"Why I Let My Adopted Preschoolers Nurse" :wtf
Posted by kidlesskim
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"Why I Let My Adopted Preschoolers Nurse" :wtf July 29, 2014 |
http://slowmama.com/adoption-2/why-i-let-my-adopted-preschoolers-nurse/
A few days after we arrived home from Ethiopia as a family of four, I was sitting on the couch with one of my daughters when she stuck her hand down my shirt. I thought she was being playful at first, but it soon became clear she was reaching for my breast, wanting to nurse. I didn’t know what to do. My initial reaction was to gently pull her hand away and redirect her; after all, there was no milk there, and my four-year-old daughter is obviously not a baby. But I stopped myself, and here’s why…Um, her initial reaction was correct! MY GOD, the kid was probably just curious, maybe had never seen a bra, and certainly had never seen a white woman's titties. Maybe still she was just wanting to be held or something, anything, besides she wanted to nurse could be assumed!
Before my husband and I landed in Ethiopia, I made a list of questions I hoped to ask the girls’ birth family (if we had the privilege of meeting any). One thing I wanted to know was whether the girls were breastfed. Amazingly, on our second trip, we found ourselves sitting across from a birth relative in the home our girls had lived in before being brought to the orphanage. We learned they were mostly not breastfed: Their birth mother couldn’t produce enough milk, so they were primarily fed on hospital-grade formula. HENCE, they couldn't even possibly know what breastfeeding was as they hadn't been tit fed, or possibly only briefly as infants, but at any rate they have NO MEMORY of it! Since they had been in an orphanage the greater part of their lives and had been bottle fed, and because they are four years of age, that they "wanted to nurse" is complete horseshit! WHY would she be asking if they had been tit fed anyway? What difference could that possibly make now, HOW they had been fed when they were infants? No, she's trying to make like since it's their culture to tit feed until they are 7, that somehow these kids who had never been exposed to it desire it.:headbrick
When my daughter was reaching for my breast that first time, it occurred to me that she may have missed this early bonding experience with her birth mom. Whether that’s true or not, both my daughters would have seen babies on the breast all around them in Ethiopia. In their birth culture, breasts are for children, and they represent the nurturing connection between mother and child. Babies are carried on their mothers’ backs until they’re older toddlers, and children are openly breastfed — often up through five and six years old, and even older in rural areas. (And, in fact, there’s even communal breastfeeding in rural communities, where female relatives nurse other children.) Nursing at your mother’s breast is a big part of what it means to be her child. No, these kids weren't traipsing about town, they were housed in an orphanage where tit feeding doesn't occur.:BS
Although I knew we’d be getting siblings, I didn’t know how old our children would be until we received a referral. I was aware that some adoptive mothers had successfully induced lactation to feed their adopted children, but since I’m not one to ingest unnecessary chemicals or meds, I didn’t want to do that. (If I’d already been nursing a biological child, I certainly would have breastfed an adopted child.) I had planned to seek out some breast milk for nutritional reasons, if we found ourselves with a baby or two, but since we ended up with four-year-old twins, the issue seemed moot. MORE proof SHE wanted to tit feed and her desiring this is what caused the kid to allegedly grab at her udder, which I HIGHLY doubt. It's much more likely she'd be grabbing for a Ding Dong or food, in general, not some dried up tit!
Yet there I was, with preschoolers who wanted to nurse — both of them at first, but mainly the daughter who regressed the most. She needed to be treated like a baby. And so, on that first day, I took a deep breath and let her nurse. Then I prayed that none of my neighbors would choose that moment to walk past our living-room windows. I'd IMAGINE SO she didn't want neighbors to see what amounts to abuse and borders on perversion.
