Ok, true confession: I nursed both my kids into toddlerhood; I home birthed them both, made all their baby food from scratch, never gave them formula, and stayed home with them as much as possible. I was into attachment parenting before I knew it was a thing (http://www.askdrsears.com/htm­l/10/t130100.asp). Both boys were walking and saying single words by 9 months. Now some of that's just family genetics, pretty much all of us talked early, and I said my first word at 6 months (according to my family, who now say I never lived up to that early potential, so who knows what really happened).

When my younger son was still crawling I wrote an article for a large urban daily, promoting breastfeeding in public. It wasn't much of a controversy by then, it was already legal for ladies to bare their breasts in public parks in NYC. But I and other mothers had gotten some shockingly mean comments (go to the bathroom to do that! It's disgusting!) while nursing at the toddler playground. My point was that because breastfeeding was healthy, and worked best if babies could nurse on demand, that the general public ought to learn to tolerate a bare boob now and then.

The night my article went to press, the managing editor called me and apologized that it had been hacked up by the page editor. He gave me the page editor's home number and offered to let me chew him out for it. When I saw what he'd done the next day, I was in shock. There was literally not a sentence of mine he hadn't rewritten. Where I had scholarly factual quotes, he had substituted things like "a whale of a long time." Where I had summarized the latest research, he had deleted any reference. Where I had said, "I'm militant about breastfeeding" meaning I advocated it in general, he'd changed it to read, "I'm militant about breastfeeding in public." Within an hour I got a phone call-- from a Philadelphia radio station, wanting me to interview about that sentence. I couldn't blame the page editor, if I ever wanted to write for the paper again. So I took the politicians' route and answered the question I wanted to answer, instead of what I was being asked. The talk show host told me on the air that his whole family had been fighting over my article since breakfast, and people had been calling in about it all morning. I can only imagine what it would have been like if the paper had printed everything I'd actually written-- mayhem in our streets?

Now, people who know me here on the Fray know I just lost my older son to leukemia in February (http://www.slate.com/id/21607­11/). I don't know if breastfeeding and healthy food gave us a little more time with him, but I have to tell you, I'm glad I can look back and say, well at least it isn't that. If breastfeeding doesn't protect from cancer for a lifetime, at least it doesn't cause it.

It's not that I think mothers who can't breastfeed are not as good as mothers who can. It's that I think mothers who don't but could ought to at least take the trouble to educate
(the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding exclusively for the first six months: <link> themselves about it, and to give their children at least a few weeks of the one meal you don't have to prepare in a busy day.

I wonder how much of women's reluctance to breastfeed when they are able has to do with the actual difficulty involved, and how much has to do with fear. Fear of saggy boobs leading to sexual rejection, fear of being castigated for displaying boobs, fear of being the sole supplier of meals for another human being, especially at 4 am, fear of bodily fluids, fear of being overwhelmed, fear of being a mammal, fear of men's fear about women's bodies and power, fear of the general public's fear of boobs.

As long as someone's out there lying to women and saying that breast milk is no better than formula, so they can make a few more bucks, it's a lot easier to let your fears overcome every other consideration.

I do agree in principle. But I suspect that what irritates me is as a result of the gulf between those of us with insurance and those without. Cause those of us who get good pre and post natal care do get a ton of information about breastfeeding. I don't know who's not doing it anymore, though I suspect still it's less educated women without decent care who just don't know. I'm all for the LLL dispensing information to those people. What irritates me is the assumption that anyone who makes a different decision (for any reason) after the information is disseminated is deserving of contempt and abuse.

I know formula manufacturers were always finding the poorest and pushing formula. But dear Lord, even they now run ads saying Mothers Milk is best. Is anything else truly necessary?

Boobs everywhere.

