I tossed my business cards and my pump and didn't look back — or forward. With each reason to wean, I found reasons not to. After a year, I still saw a baby when I looked at my daughter. She still saw a tasty snack when she looked at me. After eighteen months, I still needed my breasts to combat crankiness, boredom and painful ear-popping during an overseas flight. Fellow passengers praised my daughter's pleasant behavior. I quietly praised my hardworking mammary glands. Approaching Beatrice's second birthday, we learned we'd be moving half-way across the country. "After we settle in," I told myself, "we'll stop."
But the months — okay, years — of nursing whizzed by. As Beatrice got older, we became more discreet. Whereas I'd been praised for breastfeeding my hungry infant, I got disapproving looks when I nursed away the pain of my toddler's skinned knee. Even the strident breastfeeding advocates that I knew — the ones who drove bottle-feeders into defensive tirades with a suggestive glance — scrunched up their noses, as if the whole milky enterprise had gone sour. But neither my daughter or I wanted to stop. As a concession to public opinion, we stopped nursing in front of anyone but my husband and one of my closest friends. I let everyone else assume that Beatrice had weaned.Other moms at the park said, "She fears letting go." I wondered if they were right.
Other moms at the park speculated on the psychological ramifications of nursing beyond babyhood: "She fears letting go." "Her identity is wrapped up in her child." "She is reinforcing dependent behaviors." I wondered if they were right. My daughter had been shy and slightly clingy from birth — one reason I hesitated giving up nursing was it made her feel secure. Me? I did have a life, I swear. I was involved in a time-consuming neighborhood lawsuit. I was reassembling an idling career. I was packing, unpacking and settling the family in from a move. I had plenty to set aside while being asked to lift my shirt and sit for awhile. I wasn't driving our nursing bandwagon, Beatrice was. Admittedly, I let her hold the reins.
My husband, who is as lazy as me, was all for breastfeeding our girl as long as she and I wanted. Nursing staved off tantrums and knocked Beatrice out at night like no lullaby ever could. Of course, this meant my breasts were often too overwrought by the time they got around to him. But he found other things on me to play with.
Sometimes I worried I was damaging my daughter, making her too dependent on me or on eating for comfort. Sometimes, I was just plain sick of her sucking on me. So I would resolve to finally wean her once and for all. But by the time I got ready to make the big push to stop, I would think, why quit when no one's unhappy?
Then I got pregnant. I was tired and my nipples hurt. During my fourth month of pregnancy, I decided I needed a break before I took on a hungry newborn. I braced myself for the worst.
Beatrice woke me up the next morning, as usual, to nurse. I told her I
wanted to snuggle her like a teddy bear instead. She wiggled into bed
next to me, rustling the covers, preventing any extra sleep I would have
gotten had I let her nurse herself back down. She asked to nurse a few more
times that week, but I explained how it hurt and suggested we save the
rest for her brother or sister. She's a sensitive girl. She didn't want
to cause me pain and she was excited that she could do something for her
future sibling. And that was that. I had long since broken my
sister's rule, breastfeeding Beatrice until she was beyond old enough
to ask for it. But she was
also old enough to understand why I wanted her to stop.
©2006 Madeline Holler and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Madeline Holler is a writer and mother of two. She lives in Long Beach, California. |
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