Ok, so I'm not quite up to Isolutions strength, but Letter number one got me in a mood. I breastfed both my boys, and belonged to La Leche League, and it was back in the 80s, when people forgot breasts gave milk at all, so things may be a tad different...but they're not, and here's why: when you have a baby, everyone on the planet thinks it's their business to tell you to do things differently than you are, right that very minute when they see you.

If you're nursing on the playground, they tell you, "that's disgusting! Go do that in a bathroom!" If you're feeding your baby a bottle, it's "You're ruining that baby! How could you be so selfish!" If you put a hat on your baby, it's "how can you torture that child, take that thing off him!" or if not, "how can you expose his head like that, he'll get a melanoma!" I've even had one (obviously childless) woman come up to one of my sons on the street (he was ten feet away from me) and say "where is your mommy? Are you all alone?" He was ten at the time, and it's not like he couldn't have kicked her yuppie ass, but still.

All of these people (and it's not just women, the bathroom comment was from a man) have one thing in common: they all know, know! that you are a child-abusing monster and only they can save your child from a short and brutish lifetime of abjecct misery and harm at your incompetent, nay, malevolent hands. This isn't really about boob nazis, or prudes, or anything else in the world except there's always someone who will gladly tell you you're an idiot, and if you are in fact an idiot, you will let it bother you.

With your first parental experience of this, I admit, it can be intimidating, and seem much more virulent than it actually is. Having a baby is scary, and you're not really sure what to do, even when you know what to do. You question yourself, you worry, maybe just subconsciously, that the things you don't even have a choice about, are the wrong things, and you're screwing it up! and your child will need years of therapy! And it really is all your fault! That's where LW #1 is. On the other hand, by the time you have kid #2 (or if you're lucky enough to have a good support group, as LLL was for me, sometime during kid #1), you know to say to each and every Baby Savior who swoops down upon you with the righteous fury of Kali, Destroyer of Lax Parents, crying "Do thusly or thou shalt be dispossessed of thine undeserved offspring!!":

"Oh really? The lady down the street just told me not to!"

I've always concidered my first child my prototype....after that...it's all gravy.

Excellent post! So many people seem to think it takes a village to raise other people's kids.

I saw a pregnant mother smoking recently, Iso, and i just wanted to smash her face in. What should i have done ?

walk up to her and say, "watching you smoke makes me uncontrollably horny!"

If i didn't know better, i'd swear that i'd just been insulted.

I know guys take everything personally at "that" time of day.

"...there's always someone who will gladly tell you you're an idiot, and if you are in fact an idiot, you will let it bother you."

What more does anyone need to know?

Way to go!. We have missed you.

What, between midnight and the next midnight?

Or the mother could show the busy-bodies a picture of her wet-nurse .

Khenkawes

So true.

Case in point -- I recently saw a note in our local paper's "Police Log" that someone had called the police to report a Mom whose children were not dressed warmly enough for the weather. The police responded and concluded "the children were dressed fine."

No matter what you do as a Mom, somebody knows it will ruin your child's life and is happy to tell you so.

we as a society tell each other what to do all the time. personally, i try to keep my judgments to myself (well, not to myself as i tell friends and fellow fraysters what i think all the time) but it's not my kid, so i care only so much about what happens to it.

i saw a pregnant woman smoking yesterday. did i think she was doing something harmful to her fetus? hell yeah. do i have to personally be responsible for her kid once it's out? no. so i said nothing. i see kids 2 and under being fed cookies and cakes, ice creams and juices all the time. do i know that their parents are starting the kids on a sugar addiction? yes. will i be the one upset because the kid has childhood obesity or any number of health problems? no. so i don't say anything.

the problem isn't that everyone has an opinion about how other people should live. the problem is that people won't shut up about it.

exception: when an individual's activities somehow personally affect you. this is probably why people feel justified with the whole "ew. don't breastfeed in front of me" thing. personally i don't want to see other women's breasts. and not everyone is polite and covers up. however, most people i've noticed do and it's unfortunate that a few rotten apples and all that... i'm not saying that these women should be ashamed of what they are doing. but we do live in a society, and that being the case we should at least try to be considerate of each other. well, you'd think.......

And they wonder why I love you so!

Example: seeing a woman smacking her kids in the store. Under the right circumstances, extending a little sympathy her way (you must be having a tough day) can sometimes get her to stop in her tracks.