I was, in 1980, when it was just beginning to be done again in these parts. Of course it’s never been gross to me, why would it? It’s not like I remember it. I’ll have to ask my mom if she ever got any shade cast on her about it though. (You’d think I’d know, since now that I am also Great With Child it seems that’s all she and I ever talk about anymore.)
I was also cloth diapered, not because my mom was a crunchy hippie but because disposables at the time were not really up to dealing with very skinny legged babies. So my mom’s the only one who hasn’t been incredibly rude about us planning on cloth diapering, oddly enough. (Everybody else is all “ahahaha, yeah, give it a month” or “gross!”)
It’s not a euphemism it’s an English language definition going back hundreds of years. It is just as correct and specific. In fact I would say nursing is the more old fashioned way of saying it and the more usual modern American way is to say breastfed. Have you never heard the term wet nurse?
To answer the OP, don’t know don’t care.
I was breastfed, as was my brother, which of course came up when lil bro was born and at age six I was old enough to wonder about what was going on.
My mother occasionally comments that her mother thought it was “animalistic and gross” as if that’s a horrible attitude. So I’ve never told her that I find the idea of breastfeeding kind of icky too, not from the POV of the baby, but in trying to imagine doing it myself if I have kids.
Nope, Mum tried it, but it didn’t work out- she just wasn’t producing enough and the health visitor told her to switch to bottles.
I don’t think it’s weird at all that mothers bring up stuff like that with their daughters- especially, as in this case, as there was an issue which could be partially genetic. Come to think of it, there’s at least one photo of baby me breastfeeding; it’s just no big deal in my family.
I was breastfed, but I had a heart condition, so I think my mom switched to pumping after awhile because breastfeeding made me too tired and the bottle was less effort for me to take. (My twin sister was breastfed all the way through because her heart condition healed itself.)
I remember being pretty young and asking my mom a question (I don’t remember what) and she showed me how, if she squeezed, she could still get a little bit of milk out of her breasts. I thought it was interesting and it definitely wasn’t something I recalled seeing before. Definitely wasn’t grossed out. I have found (in my experience, not a universal principle) that the people who are grossed out by breastfeeding are also otherwise uncomfortable with their bodies or sexuality.
All four of us Carnut siblings were nursed. In my generation it was still fairly common. I remember my dad’s cousins nursing their kids too. But when I was babysitting age, a lot of people were using formula. Now, my niece’s friends are nursing and using formula when it is more convenient.
I think so. My mother had had Nurse training (didn’t graduate*), so did most things in the medically recommended way, which I’m sure, even at that time (the 60s), would have included breastfeeding.
*She became a Mum so gave up her training. Much later she completed her training, but she was a bit too old by then and was only an Enrolled Nurse for a few years before having to retire.
I never asked, but I assume I wasn’t because my mother was re-hospitalized for a severe hemorrhage issue just a few days after I was born, and I didn’t see her for the next six weeks or so. She still feels guilty about that, but I think it’s less about the breastfeeding and more about the early bonding time. I, of course, have never held it against her because I don’t remember and because she almost died. When you almost die, you stay in the hospital as long as they tell you to.
Nope. I’m a baby of the late 60s and a mom who wasn’t going to be tied down to that sort of thing, so there was a zero chance breast feeding was going to happen.
