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Have you ever felt that the kind of work you do defines you? If what you do is synonymous with who you are; then where does that leave you if you’re not earning money? What is your contribution to your family, to our society?  Some people feel that if what you do does not generate income, then “it” (what you do) and “you” have no value.  If you have no job, or if you are unable to take care of yourself; might you even be considered worthless.

Mothers have always worked. Working while pregnant; working while caring for our other children; working while nurturing and nursing an infant in addition to other tasks associated with making a home.    Most mothers today work outside the home for paid employment or in exchange for some product or service because they have to and want to. Rent and the cost of housing, health insurance, job stability, and social connections are often associated with your employment and where you work or lack thereof.  Who are your peers? Are you around other mothers like you?

Woman’s work is mother’s work and then some. Breastfeeding your baby is a decision you make based on how much time you have to be away from your baby, who will care for the baby in your absence and how well can you tolerate separation from your baby. If you don’t work, and you don’t know how you will eat or pay rent, breastfeeding and extending the period of pregnancy and direct connection with your baby is deemed a luxury you can ill afford. It is not a solo activity; though it may appear to be at times.  Several things and several people had to have some important things in place to allow you to be connected with your baby for an extended period of time.

Today many workers where neon, brightly lit safety gear, logo driven.  They can be easily seen and they definitely stand out. Do we wear neon to show we are nursing mothers? We make ourselves visible when we nurse in public, or in shared spaces where our breasts are visible and the true nature and connectedness of our intimate relationships with our infants are visible to strangers and family alike. If breasts are either sexual objects or bait for cancer, then how does nursing an infant fit in to our constructs about seeing breasts connected to nurturing, comforting, and nutrition in the public space outside of the home.   Is the work that we do, that we enjoy or the work we can get paid for compatible with being a nursing mother?

As housing costs rise and young families pay way more than 30% of their income toward housing; having a baby who you are able to nurse requires shared spaces where your spouse, or family or friends can share the cost of housing and paid or unpaid childcare. Who might watch your baby while you are at work? Does your required income mostly go to pay a caregiver, babysitter or nanny to watch your baby so you can comfortably leave for short or extended periods of time away from your baby and go to work?  Who is the mother substitute, the surrogate in your absence for an extended pregnancy?   How is your status at work or school affecting you and your relationship with your baby? How are you valued as a nursing mother?

Imagine if you will, that pregnancy the developing connection is not just 40 weeks long. When or how soon do you know you are pregnant, who do you tell? How long is it a secret? Is it a private family matter from your first missed period?  What if the period of pregnancy, attachment and connection with your baby was really an additional 52 weeks, or 365 days?   Let’s do the math… 280 days, the 40 weeks of pregnancy, plus 365 days is really 645 days. If there is no surrogacy for pregnancy, what if there was no true surrogacy for your postpartum period for the first year of connection with you and your baby?  

Could you commit as your first bold act of mothering to be as close to your baby as possible for 645 days. Seriously, what is unique about gender that is truly role specific?  Who would “work” with you to support you through that time frame and see the primacy of that relationship and sacred mother-baby couple connection.  If it is not the father of the baby, who then comes in to your life not just to “help” out with the baby, but how do individuals, family, friends and community support you as a mother-baby couple?  Where we seem to understand the biological connection of the placenta to be essential to both mother and baby; what if the connection outside of the womb as a transitional space for both mother and baby was equally critical for the initial development, happiness and growth of mother, child, father and society.

Please tell us your story. What would make it possible to maintain the connection between you and your baby as the mother baby couple for 645 days or an additional 365 days after the baby’s birth.  The cord is now cut with your baby able for the first time to live independent from you outside of the protected sphere of your womb. Is this the right time for the hand off-change of shift?  How is the plan for shared mothering developed in your world?

 What is the impact on the mother of experiencing a premature birth?  A baby too small and immature to live outside the womb that remains in a neonatal intensive care unit while her mother goes home and back to work for months and weeks?  Ask a mother who had to leave her baby before she was just quite ready.

Today a dear friend of mine lost her mother. Her death was peaceful and not unexpected.  It was my understanding that when learning that the time was near…she actually got to be with her and hold her hand for the last bit of time together.  I know what that feels like to have your mother be gone and quietly slip away.  My own mother passed over ten years ago, I think of her often and mostly fondly now, but I especially feel her presence and her opinions about all manner of things when I am with my own children.

My relationship with my mother changed dramatically after I had my first child and experienced that first year of nursing my baby. My mother didn’t nurse me, but I was unable to look at my baby without thinking about my mother and how she must have looked at me and felt about me. She loved me unconditionally. Breastfeeding is most certainly not a requirement for loving your baby or conversely for your baby loving you.

We learn how to be mothers from our mothers.  She is the yardstick we hold up to measure our performance, good or bad. How our mothers felt about having us, raising children, how they felt about our fathers all deeply influence how we tolerate spending time with our own mothers and how we handle separations from them.

I suspect that there is a sisterhood of women who have relationships with their living mothers and another set of siblings that handle their relationships and memories of their mothers who are now dead.

Please share your story! What are the memories you have of your mother?  Do you look like her? Did your mother breastfeed you?  How did she feel about you nursing your baby? Did someone other than your mother raise you when you were very young? Did your own mother raise your children? Did your grandmother raise you?

Honor the time you have with your mother.

I live on a small farm.  Among the many activities that take place on a daily basis, we care for and raise pure bred- show quality dairy cows. It is Spring time, there are several pregnant cows, we have 2 new calves, one a few weeks old and one a few months.  Both are incredibly cute, lively, affectionate and bottle-fed. 

