way you did them is simply not okay. I'm deeply offended by this magazine cover, not because of the act of breastfeeding itself, but because it facilitates the debate that this is a black and white, right or wrong issue. It's not. In fact, I challenge Time Magazine to do an alternative cover, with healthy, active bottle fed kids. To acknowledge the fact that lactation failure exists, or that parents who adopt have to formula feed or that how you feed your baby is your choice (because it is a choice, Boob Nazis of the world) and what really matters is that you are a loving, caring parent who is taking care of your child to the best of your abilities. The lesson that took me years to learn is that as long as my kids think I'm a good mom, that's enough for me.
I am "Mom Enough" and my kids, not what they drank as infants, are the proof.
