She had OCD and GAD.
She tried to be a good mom.
She posted Facebook comments that incited the masses.
My comment was a quote by Elizabeth Gene:
"Women should not feel guilty if they are unable to nurse their baby, but they should feel guilty if they are unwilling to do so, and they should be intellectually honest enough to know the difference." ~
And the comments that resulted from this status update have had me thinking all day about guilt, making judgments about others, and the purposes these two things serve. Or if there is a purpose.
I. The Reason I Posted the Quote
If you know me at all, you know I am an ardent breastfeeding supporter. Breastfeeding is what nature intended for babies to have. We have not evolved enough for this to no longer be true. Breastfeeding is normal and natural, and modern life has screwed with the process. Women were designed to be with their babies (or very near their babies) pretty much constantly....but that is not the way life is anymore...for better or worse.
So here is basically where I stand---
Do I think breastfeeding is what nature intended for babies to have and is better than the alternatives? Yes, I do.
So here is basically where I stand---
Do I think breastfeeding is what nature intended for babies to have and is better than the alternatives? Yes, I do.
Do I think moms who don't breastfeed are bad moms? No, I don't.
Do I think breastfeeding is the be-all and end-all of motherhood and determines whether a child develops into a wonderful person? No, I don't.
Do I think some women really give it everything they have and simply cannot produce enough milk? Yes, I do.
Do I think some women can and do produce enough milk and choose not to breastfeed because it is time-consuming and initially inconvenient? Yes, I do.
Do I wish women would be honest enough to say the truth of their breastfeeding experience, such as "I have a medical condition that made me unable to breastfeed even though I would have liked to" or "I didn't want to breastfeed and I don't feel guilty about it." Yes, I do.
Because what most women say is "I couldn't breastfeed," which lumps everyone together. Those women who really, really desperately wanted to but who's milk supply dried up and physically couldn't do it. Those women who think breasts are solely for sex and were disgusted by the idea of their baby suckling. Those women who only did it for 2 weeks and stopped because they were tired of having their baby constantly want to suckle and preferred for someone else to be able to give the baby a bottle so they could get out.
There is an ocean-size difference between couldn't and didn't want to. And I think this is the real gist of the quote I posted.
The sad thing is that when everyone is lumped together like this, those women who really, really wanted to but really physically couldn't don't get the supportive comments, the consideration of their grief (which is what they experience when they didn't get to breastfeed), the encouragement from moms who also shared similar experiences or moms who had successful breastfeeding experiences and could potentially help them out.
II. Guilt
I know moms who breastfed, moms who couldn't breastfeed, and moms who didn't want to breastfeed. I think these moms are all good, caring, dedicated, loving moms. While I do not necessarily understand not wanting to breastfeed or stopping after 2-3 weeks, this doesn't make me think any less of these moms.
I only wish that everyone could be fortunate enough to be able to experience a close, successful breastfeeding relationship because my experience has been so wonderful. I know that not everyone can, and some people simply don't want, an experience like mine. But I can still wish.
If moms feel any guilt related to breastfeeding or anything else they do as a mom, it is not because I and my opinion (which in reality is only important to me) have anything to do with it. Guilt comes from within. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." I think this applies to guilt. Lord knows I guilt myself into plenty without anyone having to say a single, solitary word to me.
III. Judging Others
Everyone judges people. It is human nature. I make judgments all the time. I judge people who don't recycle when I know they can afford to. People who don't take care of weeding their front flower beds. People who register as Republicans. People who spend as much money sending their kids to Christian K-12 schools as I will sending 3 kids to college. People who think Tom Cruise is a great actor. People who smoke. People who are overweight. People who have pets and allow them to run loose in the neighborhood.
I know that everyone has their own reasons for making the choices they do. And I am not privy to those reasons.
So maybe the very overweight person in front of me in the grocery line has rheumatoid arthritis and difficulty managing pain, thereby making it nearly impossible to exercise. Do I eye their food choices questioningly when I see lots of chips and soft drinks? Yes, I do. Because my wish is that people will eat healthier in general and exercise more (to feel better, to lower health care costs.) Do I get frustrated when I see people in my neighborhood not recycling? Yes, I do. Because my wish is that we all become more careful about reducing our waste.
So maybe the very overweight person in front of me in the grocery line has rheumatoid arthritis and difficulty managing pain, thereby making it nearly impossible to exercise. Do I eye their food choices questioningly when I see lots of chips and soft drinks? Yes, I do. Because my wish is that people will eat healthier in general and exercise more (to feel better, to lower health care costs.) Do I get frustrated when I see people in my neighborhood not recycling? Yes, I do. Because my wish is that we all become more careful about reducing our waste.