Since then, I’ve bared my breast on many occasions, though it usually only lasts a minute or two and has become less frequent now. One of my daughters still wants to nurse at times, though, especially when she’s upset.Recently, during my mother-in-law’s week-long visit, my daughter had a small regression episode. She eventually climbed into my lap and indicated that she wanted to nurse. My mother-in-law was finishing her lunch across the table and I momentarily panicked. What would she think? After I explained to her what was happening, she said, “You’re the mom — do what you think is best.†(She’s great like that.) So out came the boob, and less than twenty seconds later, my daughter had snapped out of her funk and was on her merry way. This happens every time, and it tells me that all she needs is that experience of connection to make everything right in her world. Then your mother in law is a freak too! I wonder what her husband thinks about her allowing grown kids to suck on her dried up titties at their every whim. An "upset" kid needs comfort like HUGS and WORDS, NOT a dried up milkless tit bag.
down
In adoption, a child’s primary attachment is severed, and a new process of attachment must begin with new parents. (Often they’ve attached to other caregivers in between, too.) Whether a child is a toddler or preschooler when she comes home, you have to approach her in many of the same ways you would an infant. Attachment is an emotional and psychological bond, but it happens through the body: physical closeness, eye contact, holding, carrying, cuddling, co-sleeping, tone of voice, feeding, meeting needs on demand, and many other gestures of intimacy and care-taking. It can be exhausting — and weird to do some of this with older children — but I’ve now seen the fruits. Yet none of this includes DRY nursing a fucking grown kid who isn't even your loaf and who was NEVER tit fed!
s
I have to admit, I would find this terribly awkward to do in public — and I probably wouldn’t, given that I’m not actually breastfeeding, and my daughters are now almost five. But I’ve tried to put my daughters’ needs and our attachment first, and to let go of any cultural biases or discomforts I have. I know that the more my daughters feel secure and attached, the less they’ll want to connect this way — but for now, I let their needs lead my actions. :BSSUCH bullshit.
I hesitated to write about this at first. I haven’t discussed it with many friends or family members, and here I am telling the world. (Blogging is weird like that.) But I share this story in the hope that it might help another adoptive mom who faces the same situation, and to add another voice to the breastfeeding community’s efforts to normalize the various ways mothers nurture and bond with their children. I think it would have been fine to redirect my daughter elsewhere (and, in fact, I gave them both bottles for a while when they came home, which is highly recommended), but I went with my gut on this, which is all a mom can do. I wouldn’t expect another mom to make the same choice, but I’d want her to know it’s okay if she does. Well thank God she isn't advocating all adoptive moms do this nonsense and NO it is NOT "okay":bdid
So: What do you think of this? If you’re an adoptive mom, did the issue come up? How did you handle it? If you have children by birth, did you struggle with whether to breastfeed, and for how long? I think it's unhealthy for the kids, totally unnecessary, possibly psychologically harmful, perhaps even illegal, and total horseshit that MOO WANTED to do, NOT those poor kids!
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If YOU are the "exception" to what I am saying, then why does my commentary bother you so much?
I don't hate your kids, I HATE YOU!
A few days after we arrived home from Ethiopia as a family of four, I was sitting on the couch with one of my daughters when she stuck her hand down my shirt. I thought she was being playful at first, but it soon became clear she was reaching for my breast, wanting to nurse. I didn’t know what to do. My initial reaction was to gently pull her hand away and redirect her; after all, there was no milk there, and my four-year-old daughter is obviously not a baby. But I stopped myself, and here’s why…Um, her initial reaction was correct! MY GOD, the kid was probably just curious, maybe had never seen a bra, and certainly had never seen a white woman's titties. Maybe still she was just wanting to be held or something, anything, besides she wanted to nurse could be assumed!
