TIME Management

I am SO OVER this Time magazine attachment parenting controversy. I'm not an attachment parent, but I support your right to be if that's what you choose. If you want to co-sleep and wear your babies and never let them cry it out and breastfeed them for all of eternity, more power to you. Let's not bicker about who's parenting approaches are better. Really there are two issues here.

One: there's too much pressure in this country to breastfeed. I wanted to. I tried to. Despite many attempts, it didn't happen. Read more about my disillusionment with the "B" word here. I don't think I would have breastfed my child until he was three, but I would have appreciated the power to make that decision had I wanted to. People ask me about breastfeeding. Clients. Doctors. Friends. Friends of friends. Strangers at the grocery store. Mommies on the baby aisle. They ask "do you breastfeed?" It's a loaded question because you know there's only one right answer.  I'm all cotton mouth, stammering and defensive about what might have been my choice. I say I wasn't able to, and then I get The Look. The Look that comes with a nod and a smug smile and says "Oh, you must not have known that breastfeeding is best for baby and that it contains over 100 ingredients that make baby healthy and smart and raises baby's IQ an average of 7 points. You must not have ever seen any book or article or commercial about babies in the history of the world. If only you'd tried harder you could have done what was best for your baby." Or at least that's what it feels like. Plenty of people don't breastfeed and they churn out brilliant, well-adjusted, well-rounded, healthy children. And that choice was right for them. There's enough self-induced mommy guilt about not swaddling exclusively with organic fair-trade cotton, carcinogens in artificial sweeteners, what might be lead paint chipping off the antique cabinet in the kitchen, red #5 leading to ADHD, and that time he fell off the couch to add another thing to the list.

Two: It's nobody's business. Remember when nip slips were just for braless hippies, your junior prom, and Showtime movies? I don't care if you are nursing your baby or your teenager or your husband: that's your business. If you are making choices that you feel are in the best interest of your family and no one is getting hurt, have at it. There's no need to have it on the cover of magazines at the checkout line, thrust into our faces on countless blogs and internet forums, and preached at play dates turned political pulpits. Choices are called choices for a reason; otherwise they'd be called mandates. If you couldn't breastfeed, or you chose not to breastfeed, or you chose to breastfeed until your kid was 10, or you chose to breastfeed exclusively in public I assume that was a choice you made based on the needs of your family. Parenting is hard and we do the best we know how. Let's not get judgey on who's doing a better job at it when we're all just trying to survive it. At the end of the day we're all trying to keep our kids safe and healthy. We're all trying to prevent them from rolling off the couch (again), teach them not to pull up on the iron's cord (again), rescue them from swimming in the dog's water bowl (again), and save them from swallowing the toe nail they found under the couch (again). If that involves breastfeeding, fine. If it involves pumping, fine. If it involves only feeding your child organic goat's milk flown in from Fiji, fine. And yes, TIME magazine, those all mean we are all mom enough. So suck it. Pun intended.