Totally true, I completely agree. However, I still can't side with the Facebook protesters. Why? Because these mothers are so. freaking. annoying.
On Monday I unfriended a woman on Facebook. She is a fellow lawyer, and I know her solely through the BarBri prep course we took together more than three years ago. We became friends, but I think we hung out all of three times outside of BarBri. She had a baby last fall, and the woman will not shut up about her breasts.
She's posted about the baby latching on, her nipples cracking, her nipples aching, her nipples GETTING INFECTED WITH YEAST, rashes on her "girls", her "girls" leaking, putting a cup under her leaking "girls", and almost spilling breast milk on her files at work. On Monday she changed her profile picture to an avatar that has a mom and baby logo and says "I Nurse."
For some reason, that was the last straw for me. Lady, I KNOW YOU NURSE. We all know WAAAAAY to much about your nursing woes. What is with the avatar? No one is discriminating about you because you breastfeed your child. What we don't like is your oversharing attitude. I prefer to see you as a professional colleague, not as a milk cow. But because that's all you ever post about, that's all I see you as anymore.
What is the purpose of making sure everyone knows that you breastfeed? If it's to get support from other moms having trouble with breastfeeding, there are online communities for that. Your Facebook account, where you are friends with your professional colleagues, is not the place. And if it's to one-up all the moms who don't breastfeed, then you're a piece of shit. So it all comes across as very "look at me" and superior.
Circling back to the original topic, there are plenty of reasons why people don't want to see pictures of breastfeeding mothers on Facebook. For me, I view it as totally unnecessary and self-absorbed. The vast majority of moms I know would not want to post a picture of them breastfeeding. The ones who do are just weird. There, I said it. Yes, breastfeeding is natural, normal, and there's nothing wrong with doing it in public. If you kid has to eat, your kid has to eat. But you don't have to put it on Facebook. That's not necessary. Childbirth is normal and necessary, too. Would you put that on Facebook?
Get over yourselves.
**UPDATE**
I would have added this to the original post, but I wrote the original post from my phone and I don't know how to do links.
Anyway, to continue my point, there is this that some moms apparently think is hilarious. So, even if you have no issue with a mother breastfeeding in public and are just trying to politely avoid seeing her breast because you live in America and have been socially conditioned to be uncomfortable with public displays of breasts and genitals, you're going to be forced to look at something that looks like a boob anyway. If this is not "look at me, I'm breastfeeding!!!!!!" I don't know what is.
5 comments:
One could argue that your preference to not see moms breastfeeding is equally self-absorbed. What are our pictures on FB if not exercises in narcissism? "Look at my life! Here is evidence of it! Here's more! Look at me!"
Breastfeeding isn't a cause I've chosen to take up, but I can understand it. Some of my sweetest, most emotionally fulfilling moments have come when I'm breastfeeding my baby. Other moms have felt the same way, and seeing a picture of other moms breastfeeding is a reminder of that experience. Sure, we could limit our photos of that to breastfeeding forums, but there is something unsettling about sharing a photo with people you've probably never met, as opposed to those you know IRL and have shared experiences with. Facebook is the place where that sharing happens at many levels: private, personal, and professional.
Now should your friend limit who views her photos and reads her updates? Yes. And it really sounds like she needs to find the filter that broke when she gave birth. But to judge all breastfeeding moms by this one is unfair, and to say no one should put pictures of breastfeeding on Facebook is ridiculous. She just needs to not share them with YOU.
You make good points.
However, I never said I had a preference not to see mother's breastfeeding. I'm pretty neutral on the FB policy, too. I really don't care if they can post pictures of their breasts or not. What I was trying to get across is why I don't support the protestors. What annoys me is the smug self-superiority that many nursing mothers have against anyone that doesn't nurse, and their attitude that that they're entitled to post these pictures on a website that is entitled to set its own policies of use. Am I judging all by the actions of some? Yes. But so what? If we were talking about the right to breastfeed in public I'd be on a completely different side. But we're talking about Facebook.
Of all the causes to take up in the world, this is the one? It just strikes me as so smug and self-righteous.
Whoops, I guess I did say I don't want to see pictures. What I should have said is "I'm not opposed to FB prohibiting pictures because I view it as totally unnecessary and self-absorbed." I don't object to the content itself.
Lindsey, you are absolutely right. i know someone on FB that talkes about breastfeeding all the time too and i get uncomfortable reading it. i feel like it's a personal thing, and facebook is a social network, so you have all kinds of people viewing your page. it's just not something that needs to be shared.
Breast feeding is just another way a women has of trying to feel like she is doing something right and posting pictures and going on and on about are probably not an attempt to make anyone feel bad but more likely because this woman is so wrapped up in at the moment that she has lost her wider focus. She probably doesn't realize how obnoxious she sounds.
As both a mother who breast fed three children and a lawyer I believe that her blabbering about it all over her FB page is a normal reaction, albeit unwise if you haven't carefully monitored who is on your friends list. Breastfeeding consumes your life when it is happening, sometimes it seems like that is all you are doing when you are in the middle of it. So I do sympathize with her obsession or tunnel vision, whatever you want to call it. Social media just allows people to take it a bit too far and as one poster said, she has probably lost her filter.
What strikes me as most interesting is how women are constantly at each other for everything. I am guilty of this myself. Stay-at-home moms bash working moms, working moms bash stay-at-home moms, breast feeding moms bash non-breast feeding moms, and so on. The truth is, when you have a child for the first few years you sincerely live in your own little world where this is the most important thing and you forget the fact that other babies in the world are being born all around, have been born in the past and will be born in the future and yours is only really special to you and your close family. We ooh and aah and act like our baby is the cutest, the smartest and our experiences are so novel and we have it all figured. It really is easy to get sucked into this world and I guess it is probably helpful if we are going to bond with our children and provide the utmost love and affection and attention to them. But it sure can be damned obnoxious to the rest of the world!
Now that two of my children are young adults and the third a teenager I have a different perspective. I understand now that I was looking at the world through a lens back then. But that was my whole world. So I say cut your friend a bit of slack and the rest of the self absorbed new mothers. But dang it if this explosion of social media hasn't contributed to letting people post and say the most asinine, mundane, I-really-could-care-less things. I have a few friends on FB who I swear feel it is necessary to post when they are going for a walk, what they are having for supper and who they are hanging out with on an hourly and daily basis. This tedious and continuous onslaught of unnecessary information is just as irritating to me as your breast-feeding absorbed friend was to you.
Sometimes the "remove friend" button is your best friend of all.
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