Before my husband and I landed in Ethiopia, I made a list of questions I hoped to ask the girls’ birth family (if we had the privilege of meeting any). One thing I wanted to know was whether the girls were breastfed. Amazingly, on our second trip, we found ourselves sitting across from a birth relative in the home our girls had lived in before being brought to the orphanage. We learned they were mostly not breastfed: Their birth mother couldn’t produce enough milk, so they were primarily fed on hospital-grade formula. HENCE, they couldn't even possibly know what breastfeeding was as they hadn't been tit fed, or possibly only briefly as infants, but at any rate they have NO MEMORY of it! Since they had been in an orphanage the greater part of their lives and had been bottle fed, and because they are four years of age, that they "wanted to nurse" is complete horseshit! WHY would she be asking if they had been tit fed anyway? What difference could that possibly make now, HOW they had been fed when they were infants? No, she's trying to make like since it's their culture to tit feed until they are 7, that somehow these kids who had never been exposed to it desire it.:headbrick
When my daughter was reaching for my breast that first time, it occurred to me that she may have missed this early bonding experience with her birth mom. Whether that’s true or not, both my daughters would have seen babies on the breast all around them in Ethiopia. In their birth culture, breasts are for children, and they represent the nurturing connection between mother and child. Babies are carried on their mothers’ backs until they’re older toddlers, and children are openly breastfed — often up through five and six years old, and even older in rural areas. (And, in fact, there’s even communal breastfeeding in rural communities, where female relatives nurse other children.) Nursing at your mother’s breast is a big part of what it means to be her child. No, these kids weren't traipsing about town, they were housed in an orphanage where tit feeding doesn't occur.:BS
Although I knew we’d be getting siblings, I didn’t know how old our children would be until we received a referral. I was aware that some adoptive mothers had successfully induced lactation to feed their adopted children, but since I’m not one to ingest unnecessary chemicals or meds, I didn’t want to do that. (If I’d already been nursing a biological child, I certainly would have breastfed an adopted child.) I had planned to seek out some breast milk for nutritional reasons, if we found ourselves with a baby or two, but since we ended up with four-year-old twins, the issue seemed moot. MORE proof SHE wanted to tit feed and her desiring this is what caused the kid to allegedly grab at her udder, which I HIGHLY doubt. It's much more likely she'd be grabbing for a Ding Dong or food, in general, not some dried up tit!
Yet there I was, with preschoolers who wanted to nurse — both of them at first, but mainly the daughter who regressed the most. She needed to be treated like a baby. And so, on that first day, I took a deep breath and let her nurse. Then I prayed that none of my neighbors would choose that moment to walk past our living-room windows. I'd IMAGINE SO she didn't want neighbors to see what amounts to abuse and borders on perversion.
Since then, I’ve bared my breast on many occasions, though it usually only lasts a minute or two and has become less frequent now. One of my daughters still wants to nurse at times, though, especially when she’s upset.Recently, during my mother-in-law’s week-long visit, my daughter had a small regression episode. She eventually climbed into my lap and indicated that she wanted to nurse. My mother-in-law was finishing her lunch across the table and I momentarily panicked. What would she think? After I explained to her what was happening, she said, “You’re the mom — do what you think is best.†(She’s great like that.) So out came the boob, and less than twenty seconds later, my daughter had snapped out of her funk and was on her merry way. This happens every time, and it tells me that all she needs is that experience of connection to make everything right in her world. Then your mother in law is a freak too! I wonder what her husband thinks about her allowing grown kids to suck on her dried up titties at their every whim. An "upset" kid needs comfort like HUGS and WORDS, NOT a dried up milkless tit bag.
downIn adoption, a child’s primary attachment is severed, and a new process of attachment must begin with new parents. (Often they’ve attached to other caregivers in between, too.) Whether a child is a toddler or preschooler when she comes home, you have to approach her in many of the same ways you would an infant. Attachment is an emotional and psychological bond, but it happens through the body: physical closeness, eye contact, holding, carrying, cuddling, co-sleeping, tone of voice, feeding, meeting needs on demand, and many other gestures of intimacy and care-taking. It can be exhausting — and weird to do some of this with older children — but I’ve now seen the fruits. Yet none of this includes DRY nursing a fucking grown kid who isn't even your loaf and who was NEVER tit fed!
sI have to admit, I would find this terribly awkward to do in public — and I probably wouldn’t, given that I’m not actually breastfeeding, and my daughters are now almost five. But I’ve tried to put my daughters’ needs and our attachment first, and to let go of any cultural biases or discomforts I have. I know that the more my daughters feel secure and attached, the less they’ll want to connect this way — but for now, I let their needs lead my actions. :BSSUCH bullshit.
