Abreast to Burden
By: Jennifer Sulkowski Pool
Tags: Motherhood, Breastfeeding, Newborn, Bullying, Toddlers

I’ve been holding onto a deep heartache for what feels like a long time now, and I was shamed and deceived into thinking the heartache only belonged to me. But now I see the same ache plaguing my friends, my mentors, and women I don’t know personally but look up to immensely because of the resources and perspectives on life and motherhood they share. It’s so important to step forward and speak up for other mothers in these situations, even as strangers and especially as women, because it’s often other women who have put us here, in shame.

Because we breastfeed.

It happened to me when Finna was more of a toddler than a baby and I was breastfeeding her like always. There wasn’t anything that happened or changed to us or between us, but rather, that we had suddenly crossed some arbitrary line where she was “too old” to breastfeed. Not only was our breastfeeding no longer considered appropriate, it was deemed offensive. My milk was no longer nutritious for her, so I was simply being manipulated by her desire to nurse and be soothed. It was said she would be emotionally damaged from being breastfed as a toddler and those around us would be damaged because what I was doing was somehow sexual, inappropriate, and a cause for discomfort.

And so, I was condemned in ways that can never be undone; I was condemned in ways that will always impact our family. That’s how serious the shaming was.

I was deeply hurt. I was embarrassed. I was shocked. I was betrayed. I was heartbroken. The incident surrounding the accusation of being inappropriate and causing discomfort because I breastfed my baby who was older than a newborn remains to be the single worst thing that has ever been said or done to me. I believed myself to be a good mother and a good person, and it fundamentally tore apart everything I believed I stood for and dedicated myself to be. And so, I would call it the darkest time of my life, and I’m only beginning to realize it. But more on that in a minute.

When Finna was born, I was completely unprepared for a newborn which is how it is for all new mothers. I did know I had options for feeding her thanks to a PhD in public health and a brief talk during a prenatal appointment once, but I had no support or guidance on it further when Finna was actually in my arms. But I didn’t need guidance because my baby and my instincts told me breastfeeding was what was right for us, and like most breastfeeding mothers, my baby and I figured it out together, in the darkest and most anxious hours of our first few nights together, until it became so natural and so seamless and so effortless, it was if my baby had been born knowing just what to do. It was as if my body was biologically programmed to meet all of her physical and emotional and nutritional needs — a destiny written into my DNA and ultimately realized the day my mom held and nursed me for the first time, just like I was holding and nursing my baby girl.

What a revelation, right?

Next to actually giving birth, breastfeeding was the most blissful, beautiful, empowering, and wonderful thing that ever happened to me, up until Finna was about 18 months old. Then, it was twisted into everything that is the opposite and turned into a weapon used against me.

I had no idea there was some arbitrary, westernized, patriarchal acceptable age limit for breastfeeding babies. And you know what is even less acceptable to society than breastfeeding “older” babies? Breastfeeding while pregnant.

I never planned to breastfeed while pregnant, it’s just what happened because I got pregnant while I was still breastfeeding and continuing to breastfeed was what felt best and most natural for Finna and me. Nursing while pregnant is hard without any outside pressure or judgement because nursing while pregnant is often painful for pregnant mothers, due to pregnancy hormones. The pain in my breast every time Finna first latched was akin to the pain I had in labor during a contraction. It was excruciating, and I had that pain every day, multiple times a day, because I nursed Finna the entire time I was pregnant. But I didn’t complain because I was already being deeply shamed and blamed for breastfeeding Finna as a toddler, and I knew it would be far worse if anyone besides my husband (who has always been supportive) knew I was pregnant.

It’s hard to keep that sort of secret from everybody, and ultimately people did find out, and you know what a few of them said to me when they learned of my hardships?

“Just stop breastfeeding.”

I mean that’s the obvious answer, isn’t it?

“Stop” because it’s hard. Stop because it hurts. Stop because it isn’t convenient. Stop because your baby isn’t a newborn anymore.

“Just stop.”

As if it’s as simple as that. As if we breastfeed on a whim. As if breastfeeding only involves one person— the mothers — and we have full control over the way it unfolds.

“Just stop.”

What flawed reckoning disguised as support when almost every other duty involved with being a good and responsible adult — wife — mother — human also hurts and is hard and inconvenient at times.

Do you tell someone who is trying to eat healthier or who is recovering from an addiction, getting out of an abusive relationship or fighting for their marriage, stepping up for their kids or going back to school, building a new life from the ground up, brick by brick, or working 3 jobs to pay the bills to “stop” because they tell you it’s hard or it hurts or it’s inconvenient?

No, you don’t.

But when you tell a breastfeeding mother to stop in spite of the challenges and hardships she faces, you’re not only not being supportive, but you’re telling her she’s the solution to her own problems if only she betrays herself and her child and she quits.

