Masochistic Mommy

If you’re been alive for the fast five or so years, you may have noticed something peculiar: the emergence of a new zeitgeist of contempt for breastfeeding. Even a cursory look at the lifestyle section of many online newspapers reveals a contemporary back-catalogue now groaning under the weight of the collective bitching of a vocal minority of failed breastfeeders. In this post I question the motives of these failed breastfeeders, let’s call them ‘formula apologists’ – the folk who make it their raison d'etre to criticise breastfeeding - that is, to criticise its promotion and its significance. You see, nobody comes immaculately to the infant feeding debate. Its discussion can never be abstract. As I discussed in the chapter of my book  aptly titled ‘Defensiveness’, the agenda of these people is not as transparent as they would hope. Ask yourself this question: by virtue of being failures, do these people really qualify as noted dispensers of feeding advice? Do they have the well-b...

You see the world from your own perspective – of course you do. What can be harder to recognise is that not everyone else does. When you’re a child, most of the people in your world are focused on you most of the time. When you’re two, for example, you can scream when you’re hungry and someone will produce food for you. But that’s not going to work when you’re 20. Okay, so you’re thinking “No shit Sherlock”. But there are other ways in which we can all too easily assume that the world is focused on us when in fact no one is giving us a thought. Parenting is the mother of all imagined theatrical stages. We picture ourselves centre-stage, with all eyes on *our* performance. Either we think people are “breastfeeding at us ”, or a scientific study is a conspiracy to make us feel bad , or someone pointing out the risks of circumcision is spoiling for a fight with us. Such self-centrism is an easy trap to fall into. Yet part of growing up is recognising that other people might not have us in...

When you read the title you probably thought, ‘But formula is nothing like smoking, jeeeeez!’ On the contrary, there are numerous parallels. In this post I’m going to set out, not only why formula feeding is like smoking, but why it may even be considered  worse . Firstly, a common thread between formula feeding and smoking is consumption patterns. They both follow the addiction model: It’s easy to get hooked, and then you’ve gotta have it (see what I mean,  here ). During World War II, soldiers were issued with free cigarettes, courtesy of the tobacco companies, whereas today formula companies gatecrash maternity wards, doctors’ surgeries, and parenting magazines proselytizing with free formula: Health cover-up Mark my word friends, in the not so distant future, lawsuits will be filed against formula companies claiming that they are responsible for the ill-health of the obese, diabetics, crohn’s sufferers, allergy sufferers, arthritis sufferers and asthmatics, to name but a f...

Around the world, some parents are high-fiving baby sleep 'trainers' for giving them some much-needed shut-eye. Typical newspaper headlines include: ‘ Sleep trainer cured my baby's insomnia - and saved my sanity ’ - The Telegraph. ‘ When Lullabies Aren't Enough ’ - The New York Times. ‘ Letting babies cry rather than rushing to comfort them is secret to longer sleep (for infants AND parents) ’ - The Daily Fail. ‘ Study highlights controlled crying benefits ’ - ABC News. Yes, without a doubt, controlled crying has benefits – for parents. Yes, controlled crying ‘works’. The baby does indeed shut his ass up and communicates less at night. However - and it's a big HOW-EVER - at best, this is because he has been trained not to do so, rather than understanding that it is night-time and therefore he must be tired and should sleep. Physician and legend  Dr Sears coined the phrase ‘shutdown syndrome’ to describe what may potentially be happening in this scenario. Shall I ex...

Babies are the largest group of victims on the planet. Don't believe me? Infants aged under one year are more at risk of being killed at the hands of another person than any other age group (Source: NSPCC 2014 ). You only have to compare the length of prison sentences handed to paedophiles and child abusers with those guilty of fraud to see what little value we attribute to children. It's important to recognise however that 'harm' isn't limited to such legal definitions. By restricting our understanding of harm to just the extremes, we condone and normalise other harmful acts towards children, acts that fall outside the legal safety-net. In this post I will focus on babies and toddlers to show how the mistreatment of children is a widely accepted and even cherished part of our culture. The burden to justify harming children lies on those who wish to conduct it, and justify they do. Each society usually has a list of the types of people who can be ‘justifiably’ mistr...

In our increasingly desensitized society, advertisers have to push mainstream boundaries in order to achieve an impact; And whose buttons are better to push than parents? We’re plentiful, we spend lots of money, and we’re soppy sods. The following are genuine  advertisements. 1. Every child needs a family. UNICEF Croazia. 2. I wish we never had children. What you say during divorce lasts forever. SIRE: Elliot. 3. Children of parents who smoke, get to heaven earlier. Child Health Agency. 4. Smoking isn't just suicide. It's murder. CONAC Chilean Corporation Against Cancer. 5. You're the key. Fundacion Padre Hurtado. 6. Left: I will donate this child and help this child. Right (next page): I will donate later.  Medecins sans frontiers. 7. WWF: Consuming the Earth is consuming our future. 8. Above: My mom's going to kill me. Middle: My mom's going to kill me. Below: One condom... saves both lives.  Save The Children. 9. We don't have enough donors. National...