But given that these are the facts, what exactly can you say to that? “You have to go back in time and have had your own baby so you can breast feed it?” I mean…what else is there to say if someone’s adopted a child who is older and just can’t breast feed?
It is, by the way, interesting to me. I was the first in my group of friends to face infertility and adopt. And since that point in time three of my friends have followed my path. And of the three friends who followed my path:
One actually ran a business supporting breastfeeding mothers after her first son was born (her second was adopted), was a lactivist of the “formula is evil” ilk. And apologized to me after her adoption.
One was pregnant with her first during our adoption - said incredibly hurtful things (unintentionally) about how she could never give up control (“didn’t I understand how much any medication during birth could harm the baby! She’d never consider being a parent under those circumstances.”) VERY pro breastfeeding (and for a long time thought I made the wrong choice not to try and induce lactation), adopted her second child - and didn’t give a thought to inducing lactation. And apologized after her adoption.
The third is a doula, a huge fan of natural childbirth, of breastfeeding (WhyNot always reminds me of her) - but wasn’t even married when I started my parenting journey, and so was able to hear in a way my other friends couldn’t my experience. They are now adopting - having made the choice parenting is more important than how the child arrives or what it got fed. She doesn’t need to apologize, though she is now getting it in a way she didn’t before.
That you’ll never be a “real” mother. That your child is condemned to be more at risk for disease and stupidity. That you shouldn’t adopt at all - because they can’t understand that choice.
[Kyle from “South Park”]Seriously? …SERIOUSLY?
Ugh.
Seriously.
I hear everything you are saying, Dangerosa, I just shake my heads at people who are that…well, blinded by their own opinions. I mean, why do people adopt anyway? Most of them, because they can’t have their “own” baby. So, what’s the logic here? That if you can’t have 100% of mothering experience that it’s not worth having at all? Seems a tad…shortsighted to me. I mean, you’re pregnant for 9 months, you push out the baby for a few hours, and you breastfeed for maybe a couple of years. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of your life that you have to be a parent. It’s perhaps PHYSICALLY the most intense part of the experience, but not necessarily emotionally. I do think it’s interesting that people change their tune when they have their own fertility issues. Doesn’t seem so second-rate now, does it?
I for one am a big proponent of natural childbirth, and I was very interested in making sure my second baby nursed within an hour (there’s a big push for that in the advocacy right now). So there I was, had a 100% natural birth, my baby was alert and healthy . . . and she wasn’t interested in nursing for a few hours. 
Oh, and FWIW I nursed the first one in the birthing center and never used any formula, and I did not “bond” with her immediately. It took months of taking care of her, day in and day out, to grow into loving her. So I reject that bonding talk most vociferously. The way I look at it, it’s like romantic love - sure, some people get a bolt out of the blue and fall in love at first sight, but most know someone and interact with them, and slowly grow into love.
So, what was I trying to say? Oh yeah - I think it is SO awesome to adopt a baby, and I cannot imagine what kind of moron you’d have to be to oppose adoption, especially on some stupid “bonding” grounds. Dangerosa, I’m really curious, was it LLL leaders who made these comments, or just people attending the meeting? Because while everyone should know better, leaders really really should know better.
I have to say, this conversation is making me rethink my own priorities. I’m starting to think that, yeah, trying to advocate breastfeeding to the public, as in “You should do this!” might be a less effective use of resources than focusing on simply providing support and help to women who have already made the decision. Coming off as judgmental and paternalistic is certainly not going to make people want to nurse. I’ll be thinking a lot about this and bringing it up to the leaders in my group.
And that’s a real shame. Employed mothers aren’t some outside fringe group–they are the majority of mothers in this country. It seems like La Leche would want to accredit leaders who can understand what women who want to combine breastfeeding with employment are trying to do. WhyNot and **SisterCoyote **are right. If breastfeeding advocates can’t help employed mothers, then breastfeeding becomes a class issue–which is really fucking awful.