And when you accuse her of damaging her child or other children, when you accuse her of starving her unborn baby because she is nursing while pregnant, when you accuse her of being inappropriate, sexual, or otherwise shameful because her nursing baby is older than you’d expect, you are just being criminal.

The worst part in my opinion, is that my story is not unique. This happens to most nursing mothers. As I mentioned, it’s happening to my friends. It’s happening to mentors I look up to and fellow mothers I immensely respect.

This pressure to breastfeed our babies because that’s what we are told is best during the stage of pregnancy when our babies are still cells that can be counted under a microscope and then the pressure to wean them at an age when they are finally whole and wriggly and tangibly thriving in our arms — when we finally feel like we have an actual grip on motherhood — it’s maddening.

It’s senseless.

To a mother, it’s criminal.

And when we are told to stop, we are never asked about where our baby might be developmentally, no one considers what state our health is in or how we’re feeling, no one knows what our home environment and lifestyles are like, and heaven forbid anyone stops to consider what we are most comfortable with, not to mention the fact that our comfort level is 100% driven by and based on our babies. Babies we know better than anyone ever will. Babies we have been intimately and divinely tuned into for over a year, not to mention the 9 months of pregnancy when they were inside of us, which is what made us capable of breastfeeding in the first place.

All of these factors, and more, determine a women’s journey when it comes to breastfeeding her baby.

I don’t regret nursing Finna through my pregnancy with Sutton. I’d go through all of the pain and shame with Finna all over again because I know nursing was best for her while I was pregnant.

Because I’m a mother and it’s my job to know what’s best for my children and then do it.

But what I regret is not knowing the support I deserved. I regret not knowing that others before me have gone through this, and I regret not knowing more facts so I could combat the shame and doubt and brokenness I was dealt.

This is what I’d wished I’d known:

From a scientific standpoint, breastmilk is not a ticking time bomb. It does not magically lose its nutrition because it magically knows your child has reached an age when nursing is magically no longer accepted by society. In fact, breastmilk only increases in nutrition as your baby grows into a toddler because your toddler’s needs increase and your breastmilk is custom-made. Nipples have tiny receptors that analyze a nursing child’s saliva when they are nursing, which provides a feedback loop to your endocrine system and your mammary glands, which adjust the nutrition of your breastmilk to your baby’s daily — even hourly — needs. The receptors can sense fever, vitamin deficiencies, infections, viruses, bacteria, gut health, heart health, blood composition, and overall wellness. The receptors even sense your baby’s sleep patterns so that daytime milk is different from nighttime milk in order to support better wakefulness and sleep.

Sutton tends to nurse on the right side and Finna tends to nurse on the left. When I pump, the milk is two different colors and consistencies because each breast is making different types of milk based on each of their unique needs.

Isn’t that amazing?

I think that’s just amazing.

And nursing your born-baby does not starve your unborn baby while you’re pregnant. Not only can a woman’s body grow a baby, but it’s sophisticated enough to prioritize nutrition for the ones she’s already birthed. In fact, it’s the woman who ends up depleted and starved if she can’t eat and metabolize enough nutrition, not her nursing child or her unborn baby.

It’s she who starves.

As any other parent would if they were unable to put enough food on the table to feed everyone.

Women have been nursing while pregnant for thousands and thousands of years, never ever giving it a second thought like the mothers are forced to today. I wished someone had told me that.

And perhaps, more necessary to state beyond any of the above — breastfeeding a child of any age is not inappropriate, shameful, or sexual. If you find it to be that way, you are the one being inappropriate, shameful, and sexual. Nudity and sexuality are all around us: movies, the art museum, tv commercials, the Victoria Secret ads hanging in the malls and lining the inside of your favorite lifestyle magazines. Everyone wearing a swimsuit at the beach you flock to in summer. Me nursing my baby, with my shoulders bare, and maybe a chest bone or two popping out because breastfeeding makes you frail when you’re hungry and bullied — all of that is neither nudity nor sexuality. It’s feeding and mothering my child. It’s my biological instinct, my maternal duty, and my human right.

There is no evidence that nursing until a child of any age chooses to wean themselves is psychologically damaging to the child. There IS evidence that says extended nursing promotes a child’s independence, self-assurance, and confidence when they are ready to be and have all of those things.

And even if you choose not to believe the science or the psychology, even if you believe I’m only a giant human pacifier, nothing more than a mindless soother who comforts my child by nursing, what does it matter?

It’s my choice, as a mother, to soothe her that way. Though it’s not a mindless one. It’s the most thoughtful and selfless decision I’ve ever made.

Give me my child, I say. Let me cradle her in her arms, and hold her to my breast, right against my skin, where she can listen to the sound of my heart — the first sound she heard and knew before any other — let her stay there and be soothed in my arms for as long as possible, before I turn her loose into the world with a screen, or a plastic chew toy, comfort food, candy, or anything else to “self-soothe.”

Let me be her source of comfort for as long as I can be. For there is no place safer or purer than in my arms, nursing at my breast.

