Parenthood: Week 276 - Lunchbreak

Right after I was done teaching my last summer camp music class, I went straight home. I said hello to my mother and Ollie quickly, and then woke Ethan from his morning nap. I changed his diaper, and then took him straight into the car, and drove him over to Diana so she could nurse him during her lunch break.

This week Diana is teaching a full day summer enrichment camp. I’m teaching half days, so it made sense that I could bring Ethan over during Diana’s lunch, he could nurse, and then I’d bring him home, and she would continue her day of teaching.

When we talked about this idea, it seemed perfectly reasonable, (which it is). One of friend’s mom did a very similar thing. She would pick up her grandkid from daycare drive her over to where her daughter was working. Her daughter would nurse, and then she would bring the baby back to daycare. I found out today that one of my mom’s relatives a generation ago did the exactly same thing. He would bring the baby over to where his wife worked, one time a day, sometimes twice a da,y so she could nurse him.

You might have some questions regarding this idea of women working and shuttling a baby to her to so she can nurse.  But I’m not going to unpack these queries, because it doesn’t really matter whether or not you think that someone making these kinds of accommodations for a mother to nurse her child makes sense or is logical. As a partner or someone helping a mother, you should make whatever accommodations you can so that a woman can breastfeed her child however, or whenever she desires.

I am not an advocate of partners blindly doing whatever their loved ones ask of them. But when it’s a woman asking and when it’s regarding breastfeeding, we need to think different. I mentioned in a Facebook post that part of my relationship and the way that I treat Diana is based on my understanding that women have harder lives than men in our society in every way. When someone walks through live with less privilege, you need to pause before saying “no.” Because being nice to someone when they have had a harder day than you is caring. So, when someone has a harder life than you, when they are a woman, and you are a man, being a little nicer than necessary and working to create a space in your household where she doesn’t have to feel the barbs of sexism is basic is my book

Let’s add on top of that the fact that we have a “President” who is anti-breastfeeding. He described a lawyer who took a break to pump as “disgusting,” and bargained hard to exclude language supporting breastfeeding from a resolution by the World Health Organization. It’s easy to say, I don’t care about what he and administration thinks and says, but it sucks to hear these things. Even in Gilead they know breast is best.

Here’s the thing, I’m not a huge pro-breastfeeding advocate. I respect women’s decision to not breastfeed and I also acknowledge that there are many circumstances in which women want to breastfeed cannot breastfeed. All I want is to live in a society when women’s choices around breastfeeding are not determined by sexist policies, and ignorant people (both men and women). Is that asking too much? We can’t give women the space to choose how they want to feed their babies? Well, the people who don’t think this is important are a lot of the same people who don’t seem to care at all that babies were ripped away from their mothers at the border, so at least their inconsideration of women, children, and you know, the human race is consistent.

I often talk about the fact how I don’t understand how any man can go through the journey of conception, pregnancy, and child birth and not become a feminist. The societal and institutional sexism become painfully clear every step of the way from the idea of a child, to holding a baby in your arms, and beyond. One of the things that strengthened my feminism was seeing how much trauma, anxiety, and pain women experience in even the best of situation around the issue of feeding their baby. Women work through this trauma with grace, and strength, and when they don’t it’s often due to unsupportive outside forces. Women are literally responsible for the survival of the human species. The least we can do if give them a nice room to nurse in, and the courtesy to let them make their own decisions about how they feed their kids without the patriarchy’s input.

So yeah, I’ll drive my boy over to so Diana can nurse him. It’s not that big of a deal for me. I don’t work in the afternoons over the summer. I’m not some savior, I’m not some hero, and I don’t need a parade or a trophy. I’m simply a supportive husband, a good dad, and a proud feminist.