I piss off the Lactating Lady

So, if you didn't know, they have about a million consultants that show up after you have a baby. My personal favorite was the "Shaken Baby Syndrome Specialist" whose job it is to tell you not to shake your baby. I'm of the opinion that if you need to be told that, you might as well go ahead and shake your baby and get your genes out of the pool altogether.

The one I managed to upset was the Lactating Lady. She comes in and shows your wife how her nipples can be used to keep your baby alive. As the husband, you watch as your wife is shown proper technique as you slowly realize that the part of your wife you loved the most is no longer yours anymore. And they say women sacrifice during childbirth.

Anyway, I sit nicely during the entire nipple-manipulation presentation and play the part of the happy and supporitve husband. As she's leaving, I figure I'll make some small talk and I say: "Hey, what do you think about those whackos that breast-feed their babies until they're like 3 or 4?"

Apparently, I'm an asshole.

This woman getsall huffy about how that's an ignorant and stupid way to look at the world. It takes me approximately half a millisecond to realize that this woman obviously breast-fed her babies well into their forties. I probably should have surmised that from the fact that she's made a career out of being the Lactating Lady, but I had just become a father and my brain wasn't working properly.

I try to apologize. She says: "You know, in 3rd word countries, the average age of weaning is 5 or 6." I say, "Oh, well, sure, I didn't know that." And she says "Yeah" in that way that people do when they're suddenly on the moral high ground and enjoying every second of it.

Now that I've had a day to think about it, here's my feelings on the subject:

1) I still think that people that allow their kids to titty-feed into their tweens are nutto. Maybe it's the fact that I was raised in a prudish, puritanical nation, but the only time a person should be able to vocalize their need for boobies is when they're fourteen and in their girlfriend's basement.

2) From now on, I don't care how many liberal arts colleges you've graduated from, you're no longer allowed to use the third world as a reason for us in the first world to do anything. If you're doing something because third world villagers do it, you also have to poop directly into your fresh water supply. Because, you know, the third worrld doesn't have any concept of the germ-theory of medicine, because they're, uh, purer than we are.

3) Motherhood is a glorious and wonderful thing. In all honesty, watching my wife become a mother has been magical. That being said, people that try to extend the experience beyond when it's appropriate are doing it not because they love their kids, but because they want to continue being the all-giving MOTHER that they were when their child was completely dependent on them. It's about maintaining their own power. A self-respecting woman maintains her power not from the milk that exits her boobs, but from the cleavage those boobs make when they're strapped together in a too-tight push-up bra. At least that's what my good friend Betty Friedan always used to say.

Alright, all that being said, I have to go get my wife nipple-soothing cream. Yeah, baby, sexy.