The lactating feminist | page 1, 2
I am not advocating performance artist Karen Finley's approach
-- squirting milk on random passersby. Nor am I a Birkenstock-wearing,
hair-shirt-sporting, tofu-grilling, home-schooling mother of
seven (not that there's anything wrong with that) who nurses a first
grader. Rather, much like many of my friends, I'm a Blahnik-loving, cell
phone-toting chick who likes cabernet with her filet mignon. And who
nurses her toddler. The reasons are simple: it's the very best thing for
him. And for me as well.
Early on in my new day (and night) gig as a mommy, I discovered that
people are pretty squeamish about knowing where a baby's nutrients are
coming from. Now, I'm not big on exposed breasts -- nursing in public
requires, for me anyway, access that does not put the nipple into public
play. There's an art to it, and simple decorum suggests we not share the
blow-by-blow of latching on with the room. This can take practice, but
that's what La Leche League meetings are for. I'm a whiz at getting the
food delivery system operational with a minimum of show. You don't even
need special clothes, although those sure can help. In fact, in my free
time, I've started designing nursing dresses a woman can feel and look
great -- even sexy -- in. I've nursed Cameron on planes, trains and
automobiles, in restaurants, in Russia and Scandinavia, at home in
Jamaica, on movie sets and while being a maid of honor in a wedding, and
I can proudly say that, after the initial practice period, I haven't
flashed anyone. At least not anyone that I know of.
We have a male friend who thinks women should nurse in bathrooms, but
he proudly tells me that I haven't grossed him out once. Thanks ... I
think. By the simple act of responding to my child in a way only a woman
can, and yet refusing to be locked away in my house, in my car or in a
public restroom (for God's sake, I won't even use my hand to flush those
toilets. Why would I feed my child there?), I have become ambassador,
educator, rabble rouser, mother. Not a bad resume for a feminist, no?
This instinctive behavior has required me to stand up to men and to
the Establishment in ways that would make Gloria Steinem proud -- I
hope. I had to fight to keep my baby from going to a newborn nursery for
no logical reason, had to struggle in the early days of his life to
choose his needs over the discomfort of older, more powerful male
relatives. Although I am an actress -- the most people-pleasing,
bow-to-the-pater/producer member of our species -- I once
told a director in no uncertain terms that his small talk was a waste of
time, as I had a baby to nurse. That took guts I'm not sure I would have
had without biology and engorged breasts on my side. I got the gig, by
the way, and played a fiesty femme who keeps her clothes on, unlike the
Hollywood norm.
Whether in gray flannel, cowboy boots or little black dresses, I am a
life-giver, and that's a pretty radical thing to recognize. It may sound
a little earth-mother sappy, but I am! I am not a man -- although being
a man is an admittedly attractive proposition at 3 a.m. when I feel for
all the world like a 24-hour Dairy Queen. But in not escaping my biology
or my progeny, I found myself. Maybe not a blow-dried, Parents magazine
glossy self, but it's me.
So, ultimately, why is nursing -- something done by refugees in
Kosovo, poor immigrants in America and starving mothers in Africa -- a
feminist undertaking? Because instead of viewing your boobies through
the distorting prism of Hugh Hefner's bifocals -- too small, too flabby,
too pendulous, too stretch-marked, not centerfold-material -- now you
realize they are, as Martha Stewart would say, A Good Thing. Viewed
through the milk-induced drunken smile of your baby, they are The Very
Best Thing. And to hide that from the rest of the world would be very
bad, indeed.
salon.com
| July 26, 1999
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About the
writer
Actress and mother Roxanne Beckford Hoge has been in too many lame
sitcoms that aired and brilliant pilots that never saw the light of
day to count. She and her husband, Bob, live in Los Angeles, where
they mastermind the cool parenting and nursing clothes site
One Hot Mama while not
learning from the master, their son Cameron. |
