Motherhood is a challenging gig, and for every difficult task, there are people willing to criticise it.
This is extremely clear online with mothers posting about it and comments saying they do it wrong.
They’re disgraced for introducing solid foods at the wrong time or for how they sleep train their babies, but perhaps the most significant case of mum shaming comes with the argument of breastfeeding versus using formula.
Mums who use formula are shamed for not trying hard enough or taking the easy way out. Meanwhile, mums who breastfeed are disgraced for how they decide to go about it.
There are plenty of mothers who fight the naysayers when it comes to public breastfeeding, with pictures of mums breastfeeding uncovered in public, especially when they’re breastfeeding in a cafe or restaurant.
It’s the most natural thing for a mother to breastfeed her child, even if it is in public, but there are people out there that will look at that mother with disgust, and nod their heads in judgment in an attempt to humiliate them.
Folks, they’re breasts and they’re only the things that your mother fed you with and if a mother feels that she wants to breastfeed in public, covered or uncovered then she should be allowed to do so.
A breastfeeding mother should be allowed to breastfeed, and they should never ever feel ashamed, belittled, embarrassed or wrong for feeding their baby the way nature intended.
The breast’s primary purpose is to feed babies, anything pleasure related comes secondary, and there’s nothing odd about this.
And of course, mothers can feel isolated when breastfeeding, and it’s exponentially unfair and selfish to ask a mother and baby to exclude themselves from a table or even a gathering because someone else is uncomfortable with how that mother feeds her child.
No person should be isolated and scorned because they’re eating, especially when the other person is eating while mocking how someone else is eating. The answer is simple, look away instead of humiliating a mother and her child.
Of course, others that have children will say it’s appalling that their children should see this sort of conduct, but children shouldn’t be taken away from what happens naturally, which is breastfeeding the natural way, and the natural way to feed babies, plus normalising it could encourage them to breastfeed when they become mothers if they’re able to.
There’s an amazing bond and benefits that come with breastfeeding. Breast milk and breastfeeding are the best choices for both mother and baby, and although health professionals agree that breastfeeding is the healthiest option, it’s not always the truth for every case.
However, not being able to breastfeed doesn’t equate with a mother being a bad mother. On the contrary, a good mother will pursue the most suitable choice for herself and her baby under her doctor’s advice, regardless of mum shamers.
Formula and bottles aren’t a trend, and mothers shouldn’t be shamed because they choose this route.
But bottle feeding has been sourced back to the Roman Era, Middle Ages, and the Renaissance, often using animal’s milk as a breastmilk alternative. However, it took until the Industrial Revolution for a more sophisticated and sterile bottle to become available, and in the 1920s, researchers started to develop non-milk-based formulas for infants, and although they lacked the proper nutrients, the formula evolved into the wholesome and safe replacement available today, and most people would be hard-pressed to find a mother who chooses formula just because it was fashionable.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 