I think there are mothers who didn't breastfeed because they were told it wasn't "nice" or because they really believed that formula was better (more sanitary, was what they told my generation, but it's always something), or because they had to/wanted to go back to work, or because they really had problems and no one to help them. On the other hand I think a lot of nonbreastfeeders see contempt and abuse in simple statements like breastfeeding is better. In fact, I know that's the case because whenever an article is posted here about the benefits of breastfeeding, a large number of folks come out of the woodwork griping about the breastfeeding nazis, although you dont' see rhetoric like that from the women who post attesting to the benefits they saw in feeding their own children by the breast.

really are Nazis. I remember a friend who was really making a lot of efforts to breastfeed, unsuccessfully. She hadn't given up, but, afraid that the baby wasn't getting any nutrients, gave the odd bottle of formula. She was told by the visiting LLL that she was doing the child a terrible disservice, that he in fact was going to suffer by her lack of attachment, that he would probably get more ear infections. When she cried about how she was trying, instead of support she received an instruction that the child should be held upside down, if necessary, in order to nurse, but that she was absolutely failing him. Just what a postpartum mom short on sleep and normal hormones needs to hear.

Sorry, I think that's just total bullshit. And I know a ton of people with these kinds of stories, which we swapped while nursing our babies. Bottom line is that educated people are totally willing to try, but the reaction they receive from a small but vocal group is so disproportionate to the benefits that it's offputting. If that's the group that goes out to the less educated community, there's the reason they don't breastfeed.

It's utterly and shamelessly manipulative.

the New York chapter did nothing like this when I was nursing, and I've never heard of it before. This was in the hospital, I take it. Their philosophy is supposed to be supportive and nonjudgmental. Sounds like a rogue chapter in PA.

That conjures up a very interesting image. I know you'd never be a Nazi.

I've been known to steamroll a person or two under the right circumstances. If anyone told me a NY LLL member had acted in the manner you've described, I'd call the chapter myself and complain. But since it's PA, hey, you chicks gotta fight your own battles.

I think zealotry among breastfeeding advocates is like any zealotry among people who think they're "saving children." People can lose their sense of proportion, and forget that it's about supporting and encouraging mothers, not that the parent is potentially an idiot incapable of doing what's best for their kid.

And some of them are new mothers!

My friend (the mother of my Cool Niece) was subjected to all kinds of abuse from her compatriots because she simply wasn't capable of supplying enough milk to feed her baby.

The kid was born at 5 1/2 pounds and was perpetually hungry. My friend was constantly trying to feed her, and the poor package was howling with hunger 24/7 for weeks. In the meantime, my friend was asking for advice and begging for help and being told that she "wasn't commited enough" to her child's wellbeing.

She finally decided that her child's health was better served with a full belly, and the first night she topped up the baby with formula was the first night that poor kid slept for more than 40 minutes at a time.

The subject came up at a meeting of a parents group that my friend attended, and the other mothers were so abusive to her that she never went back. She was accused of child abuse, told that she was a bad mother, informed that she was causing her child to fail in school and a myriad of other horror stories, all because she couldn't bear for her baby to go hungry.

Isonomist said: fear of men's fear about women's bodies and power, fear of the general public's fear of boobs."

Ms. Isonomist, you do not understand men yet. Men go through a process from puberty to adulthood to learn to control their sexual desires for women. And very often, the slightest shape or object of a woman: a leg, a neck, the shape of a breast, the curve between a woman's thighs, can cause a hormonally charged teenage boy to become excited. But as that boy becomes a man, he disciplines himself to control that, even to subdue it. However, even as a young man or middle aged man, he can still have those moments.

A woman's bare breast exposed in public IS such a excelorant catalyst to cause men to become excited, even in public. Here in Florida, 2 women protested for their right to bare there breasts in public as men do, such as cutting their lawns, gardening, or just sunbathing in their yard. Nearly 100 men showed up to look at these two 40 something women bare their breasts in Daytona. And that was a formal protest with police presence, media, etc. What of the public park?

Ms Isonomist, breastfeed your children and encourage others to do so. Its a good thing. My wife did it. But do not claim to know what is a man's "fear" of a woman's breast or the "power" of women over men. This is irresponsible and discourtesy to what it means to be a man. When your two boys reach puberty and you see them lustfully glaring at a woman's body, perhaps even seeing them become aroused or pleasuring themselves, or worse yet they are involved in molesting some drunk girl at a party, you will definitely come to understand that that primal urge in men is a force to be respected, controlled and subdued and measures should be taken to control its arousal. It is not something to laugh at.

