Another article called Breastfeeding Sucks crossed my desk the other day. Again, just another rant about how it’s sometimes a pain in the ass, and you get no time to yourself, and you can’t get away on vacation, etc. Really, a rant about mothering, but displaced onto breastfeeding. That displacement, complaints about mothering becoming complaints about breastfeeding, is easy because so many formula feeding mothers are modeling a pretty independent lifestyle. There are days when even the most attached of us think, “cheese and crackers, why can’t I just have a moment to myself to go poop?” But then, you’re taking a poop and a little one pushes the door open to show you their new drawing (it’s in permanent marker and you’re pretty sure you can see that the scribble goes off the page in every direction, probably directly onto your table, but that’s okay because…) it’s beautiful, and you think “awwwww, I’m glad I didn’t miss this moment for a stupid poop.”

Anyway, I’m not linking to the article, it wasn’t the worse one, it was pretty even-handed in a “It really really sucks in almost every way, but you should still do it because it’s important” kind of style, that I’m frankly getting a little tired of. Writers, can you please save your angst-ful navel-gazing for private discussions at your kitchen table with your best commiserating friend? Pregnant mothers hear enough negative bullshit, the pile is huge. And no, I’m not telling you that you should grab a shovel and start clearing it away, That would be out of line. But can you please not add more on top? It’s threatening to topple, thank you very very much.
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