This morning, after pouring myself a cup of coffee, I discovered there was no milk in the refrigerator. Or rather, there was no cow's milk in the refrigerator. Maggie had pumped a bottle full of breast milk the night before and there it sat on the shelf. I don't particularly enjoy black coffee, so I thought, "Why not try this milk in my coffee instead?"
I poured a little in my cup and watched it swirl about. It looked like regular milk, though perhaps a little thinner. I took a sip. I couldn't tell much - the coffee still tasted black. So I poured a little more in there and took another sip. I could taste it now and my throat caught a little once I did. It was a bit like someone had watered down my coffee and added something vaguely sweet to the mix. Perhaps I was just too aware of what I was drinking, but I couldn't finish the cup. I know many husbands taste their wife's breast milk, but I've never really been tempted to do so. That stuff is for the baby, I say. And I won't be putting it in my coffee again anytime soon. Though that formula made milk is looking kind of tasty...
I come from a generation raised by in the 1970's, when there was a real strong "back to the land" ethic amongst certain groups of parents, including mine. My mother tells of her friends frying up afterbirth and serving it to guests for breakfast. And I remember one time this woman named Cat called up and asked if she could give birth to her baby in our living room. My mother said no. Earlier that year the babysitter had discovered pot plants drying in our closet. I'm not quite sure what this has to do with drinking breast milk, but I was just thinking about the various taboos we've built up around childbirth in our modern world and how those hippie types kind of sought to break them down. If you're at all interested in the subject of growing up with hippie parents I highly recommend this book by Maxine Swann called "Flower Children". Her parents were big time hippies and she writes quite well about it.
I suppose each generation believes they are bringing something new to the parenting world, but if anything I'd say we're more conservative and traditional than our parents. I'd like to add a little more unconventionalism to Elsie's life sometimes, just so I'd feel like we were breaking new ground. My brother in law was shocked when Maggie started breastfeeding Ida, her sister's baby, but apparently that's all been done before. I'm working on lactating myself, though I think I'll need to shave my chest before such a proposition becomes attractive to Elsie.