There's a reason public nudity is discouraged. Its not to oppress breastfeeding mothers.

They do get pretty nuts…

You know I’m a big proponent of breast feeding—I had the ‘breast milk only’ sign on Charley’s bassinet at the hospital and beat the nurses to his first change, but today the movement has taken on some more strident overtones. We’re already braced for that with the twins—milk production for twins for a woman of Anne’s diminutive size and keeping up with twins feeding schedule (even while pumping—because pumping doesn’t stimulate the same hormone release that increases milk production) while handling a 3 year old is a bit of a challenge.

We’ll see how it goes and may wind up supplementing as necessary with formula. Unfortunately, today, that means catching hell from every other busybody without twins who seems perfectly fit to tell you to how to do what they haven’t. Yikes.

I think its some sort of pre-programmed DNA-based quirk of the human beast to make stupid comments about the way other people raise their kids. It is safely ignored, unless you are in the habit of letting your children pet grizzly bears and pit bulls, run into the street, and leave boiling pots on stoves just inside the reach of tiny fingers.

(It's getting close, big guy....Luck and good wishes to both of you. Or is that all five of you?)

Obviously this is something you will always feel, and I won't even begin to try to change your mind...however, before you list all of the reasons why women choose not to breast feed, let me give you several more. And I hope that you perhaps realize that not all mothers make selfish choices. My first daughter was born 7 years ago, and I had gestational diabetes. I was in a hospital that didn't give two figs about what the parents wanted, and I requested no bottles because I was going to try to nurse. They wouldn't let me nurse until after testing the baby for diabetes. After her tests, when the baby awoke in the nursery, she was given a bottle. And then another before I was allowed to have her back. I tried to nurse her for weeks, and she refused. I felt like a failure and berated myself, but now I know that my wishes were ignored.

Skip ahead to last year, when baby #2, also a girl, was born. This time, I was ready! I was determined to nurse. And this baby latched on...and it hurt. And it hurt. And I knew it would get easier, so I kept at it. And the baby hated it. And I hated it. And I tried for 2 days, and gave up. And felt like a failure...again. But this time, instead of being hard on myself I accepted the fact that I tried, and I chose the bottles. My children are both well cared for. And I spend great amounts of time with them. I don't feel that either one is worse off for me not breast feeding.

For the record, I have a degree in Early Childhood Education and I took every course on breast feeding that I could find, so I don't consider myself uneducated. If the stretch marks don't keep my hubby away, I'm quite certain a little boob sag would keep the hubby away either, so neither of these choices apply to me. I know you voiced that you don't think all moms who don't feed are bad moms, but maybe you should stress that we're not all lazy either. I'm certainly not! I'm too busy with two kids to be lazy. And the first one just tested into the gifted program at her school, so lack of breastfeeding certainly hasn't ruined her educationso far!!!!

I lost all respect for LLL when a friend had her first child. At 28 this friend had a double mastectomy. Fought cancer and had a miracle baby at 30.

She was bottle feeding her baby out and about and someone who was with LLL had the audacity to question her bottle feeding her child. How do you think that made my friend feel.

I have severe polycystic ovarian syndrome and if I can ever get pregnant, I will not be able to breast feed due to daily medication I must take. I dread explaining myself over and over to people who do not give me credit for knowing what will be best for my child.

Everyone needs to mind their own business and do what is best for their family and not concern themselves with others' choices unless visible abuse is occurring.

I am truly surprised your friend received that type of response instead of offers for wet nursing or bags of breast milk.

I wet nursed for two other women who had post-natal surgeries that prevented them from nursing after they gave birth.

once again, breast feeding doesn't cure or cause anything....it just disguists some of us in public when you people just want to whip out your boobs anywhere.....I would be one of those people that would like to tell you to find a bathroom.....