I just read the whole thread, and it looks like it comes down to this:
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It is best for the health of the baby to be breastfed (and yes, this has proven now, regardless of ancedotes and the untrustworthiness of the studies ten years ago).
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Most mothers have no problem with it; but it is not good, or even physically possible, for all mothers, due to: medical problems, genuine lack of milk, work issues, adoption, and a host of other issues.
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Almost all babies who are formula fed will be absolutely fine. There’s a small risk of minor problems, and a very small risk of serious problems.
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Almost all babies who are breastfed will be absolutely fine. There’s a very, very small risk of serious problems if the mother has a problem and does not supplement with stored milk or formula.
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Some people on both sides of the issue, like every parenting issue, are going to be assholes about it.
Everyone agreed?
I’ve found that to be true with pretty much every issue.
Support is key. I do think that a lot of the things well-meaning people say to new mothers who are experiencing difficulty breastfeeding work as sabotage, whether they’re meant to or not. I am thinking of when I was going through hell in the first few weeks of trying to breastfeed Whatsit Jr. (my oldest), and people like my mother kept saying, “Formula is just as good! You can quit! It’ll be fine!”
Okay, dubious evidence in this thread to the contrary, I’m not convinced that formula is just as good, and I was well aware that I could quit, but I was trying my ass off to make it work, and commentary like that felt undermining and unhelpful. I think that “advice” like, “It’s okay to quit, you’re not a bad mother” is appropriate WHEN AND IF the mother has already decided to stop breastfeeding. Not while she’s still in the middle of it trying her best. That’s not support, that’s trying to convince her to make a different choice, and frankly I think that a lot of the people who offer advice like this are trying to defend their own situation. (My mom, for example, formula-fed me and all of my siblings and I still think she takes the fact that I breastfed mine to be some kind of personal affront.)
My point here is that my personal philosophy with breastfeeding support is that while a new mom is trying to establish breastfeeding, I’ll be as supportive as I possibly can. I’ll bring her water. I’ll offer advice on different positions. I’ll get her the number of a certified lactation consultant. I’ll use positive language instead of trying to undermine her with commentary about how it’s fine to just quit. That being said, if she decides on her own that she isn’t going to do it anymore, then that’s that, and I’ll coo over her cute baby and ask if she needs anything and drop the subject. Trying to make people feel guilty or bad about a decision that is in the past and that they cannot change accomplishes nothing except, perhaps, making them feel like nursing moms are all “breastfeeding Nazis” or whatever.
One additional point: I wish people would stop using “I did X when I was a child and I turned out fine” like it was actual evidence of anything. I have heard this applied to the use of bike helmets, child safety seats, secondhand smoke… the list goes on. News flash: Just because you survived it doesn’t mean everyone did, and just because someone survived it doesn’t mean there weren’t negative effects from it.
Question: does LLL have an official position about gay men adopting, or single fathers of any stripe? Would they help them find donated milk if they just showed up at a meeting one day, or give them other advice, or something else?
I think you are definitely on the right track. The way I see it, there’s such a range of different issues when it comes to why people don’t nurse, or give up on it quickly. There’s a world of difference between those who just don’t want to and aren’t going to consider it, and those who really do want to, but have a whole bunch of unexpected problems. For the most part, LLL and Lactation Consultants are dealing with the latter (with the desire/will to do it varying, of course), and so what they want & need is support and encouragement to get them over the hump. The others, well, I don’t think there’s much you can do about them except to portray breastfeeding in a very positive manner, and hope the culture comes around.
As far as I could tell, there were six or eight women in a room, none of them disagreeing and - at least it seemed to me at the time - most of them chiming in on the groupthink with some combination of horror that I’d do such a thing or pity that I wouldn’t be a real mother. I didn’t identify a leader among them - there was possibly someone who called the meeting to order, whomever that was was probably the leader, whomever that was let me run out of the room in tears and did not object to the line of shit I was getting.
