Hooray for Boobies

In preparation for the arrival of, alternately, our bundle of joy or our Wagnarian doom, Lil and I are attending a series of classes. These vary from impressively informational and thus useful, to a Sunday sermon from the pulpit of Holier-than-thou.

Last week we attended a breastfeeding class.

Guess which category this falls into.

Holier-than-thou breastfeeding teacher, or HBT for short, first let us watch a video not on breastfeeding, but on the delivery of a baby. It was a little more intimate than I was hoping for, but educational. Essentially, delivery is not much fun, and the gist from the HBT was that you should never, ever use any drugs of any kind at all or your baby will never be able to learn to breastfeed.

In fact, don’t even think about using drugs, local anesthetic, or an epidural, as this will cause a transference to the baby in utero, and he/she will grow up to be a crack/meth/heroine addict leaching off society and bringing down the moral values of our fine Republican country.

Hey, I just report the news.

Next HBT went into the benefits of breastfeeding - for fifteen hours. These include, but are not limited to, better nutrition, virus and disease-fighting, bonding, growth, wellness, literacy of the masses, poverty-avoidance, revolution against the bourgeoisie, reduction of racism, the question of alien life, and averting global thermo-nuclear war.

Yeppers, all that in a mother’s breast.

Is it any wonder why boys are so breast happy?

What struck Lil and I as odd was the fact that the HBT, upon her pulpit of virtue and righteousness, was preaching to the choir. We’ve already paid for the class. We’re already attending the class we paid for. We've already shown up to the class that we paid for and are attending.

We’re already onboard the Breastfeeding-Is-Good train.

Why are we stopping off in Fire and Brimestoneville?

Do we look like non-believers who require a demigogue and a ballpeen hammer to make it all stick?

Apparently, this is because breastfeeding is, unbeknownst to me, a very volatile subject, one on which the lines of battle have been drawn and you stand either with or against the cause. Whole wars have been fought between the Formula-ites and the Beastfeeders, neither winning a clear victory. In this world gone made, we do not spank the monkey, the monkey spanks us. If you’re with the cause, you need to be completely and utterly indoctrinated as to the where, whys, whatfors and whatnots of breastfeeding. This is so that, after your three hours of browbeating, you can go out into the world and pummell others with, if not your suprerior knowledge, then your superiority complex. If you’re against it, well, clearly you showed up to cause trouble and must now be pounded back in your place with histrionics and mad shrieking.

Woe be unto you who question the mastery of the HBT.

Toward the end of the class, HBT actually managed to give us some breastfeeding information apart from the propaganda machine. We had about two minutes of latch-on and feeding tips, another minute or so of Q & A, and then we were invited to wait after class to address specific questions, say about breast pumps, breast milk storage, baby-stomach capacity, concerns about illness, etc.

Call me crazy, but this late in the evening on a weekday with a pregnant wife, I just wasn't interested in much more the HBT had to say.

In fact, I was almost at the point where I wanted to go out and buy stock in a baby formula company just to be contrary. And not one of the better companies, but a shady factory that makes questionable claims and improvable statements. A company whose mailing address is a P.O. Box and whose bottom line is always about the profits in South American and African villages.

Hey, I said almost. Sheesh. I’m all for averting global thermo-nuclear war via breastfeeding our child. After all, we showed up to the class.