But you know, out of every person I’ve ever met, whether or not I’ve decided they’re a good person, a bad person, a healthy or sick person, psychologically whole or psychologically damaged, I’ve never attributed it to the fact that they were or were not breastfed…have you?

It’s not a box that needs to be checked on college applications and it’s not something asked about in job interviews. It’s not a qualification for becoming a doctor or holding office or getting married or even being allowed to vote.

But we will damn mothers during the most fleeting and vulnerable time of their lives, as if it is.

Because whether you formula feed or breastfeed or wean or continue to breastfeed — a mom just can’t win.

And so, like so many others, my life will never be the same because of the active, intentional cruelty I endured over breastfeeding.

Society has come so far, or so you think, until you become a new mother to a new baby and either breastfeed or don’t. The really toxic part about it is that the judgement and the ignorance and the manifestation that breastfeeding is everything but feeding and nurturing your child often comes from other women, who go so far as to tell their own children a breastfeeding woman is an abomination, an inappropriate figure, and due cause for discomfort.

Just like racism and sexism, alienation is taught and thusly learned. It’s not a concept anyone is born with — how else would man have ever gotten a foothold on this earth without his mother first breastfeeding him, if it was?

And so the cycle continues. We have a new generation of men and women ready to emerge, to tell women their method of mothering is cause for alarm.

And so this is my perpetual burden.

Because the baby girl I sacrifice endless nights and countless hours to nurse and nurture since the day she was born was born, of nature, with the capability, the gift, the honor, the privilege, and most of all, the anatomy, to nurse her own babies one day, if she chooses. And that means she’s in danger. She’s vulnerable. She’s got a mountain looming over her. The same mountain my friends, my mentors, my fellow mothers are all warily climbing now.

As mothers, we’re so tired. We’re hurt. We’re angry. We’ve been through too much to birth and care for and raise our babies to allow for this to happen to them and their babies, too.

And if you are squeamish or thinking I shouldn’t be talking about this here, then you are part of the cycle. You are part of the problem. You are why my life and so many other women’s lives are so complicated and polluted and shamed during the most critical and intense time of our lives. I feel it. We feel it. As mothers, we feel all of it. And I’d like to tell you that, as mothers, you can count the number of worlds on our shoulders by the number of children we call our own. I’d like to tell you that we are doing the best we can, that we are feeling pulled in a thousand different directions and feeling inadequate because there aren’t enough pieces of ourselves to send in all of those different directions. The world isn’t set up to support mothers who breastfeed and it isn’t set up to support mothers who don’t. As mothers, we are already our toughest critics — painfully aware of all our shortcomings — while constantly haunted by nightmares, fears, and anxieties for and over our children. Of course this is also quickly disregarded, labeled as postpartum depression or anxiety or hysterical paranoia with further societal stigma slapped on top of it. We are forced to worry in silence as we watch our worst fears happen to other people’s children, reported on the news night after night after night. Right there for us and the whole world to see, after all we’ve heard all day long is how we worry too much.

But we don’t, you see. It’s just that we, as mothers, understand the world better than anyone, because we take it in through the eyes of our children. And so, we spend our days scared senseless for them.

And when you go out of your way to hurt us because we breastfeed our babies, you only confirm our fears and raise our suspicions. When you hurt us, you are wearing us thinner, you are wearing us down duller, you are taking away our precious, finite energy, which belongs to our children. When you drain us, you deprive them, so in the end, it’s our children you’re ultimately hurting, not us. And there’s nothing that makes us angrier than someone who tries to hurt our children.

Would you want someone shaming your mother, as she lovingly holds your tiny body up to her breast with one strong but exhausted arm and cradles her pregnant belly with the other?

How dare she try to equally nourish and nurture both of her children at the same time in the most fundamental, natural way possible — the way in which she has been biologically and emotionally programmed to be able to do.

How dare she.

Who does she think she is?

A woman?

A mother?

How dare she.

Breastfeeding is a complicated topic because there are many different opinions, and the tricky part is that none of them are valid and none of them are opinions you are entitled to have unless you are:

1) a mother with a baby actively breastfeeding

Or

2) a mother with a baby actively taking formula.

And even then, your opinion is only accurate when it comes to you and your baby. Because every mama and baby are different.

Is breastfeeding hard? Yes.

Is it for every mother? No.

Is breastfeeding best for a mother? It depends on what is best for the baby.

Is breastfeeding best for a baby? It depends on what is best for the mother.

Is it hard, as a mother, to live with whatever decision she makes? Yes.

And so, I’m telling it how it is. Because as I watch my friends and my mentors and my fellow mothers go through the same senseless persecution I’ve been through, it’s becoming increasingly clear that for most people, no one has ever told them how it is.

And I find that to be a sin against all mothers.

So this is how it is.

Please stop making us mad.

Sincerely,

A Mad Breastfeeding Mother