To the person criticizing the new mom for bottle-feeding:
Who is it you picture when you imagine this mom who needs your instruction? What does she look like? The mom who is irresponsibly feeding her children bottles without even considering the benefits of breastfeeding? Has she never heard of breastfeeding? How is that possible? Is she incredibly stupid, deprived, uneducated, ill-informed, selfish? I'm just wondering these things because it's important for us to determine who we're talking about when we engage in wide-ranging bromides on the benefits and importance of breast-feeding. If you have any faith and confidence in the mothers who are making the decisions about whether to breastfeed, you will trust them to do what's right for their family, after obtaining the information they need to make a reasoned decision. If you don't trust them to get that information, what is your stereotype of the generic mother? And now that you have identified that in your head, are you ok with it?
We say we trust women with their bodies, but we decidedly don't trust them with their babies. And doesn't that imply a deep distrust of women in general, bubbling up again as it always does?
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