I hesitated to write about this at first. I haven’t discussed it with many friends or family members, and here I am telling the world. (Blogging is weird like that.) But I share this story in the hope that it might help another adoptive mom who faces the same situation, and to add another voice to the breastfeeding community’s efforts to normalize the various ways mothers nurture and bond with their children. I think it would have been fine to redirect my daughter elsewhere (and, in fact, I gave them both bottles for a while when they came home, which is highly recommended), but I went with my gut on this, which is all a mom can do. I wouldn’t expect another mom to make the same choice, but I’d want her to know it’s okay if she does. Well thank God she isn't advocating all adoptive moms do this nonsense and NO it is NOT "okay":bdid
So: What do you think of this? If you’re an adoptive mom, did the issue come up? How did you handle it? If you have children by birth, did you struggle with whether to breastfeed, and for how long? I think it's unhealthy for the kids, totally unnecessary, possibly psychologically harmful, perhaps even illegal, and total horseshit that MOO WANTED to do, NOT those poor kids!
------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------
If YOU are the "exception" to what I am saying, then why does my commentary bother you so much?
I don't hate your kids, I HATE YOU!
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Re: "Why I Let My Adopted Preschoolers Nurse" :wtf July 31, 2014 |
Wow, Kim, I would ask where you find this stuff, but you have the link clearly provided.
I don't think even the poop stories gross me out nearly as much as this just did. This is pure filth. I want to scrub it with bleach.
Can you imagine the uproar if an adoptive Duhd came to some 'conclusions' about 'bonding' after his kyd brushed up against him?? He'd be in prison, his new title would be 'Ward C's Bitch', and no one would think twice.
This has nothing to do with bonding, and everything to do with sickness. If I did Perverted Justice's kind of work, I'd doxx this nasty bitch and send DFS and the cops after her.
Jesus H., what is the matter with this world...
I don't think even the poop stories gross me out nearly as much as this just did. This is pure filth. I want to scrub it with bleach.
Can you imagine the uproar if an adoptive Duhd came to some 'conclusions' about 'bonding' after his kyd brushed up against him?? He'd be in prison, his new title would be 'Ward C's Bitch', and no one would think twice.
This has nothing to do with bonding, and everything to do with sickness. If I did Perverted Justice's kind of work, I'd doxx this nasty bitch and send DFS and the cops after her.
Jesus H., what is the matter with this world...
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Re: "Why I Let My Adopted Preschoolers Nurse" :wtf July 31, 2014 |
Quote
doomflower
Wow, Kim, I would ask where you find this stuff, but you have the link clearly provided.
I don't think even the poop stories gross me out nearly as much as this just did. This is pure filth. I want to scrub it with bleach.
Can you imagine the uproar if an adoptive Duhd came to some 'conclusions' about 'bonding' after his kyd brushed up against him?? He'd be in prison, his new title would be 'Ward C's Bitch', and no one would think twice.
This has nothing to do with bonding, and everything to do with sickness. If I did Perverted Justice's kind of work, I'd doxx this nasty bitch and send DFS and the cops after her.
Jesus H., what is the matter with this world...
Sometimes when I am bored and want to post something gross and/or funny about Moos and Moo-Hoodum, I think to myself, "Hmm. If I was a Moo, what would be one of my typical daily problems with my kids, husband, baby daddy, or my ravaged cooter?", and then I type whatever popped into my mind into Google. You wouldn't believe how many pages there are on the web regarding nasty Moo situations. Not only are the cows gross, but they have no shame when posting "help me!" types of WAY TMI on the internet and that's likely because they always have so much company and get lots of Moo support. What's also funny is when we get trolls to topics like, "Is it okay for me to breast feed my elementary school kid?", "Is your cooter like The Grand Canyon?", and perhaps, "My husband is pissed our 8 y/o awtard smears shit", and "I am on welfare and wic should I have another loaf?", and shit like that. Obviously they HAD to have typed in those or similar search words or they wouldn't have found the topic!
lariousP.S. It's extra fun to witness them backtrack when called out on that fact too. Sometimes they even begin their trolling with the transparent disclaimer, "I just HAPPENED to be looking for helpful support on shit smearing for my friend's disabled child and found this HORRIBLE forum!".
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If YOU are the "exception" to what I am saying, then why does my commentary bother you so much?
I don't hate your kids, I HATE YOU!
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