No controversy for me, thanks.

Here’s a crazy original idea: an inflammatory article about breastfeeding/parenting/motherhood designed to create a division between mothers, drive up ratings, and take the guilt and shame that so often come with motherhood and spread it on a little thicker. What? Not original at all? Huh. The next thing you’re going to say is that ridiculous and divisive political ads are status quo around election years. Oh, that’s right, now we’re wading through both. Super.

What if we just didn’t fall for it? What if we all just gave Time’s article* the Mom Glare because no matter what kind of nipple you used to feed your baby I know we’ve all got the Mom Glare down and refused to lower ourselves to them? I’m just idealistic enough to believe that if we didn’t let them divide us, if we didn’t let them make us fight with each other and we started fighting for each other we could get some stuff done.

Personally, I don’t care. My reaction is really more of an internet eye-roll than being riled up by this. This is what I want to know about how you feed your baby: that you’re doing it. As long as you feed that baby, do it however you want. Do I have an opinion? Yes. But it doesn’t matter. Parenting. Be respectful, treat your child like you’d like to be treated. Obey the laws. Don’t make CPS come after you. There. Got it covered. Do I have more opinions? Sure. Do they matter? Eh, to my limited circle, maybe. But c’mon, this is nuts.

There are issues in this world involving women that are so much bigger than this that actually have a right and a wrong side for us to rally against. Here’s just a few suggestions in case anyone is listening:

1. Women (in the United States and around the world) are still being coerced into letting their children be adopted.

2. Women’s health care rights are constantly being hacked at, dismantled, and swept away.

3. Women still earn less money than men in the same profession.

4. Women are still being beaten, abused, and sold into slavery.

5. Women are bombarded by social messages telling how we should look, think, and act differently than we are because we’re not enough as we are, but if we buy this, say this, do this, have this ONE.MORE.THING. then we’ll be okay until the next fashion/phase/stage/technology/class/fad comes along and then we’ll have to add that one to our repertoire too.

Those are just the first five legitimate women’s issues that I thought up. I only heard about all this within the last hour so this is just a gut level reaction. But my gut says that I’m tired of the media crying wolf and trying to get me all riled up. There are plenty of things worth being riled up over. This just isn’t one of them.

 

* I linked to the part about the cover shot because, in my opinion, they were clearly just looking for the controversy from the picture to the title.