It is a widespread practice in the dairy industry to separate the mothers from their babies shortly after birth. Having a baby establishes your precious milk supply. The more you nurse, the more milk you will have.  It’s a pretty neat feedback loop. The more the cows are milked the larger the quantity of milk.  Dairy cows are bred specifically for the quality and quantity of their milk supply. The milk is the prized commodity!  Typically, cows are milked twice daily no later than 12 hours apart.  

Lineage is also very important. We may have three generations on the land at any one time. All of the cows are artificially inseminated from the best stock. Sperm is barcoded and scanned and specifically linked for a particular heifer timed perfectly for when she is in heat. We don’t know the names of the bulls; but we know the names of all the offspring and they will come to us by name for feeding, milking and moving from one pasture area to another.

Phoebe is the daughter of Pandora, she had Peekaboo our youngest baby calf. She had an easy unassisted birth out in a muddy wet pasture. We have had more than our share of rain.  Jubilee’s mother’s name is Joy. Her grandmother is Juno, her mother lives on another farm. Both calves live together in the barn, they have excellent care and surroundings. Phoebe cannot see her baby in the barn, but can hear her mooing. She stands along the fence waiting her turn to be fed and milked and often will be seen staring at the barn where her daughter is. She will moo back, and lean on the section of fence closest to the calves barn. 

 After Phoebe is milked, her warm milk is collected separately and taken to her baby to be fed by her caregivers.  There are only 2 or 3 “dairy maids” that do this regularly.  The calves love them.  They have different techniques for holding the bottle, teaching her to wean from bottle and their fingers to the bucket. She is rubbed and cuddling until she is full and most of Phoebe’s milk is gone.  This attention gets them accustomed to human touch.  Any remainder is given to the pigs, the milk is not stored or sold or given to any other calves.

I often wonder how Phoebe feels. I can remember what it was like early on to be separated from my baby. It was so uncomfortable even when I could rationalize it was for a good reason. I didn’t just think about my baby, or worry, I was acutely aware of the fullness and heat of my breasts. I was sure that the baby was fine. At least I hoped so… I didn’t like the feeling of fever and feeling engorged and leaking milk on my clothes. Nothing felt as good, sweet relief as having the baby latch on and take care of my little problem.  Peace and maybe nap time couldn’t be far away.  As my baby got older, I so appreciated breaks, and time away from my baby especially when I could control those moments.  Having my baby in earshot, was both a comfort and a burden.  My body, heart and breasts would respond to hearing my baby. Seeing your baby is different.

Much of the time, nursing mothers spend today is preparing for the time they will be away from their babies. Preparing and preserving their milk. Many pump and nurse at the same time. The infant on one breast, the pump on the the other. They are so incredibly efficient.  If they can’t be with their babies, at least their babies can have their own breast milk.

As we shift our focus to the interconnectedness between mother and baby, perhaps it is the bond and relationship that is challenged and not the product of milk secretions that we treasure. Is there grief, loss, regret, relief, longing? What if there are no words just yet to describe how the nursing mother feels during periods of separation from her baby.

Please share your story, how does it feel when you want to nurse and you and your baby are not together?

There are some things I do daily without a second thought. Some of which of course are done in private. I rarely would think of sharing with someone that I did it or that I accomplished it as a goal. I am quiet about it, and not necessarily because I think it is a secret; but because I think of it as routine, or certainly not newsworthy.  Things like going to the bathroom, brushing my teeth, number and color of bowel movements; how many glasses of water I had that day.   And years ago, when I had my babies, it never occurred to me to consider a bottle, or how often in a day would we nurse.  We are taught so much that data matters. If we don’t count it, if we didn’t write it down, we didn’t do it, or it’s not so important to us.

Sometimes I write things down, because they are important to me and I don’t want to forget to do it, or if I don’t write it down, it won’t happen. I would say grocery lists, new recipes, phone numbers fall easily into that category. 

At 65, things that might have been new at age 20 or even 30 are second nature now. My daughter once told me that the longer you breastfeed your baby, the less you talk about it. You just do it! Habits or patterns are formed. You are not really interested in other people’s perspective or thoughts or you just don’t want the commentary, good or bad. Bold confidence, doesn’t really play a part, you have mastery, you have just figured it out. 

If I had a question about nursing my baby. I would ask my grandmother, my mother hadn’t nursed me and though she was supportive, she was mostly just curious and we didn’t talk about it much. My dad would ask me from time to time when I would stop nursing that baby?  Does he eat? Does he have teeth?  I would ask my grandmother, and if we were together and not on the phone she would look at me and just smile as if to say why I would ask such a question. We didn’t talk about it much either, her response was almost always. 

“just sit down a minute, nurse that baby and you’ll both feel much better”

Before I was pregnant with my son, my first child, I didn’t know anyone who had breastfed their baby, I never even saw a baby at the breast. It was one of life’s mysteries. I did get to a La Leche meeting https://www.lllusa.orgonce or twice before his birth and saw a room full of chatty women nursing their babies and it seemed both magical and easy.  That was back in 1974.  Like puppies, I thought, I didn’t think I would need a book.

When I asked her about the breast pump and the bottles I would need, she said the same thing.

“just sit down a minute, nurse that baby and you’ll both feel much better” 

What about work, what about school, what about formula?

“When you are with the baby, nurse the baby.  Put your feet up!”

“just sit down a minute, nurse that baby and you’ll both feel much better” 

I found the breast pump painful, I had one that looked like a toy megaphone with a bulb syringe.  My son wouldn’t take a bottle, or a pacifier, he decided to wait, meditate, take a nap, or cry until I returned. We figured it out, me and him.

Please share your story. Did you need a breast pump to nurse your baby?  Did you ever feed your baby your breast milk from a bottle? How did you feel?