While LLL’s official philosophy statements talk about mothering through breastfeeding and a baby’s need to be near his mother, it seems to me that those statements apply to biological children. As far as I know, LLL has no official policy regarding adoption. But the LLL I know would certainly support and help anyone who wanted to give their baby breast milk, whether they were male or female, bio parent or adoptive.
Dangerosa, I feel as a member of LLL I want to apologize for what was done to you at that meeting. At best, the leader failed to perform her duty properly. Knowing some leaders well, I know that when someone says something crazy, wrong, or hurtful, a leader is supposed to redirect the conversation and offer correct information. I can imagine a leader in my group saying something like, “I can see adoption raises some strong feelings. However, LLL has no policy regarding adoption, and if you’re interested in inducing lactation or finding a milk bank, here are some resources . . .” I’m sure they’re not allowed to say, “Look you stupid bitch, lay off her and buy a clue,” but they aren’t supposed to let people pile on to someone, especially with wrong information.
Nor am I - which is why I breastfed my daughter. But I also don’t think the evidence is so conclusive (or -often - the difference significant enough) that extraordinary measures should be taken to breastfeed - and I think that in parenting, extraordinary effort needs to be defined by the parents.
If you want to keep your children healthy by feeding them a organic vegetarian diet of whole grains, beans, and lots of fruits and vegetables - more power to you. While the evidence (like with breastfeeding) isn’t conclusive that such a diet is necessarily better, I’m not convinced that the normal Western diet heavy in meat and chemicals is just as good. But its a lot of effort (says someone who eats 40% vegetarian and 80% organic) - don’t condemn other parents for making a different choice.
Most LLL Meetings are not open to men. I note that I vociferously objected to this policy when I was a Leader, and fought to have meetings that were open to couples. The LLL theory is that “some women are uncomfortable breastfeeding in front of strange men”, to which I say “bull”. It reinforces the idea that breastfeeding is shameful or something to be done in secret (and let’s not debate public bf here, ok?). Also, partner support is absolutely critical in getting bf established and going well.
I did often evaluate latch or look at issues for women at meetings, but we always, always went into another room privately to do so. There was no disrobing in front of a crowd to do so.
Many Leaders are also rather religious and may not be comfortable with gay individuals. While LLL is not a religous organization, it was founded by Catholic women and still attracts a lot of religious people.
Finally, LLL is not an organization set up to provide donor milk, so they wouldn’t be able to do that. A Leader might be able to assist in finding a milk bank, but not a private donor. Had I received a call from a man purporting to be adopting a child and asking about donor milk, I would have kept the call short and said “you can call the milk bank in X city at this number” because there are some lactation fetishists out there who do call LLL Leaders and ask a lot of weird questions.
Tygre, it’s interesting to hear that many of the leaders in LLL are religious. I am personally acquainted with one of the founders, and from what I know of her she is quite devout, but the people I know who are currently involved are more of the crunchy-granola type, and definitely not so much the traditionally-religious type. (Although that may have more to do with my neighborhood and circle of friends than the LLL culture overall.) Anyway, I always thought the no-men rule was more of a female-empowerment thing and lwss of a modesty thing. Interesting to got your perspective as an insider!
Some LLL groups do offer couples meetings, but yeah, at the regular series meetings, it’s really just for women. It’s sad, but even at a freaking LLL meeting, surrounded only by nursing women, some women will nurse with one of those modesty capes or a blanket over them. So to have men there would probably drive those women away completely, and they deserve support as much as anyone else.
Of the leaders whose religious inclinations I know in my area, there’s an evangelical Baptist, a liberal Catholic, a Jewish Unitarian, and an atheist. I only know their religions because we mix socially - it never comes out at meetings, except perhaps because we use churches to meet in (everyone else wants to charge money), and sometimes a leader might mention in passing belonging to that church.
I guess I don’t see why it’s sad that some women prefer to cover up even in the company of other women. If they’re happier, who cares? You seem to think they’re kind of pathetic.