By Lamelle Ryman
Written when my daughter was 4 months old

Let me put my biases on the table.  I am a full-time mom and a lactivist.  I love breastfeeding.

I am a rebel mother with a cause, bucking the social order, rusting through the chains of modernity.

In a discussion of expressing breast milk, I read in What to Expect When You’re Expecting that mothers in “primitive” societies wear their babies all day long in order to respond to their babies’ cues for hunger and comfort nursing.  Surely the modern woman cannot conceive of such an arrangement.

I am shocked and amazed by the pressure to pump.  Am I the only one who feels that nature’s design is perfect?  That the best way to feed my baby is to use my breasts?

“Maybe if I can ever convince you to pump, we’ll go to a Broadway show,” my husband says, well-intentioned.  Inside, I rage.  Why can’t I take my baby with me and sit in the back, and if she begins to cry, step outside? Why does our society deem it acceptable to pretend, at times, that children don’t exist?  Weren’t we all children, once?  People with bronchitis cough their way through concerts and theater all the time.

We don’t need more gadgets and devices that make it more and more convenient to separate mothers and babies.  We need a society that embraces breastfeeding and baby care as an integral part of life.  We need workplaces that welcome nurslings in on-site day-care centers with highly-skilled attendants who page moms when babies want to nurse.  We need stores and restaurants and movie theaters and weddings that welcome babies and small children while trusting parents to ensure that no one is unduly disturbed.

Everyone keeps offering to babysit so that we can take time for ourselves as a couple. I don’t want to leave my baby with a babysitter, though I could use someone to hold my baby while I take a shower, or someone to play with her while I pay the bills!   And as for couple time, there’s no reason we can’t connect with each other while our baby is with us; we can go out for dinner with her in the sling, order take-out, watch movies and cuddle at home.  I am in no hurry to trade time with my baby for a night out on the town. I did not sign up for motherhood only to find ways to escape my baby.

I recognize that I am extraordinarily lucky to have the opportunity to be a full-time parent. How I wish that we lived in a society that supported the availability of this choice for parents at all socio-economic levels.  

I am pushing back against the pressure to pump.  My breasts were made for my baby.  As long as I’m blessed with the opportunity, I’m going to put them to use.

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