Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Mother's Day and Time Magazine

I told you all I was back and then didn't post until WEEKS later. RUDE!

About a week after I got back to work from maternity leave my boss hired a new person in the office, let's call her "Perky." Perky is from Georgia and left everyone and everything she knew for this job. This includes her family. For mother's day her mother and Godmother flew up from Georgia to see her. Seeing as this was also Mother's Day for me, she asked if I wanted to come over and hang out with them. I had heard so many stories about these 2 women, I could not say no.

I pulled into the parking space at 215 and at 216 I was asked if I was breastfeeding. Of course, I said yes. "oh, then she can't drink," Hollywood says. Hollywood is Perky's Godmother. Hollywood is already so drunk that her words run together so naturally I wonder where she's sneaking in her breaths. Maybe when you're that far gone you don't need to breathe. Hollywood then told me, repeatedly, that she only had one child still living and that she was "so glad I didn't breastfeed." "you know..."she'd lean into me "you can't drink when you breastfeed. I'm so glad I didn't breastfeed my son." The way she kept telling me she was glad she didn't breastfeed made me wonder if she regretted not breastfeeding and this was her way of trying to get me to believe her. or maybe she was just so drunk she had forgotten that she had already told me this five minutes before. Regardless, it got me thinking about the TIME magazine cover.

"Are you mom enough?" I breastfeed my child so...yes? Prior to that article had I given a thought to extended breastfeeding? Yes. Did this article help me in any way? No. In fact it pissed me off. Why? Because although I feel that society's attention needs to be called to the subject since THAT'S WHAT BREASTS ARE FOR, the comments such as "save your breasts for infants and men" INFURIATED me. It makes me have no hope for the children of the future and society as a whole. It saddens me.

And that's all I have to say about that.