Got Milk?

When I had my kids, I was lucky enough to be able to breastfeed all 3 of them from the moment they were born until they let me know they were ready to stop, which was a different length of time for each of them; this is how they received their initial nutrients and the start of their immune system, not to mention one of the special ways I was able to bond with them as their mother … Without malicious intent, whenever and where ever we were, a restaurant, the mall or even a race track in the middle of the desert, when they were hungry I fed them without hesitation … never once stopping to think that what I was doing was wrong or indecent, all I thought was that my child was hungry, so then and there they ate … and during those years, at no time did I take pause for even a second due to what may or may not have been the opinions of the strangers around me; and not once did I notice any of them staring at us in disgust, let alone say a single negative word to me about it or ever ask me to relocate to a place they themselves wouldn’t eat in (yeah I bet you can all just imagine how that conversation would have ended if they tried) … not only that, but my mother took this candid photo of me breastfeeding my oldest in 2001, only 3 days after his birth, that years later was hung in an art exhibit that I believe was eventually sold to, or knowing my mom, given to, the La Leche League (what they did with it I have no idea nor did I ever received any residuals) … so how embarrassing is it now for all of us as a nation, that more than a decade later, in this day and age when ‘tits and cleavage’ are being used gratuitously to sell literally everything and have become as visually common to the mainstream as the Apple logo, to take one of the most natural and beautiful things a woman can actually do with her breasts and attempt to bully or ‘shame’ her into hiding it … now that type of ignorance is utterly disgusting (pun intended) … and as I sit here shaking my head, truly wishing that I was still breastfeeding just to piss off these nipple’phobic self-deprecating representatives of ‘the people’ that most likely shower with their clothes on, all I can think is these breastfeeding shamers probably not only didn’t get enough breast milk as a child but relied too much on National Geographics as their only source of porn … Hashtag GrownTheFuckUp and SuckIt