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

[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.