UK Journalist Is Trying To Mommy Guilt Kate Middleton Into Breastfeeding
Do you know what’s none of our business? How a woman feeds her baby. It is no one’s biz. I don’t care if a mom breastfeeds, I don’t care if she gives her newborn formula, I don’t care if she nurses her child until they are packing to go off to college, I don’t care if she is making late night runs to get her eight month old Taco Bell. I don’t care, and you shouldn’t either. But no one gave this memo to Beverly Turner of The Telegraph this memo because she wrote a lengthy piece all about how ‘We Need The Duchess Of Cambridge To Breastfeed.’
Ummmm, no we don’t. We don’t need any woman, duchess or commoner, to do anything with their bodies or their babies. In her article, Beverly claims:
Just like uncomplicated pregnancies and birth, we’re also rapidly losing any sense of normality about breastfeeding due to powerful cultural forces. Young mums are especially unlikely to breastfeed: it’s not cool; it’s not sexy and their boyfriends won’t like it. A lack of decent ante-natal education means they probably don’t even know that it will reduce their chances of breast cancer in later life. They’ve been raised to think ”˜buying stuff’ is the only way to demonstrate success. And those bottle packs with the coloured lids are just so cute!
And that:
But we also need women with power and influence to get their milky bosoms out and feed smiling in paparazzi pictures. Celebrity is depressingly powerful in dictating trends. As if there wasn’t enough pressure on her already, what we really need is The Duchess of Cambridge to get her Royal orbs out to feed our future monarch. And to be applauded not seethed at for doing so.
I love breastfeeding, I think it’s awesome, and I’m all for women doing it. But we don’t need to pressure celebrities to breastfeed for the good of the general public or because it will “normalize” breastfeeding for people to see it on the cover of tabloids. If a celeb is snapped nursing her baby or is breastfeeding and wants to be photographed breastfeeding, good for her. But no woman should be under any obligation to feed her baby a certain way just because it will encourage other mothers to do so.
Women are smart. Pregnant women usually read quite a lot about being pregnant and having a newborn. They ask their doctors about ways to feed their baby, the research bottles versus breast, they are fully capable of making this decision for themselves and their babies. Kate Middleton doesn’t have to do anything for the people. She just has to make sure her child isn’t hungry, no matter how she goes about it.
(Photo: WENN)
