Patricia on mothers who breastfeed for a long time: ‘I found them affected’
Patricia van Liemt is a radio host, writer and mother of Maria (12) and Phaedra (9). Every Friday she writes accurate, honest, funny and above all recognizable columns about her life and motherhood.
I recently made a shocking discovery. Wisdom comes with age they say and as far as my breast knowledge is concerned, that is absolutely true.
Soon there will be another beautiful theme song in Kek Mama’s store mom bracing† mom bracing is the opposite of mom shaming†
I was asked to talk about this on the Kek Mama podcast. One of the questions that editor-in-chief Jannine asked was whether I shamed have got. And do you know where I ended up? With my own breasts!
I’ll explain…
Also read: ‘Mom, I really hope I don’t get your nose’ >
breasts
I found mothers who had their offspring on the tit for more than a year, a bit affected. In my head, I immediately scaled these women into the ‘baby carrier mom on Birkenstocks’ category as well. And yes, to my great embarrassment that is indeed Momshaming.
Scared of my own judgment at the time I asked myself why I had such a judgment about it. Conclusion? I didn’t find these mothers affected at all, I just didn’t think my own breast was beautiful enough. In fact, I was not happy with my own body at all. I couldn’t bear the idea of having to pull out my huge pear-shaped Johannes Vermeer breasts in a local pub to breastfeed. So my reaction was to frame breastfeeding in itself. And shouting very loudly that everyone (including me) should know for themselves.
I still think that, by the way, but secretly I was just very jealous of the women who could breastfeed easily and also had those nice round apples.
With this knowledge I hope to give my daughters a more positive self-image. And if they don’t want to breastfeed, that’s totally fine too. As long as they don’t let a few pieces of fruit stop them…
More columns from Patricia? Every Friday there is a new column on KekMama.nl. Read the previous columns here.
