Boob Wars - The Nipple Awakens
A few days ago I discovered that ladies with milky bosoms across the globe are furious with me. The reason for this unbridled rage? Because I am so massively anti-breastfeeding...apparently. I am momentarily confused, largely because I didn’t even realise that I was against breastfeeding.
I first became aware of this nipply rage when an old work friend contacted me via Facebook to let me know that I had popped up in some breastfeeding group that she’s a member of. The members of the breastfeeding posse are spitting vitriol at this evil dad who for some reason has made it his mission to prevent ladies nipples from entering the mouths of their little babies. Smack bang in the middle of the post that they are so furious about? Me holding a breast pump to my man-titty while looking gormless. Great! My first time as the face of something and they had to use that picture.
Poster Boy
“How dare he!” they howl. “This makes my blood boil!” they cry.
I’m still confused though. To be honest, I didn’t even realise that it was a thing. Are people really against breastfeeding? Nevertheless, I guess it’s one thing off the old bucket list. Become the poster boy for anti-breastfeeding groups? Tick.
I investigate further and discover that it all came about due to an article that I'd written for The Dad Network. This article, which you can read here, has somehow been interpreted as a vicious attack on breastfeeding mums. I read it again to see if I’d accidentally slipped in a sentence about how breastfeeding mothers needed to be burnt at the stake, just in case, but I can’t find anything. It’s just a (hopefully) humorous tale about our shell-shocked first week as parents.
I browse the comments on The Dad Network's FaceBook page and I'm stunned. It appears that I've inadvertently started a war between two extremist breastfeeding factions. There are hundreds of clashing comments between the extreme left (who seemingly want to breastfeed everyone) and the extreme right (campaigning for the extinction of nipples).
I try to get my wife’s attention. “Honey?”.
But it’s no use. She’s too busy breastfeeding. Damn that natural and beautiful act between mother and child!
I try again and this time it works.
“What’s up?” she says.
“Honey, am I anti-breastfeeding without even realising it?” I ask.
“I don’t think so.” she replies. “I mean, do you find yourself getting worked up in to a blind fury when I feed Mila?”
“Not really.”
“Do you hate breastfeeding Mums?”
“Not at all. I mean sometimes I don’t know where to look, but I think it’s a lovely and natural thing.”
“Then I would say you’re actually a friend of breastfeeding mums.”
“I thought so too!”
“To be honest,” my wife says, “I doubt they’ve actually even read your article. They’ve probably just read the headline that The Dad Network added and gotten the wrong end of the stick”.
Nevertheless, I’m now living in fear that on an innocent walk to the local shops to buy nappies for my baby, I will stumble across one of those infamous, deadly gangs of breastfeeding mums that you hear about on the news. The ones that hang out on street corners or in tunnels, looking to cause trouble. Probably a gang affiliated with the extreme breastfeeding terrorist cell who I have unexpectedly clashed with. I am living in fear.
Please join me again next week when I will be writing about why mothers should lose the right to vote.
The face of a man who has accidentally pressed the red button.