I know that I am judged for the things I do or don't do. For having a crucifix hanging in my hall when I refuse to attend any kind of church. For not getting "fixed up" to go out in public. For being pro-Obama. For being something of a dowdy housewife who's mental energy is probably more wrapped up in her children's lives than it should be.
And so sometimes I think maybe I shouldn't say what I think. Maybe I should just keep my thoughts to myself. I mean, I have this blog, right? Isn't that enough?
For me, though, Facebook is a quick little 5-minute escape from the monotony of fixing cheese sandwiches every day, reading the same Diego book 40 times a day, dealing with the sassiness of my 6-year-old, being stuck inside on a rainy day.
As much as I hate the idea of sparking conflict, it does me a world of good to occasionally have something poignant or heated to think about. To assess my feelings and thoughts and beliefs. To reflect on what kind of person I really am at heart. To understand where another person is coming from.
This blog serves that same purpose but I've been crafting this particular post for almost 3 hours now. Interrupted hours, but hours nonetheless.
Facebook is the only kind of quickie I do right now.
And so sometimes I think maybe I shouldn't say what I think. Maybe I should just keep my thoughts to myself. I mean, I have this blog, right? Isn't that enough?
For me, though, Facebook is a quick little 5-minute escape from the monotony of fixing cheese sandwiches every day, reading the same Diego book 40 times a day, dealing with the sassiness of my 6-year-old, being stuck inside on a rainy day.
As much as I hate the idea of sparking conflict, it does me a world of good to occasionally have something poignant or heated to think about. To assess my feelings and thoughts and beliefs. To reflect on what kind of person I really am at heart. To understand where another person is coming from.
This blog serves that same purpose but I've been crafting this particular post for almost 3 hours now. Interrupted hours, but hours nonetheless.
Facebook is the only kind of quickie I do right now.
2 comments:
It seems these days one can't say anything w/o everyone is a 10 mile radius over reacting. I believe that society has become so I don't even know the word I want to use right now but everything is taken out of context and the immediate reaction is an all out blow out. It's really pretty ridiculous.
But I have to say that I hate overweight judgments. I have always always always been overweight. No matter what. Am I healthy? Yes even more so than my skinny sister in law who can barely walk up a hill. I exercise every.single.day and no change. I figure eh, I guess I am just meant to be this way. I've been this way for 33 years and nothing seems to take the weight off so I live with it. Would I rather be able to buy cheap little clothes instead of having to pay more for frumpy looking garbs...hell yes but whatever...I eat healthy and I exercise but I do know that when people see me they probably think...look at her fat ass...she probably eats chips and drinks 12 Cokes a day...so so wrong...sometimes you just are what you are regardless of what you try to make yourself.
You do seem to have a special talent for opening up cans of worms... ;-)
If I was still on Facebook, I think I would have clicked "Like" on your status, because there's definitely a difference between the "can't breastfeed" and the "don't want to," and as you said, it's insulting to those women who truly *can't* for women who just didn't choose to, to state that they *can't*.
Unfortunately, as you said, lots of times, those two groups of women are lumped in together, and that really has to hurt one of the groups.
As for the judgments, I think there's a difference between judging and having an opinion. I think I used to judge people - as in, "She's a bad person because she left her husband and 2 small children to run off with her personal trainer." But over the years, I've tried to temper those kinds of judgments, changing them to something like, "I think it's horrible that she ran off with her personal trainer and left her family like that. Hopefully she'll realize what a stupid and selfish act that was, and come back to her husband."
The difference, I guess, is in judging the PERSON (she's a bad person for doing what she did) and having an opinion about her ACTION (she did a horrible thing, but there's still hope for her to change; she's not a bad person, but she did a selfish thing). Of course, if a person's actions and character are consistently bad, that's a different story.
But your examples, like people who smoke, or people who are overweight, are tricky. Yes, ideally, no one would have any unhealthy habits, but the way I look at it, we ALL have unhealthy habits, it's just that some of them are more apparent than others. That opens up smokers and overweight people to the judgments of others, while my unhealthy habit, or your unhealthy habit, flies under the radar, so we're off the hook.
So...I think it's fine and normal to have opinions about things people do. But I think the world would be a better place if people did less "judging" of others and had more compassion, patience and love for them, even as they "do bad things."
Guess that sounds kind of odd coming from a registered Republican, doesn't it... ;-)
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