Breastfeeding: "if you want something bad enough, it will happen"

[ailbhe]

I am livid. I've been angry about this on and off since last night sometime. Apparently if someone wants to pump enough to feed their baby badly enough, they can do it! If someone wants to breastfeed badly enough, they can do it! If it doesn't happen you mustn't really have wanted it, you selfish, inconsiderate failure, you.

I am spitting mad.

No, wanting isn't enough sometimes. You can want more breast tissue all you like; it won't make it grow. You can want functioning ovaries - it won't necessarily make them pop out viable eggs. Plenty of people really, really want to live, and die anyway. Wanting isn't all it takes.

And it's disgusting and callous to say that it is.

Comments

[st-lemur.livejournal.com]

I have always detested the myth of Ultimate Willpower.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

You keep reporting these awful things that people say and believe. Are you encountering them all on the internet, or are some of them people you meet in person?

And where on the internet are these people?

[ailbhe]

This instance was in LJ, but I've heard the willpower myth cover everything from career to infertility to true love in real life at various times.

Admittedly, it's usually only on the internet that it's presented as a response to a plea for help.

[st-lemur.livejournal.com]

one of the reasons Carey & I broke up is because she insisted on applying it to my problems with depression.

[ailbhe]

It's a very common cure for depression. So's relaxation. Actually, "Just relax" is also often offered as a cure for infertility. Heh.

[firecat]

Sadly, I've heard it presented as an answer off the Internet too. (Not WRT breastfeeding, but WRT a lot of other things.)

[perceval.livejournal.com]

it's really common in some parts of the new age movement and chrsitian science - mind over body. harumph.

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

It is *wholly* untrue. No one could have tried harder than I did. I finally scored some domperidone, and got my breasts working that way. But pumping alone? Was so not enough. And, by golly, I *pumped*.

*spit*.

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

What bollocks.

[megabitch.livejournal.com]

See? That's where they're going wrong... no matter how hard you try, you can't breastfeed with bollocks.

[astrogeek.livejournal.com]

I think the trouble is that there are people out there who didn't give it a real go, and then go around saying "I couldn't breastfeed" when they didn't really try. Those people give the ones that gave it their all and it still didn't work out a bad name.

[ailbhe]

I used to think that, until I realised that people have hugely differing amounts of "all."

[astrogeek.livejournal.com]

agreed, hence "their" all.

[ailbhe]

I see no distinction in your original comment between giving breastfeeding "a real go" and "their all", with the strong implication that some women claim to want to breastfeed when they don't "really" want to, thereby giving people who give it "their all" a bad name. If you didn't intend to imply that, I'd appreciate a clarification.

[perceval.livejournal.com]

a lot of the time women can't give it a real go b/c of crap breastfeeding support and pressure by health professionals, relatives and friends ... it's a real pity becuase it undermines all the good pro-bf work.

[muirichinnahali.livejournal.com]

that bothered me A LOT too... many things that that person says bothers me. i was happy that the original poster took our considerations and applied them. sounds like it helped quite a bit

[ailbhe]

It's infelicitous phrasing, I think - look at the huge circular "I hate judgemental people because judging is wrong" arguments I've had with her.

[muirichinnahali.livejournal.com]

i stayed out of that one. it was ridiculous... i even had my husband read that and he just rolled his eyes

[perdita-x.livejournal.com]

that's dreadful! My mum tried with all three of us to breastfeed, but she just doesn't have any milkducts in one of her breasts and the others don't work!

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

Oh, you can make *anything* happen just by wishing. That's how I'm going to get a pony.

[ailbhe]

I wish for a clean house with no effort or cost on my part. *closes eyes real hard*.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

right until the pony tracks mud through it :)

[astrogeek.livejournal.com]

This is my opinion. Feel free to agree or disagree, but I'm not trying to start an argument. We each have a finite amount of physical, mental and emotional energy we are able to dedicate to a task. As an analogy, some people have enough to climb Everest, while for another just managing to walk up to the top of the hill down their street is an achievement. In each case, they have "given it their all". But then there are people who start walking up the hill, with the intention climbing to the top, but half way up they spot a McDonalds and decide to spend the afternoon there instead, even though they had plenty of energy to climb the rest of the way up.

As an outsider, we have no way of knowing whether the person we see in the McDonalds is the one who made it there with nothing left, or the one who just fancied a bite to eat because they'd decided the whole hill-climbing thing wasn't for them after all. But we'd probably still make some comment about all the fat people in McDonalds as we walked past on our way up the hill.

I probably haven't clarified my thinking at all, but I think we're on the same side. My point is that we shouldn't criticise anyone for "not trying hard enough", because as an outsider we really don't know how hard they've tried, and the measure of "hardness" is unique to everyone.

[ailbhe]

My point is precisely about the "look at all the fat people in McDonalds" remarks. We shouldn't be making them. So we're on the same side, but you're more forgiving of remarkers than I am.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

He. Most of us grow out of "wishing will make it so" by the time we give up on Santa Claus.

[ailbhe]

Most of us? Are you sure? I don't feel all that optimistic today...

[kightp.livejournal.com]

I often need to remind myself that Internet forums are special, self-selected groups and very rarely representative of the population at large.

Or at least that's what I *hope*.

[feetnotes.livejournal.com]

it goes along with another truly stinking "philosophy of life for other people":

"things only happen to you, because you want[ed] them to..."

- but you'll find subscribers to all sorts of rubbish ideas around - ime their proponents are unshakable in their committment to 'em - and to the enthusiasm with which they apply them to other people...

[ruth-lawrence.livejournal.com]

It's beyond offensive.

People can keep their darn magical thinking to themselves, eh?