trying to help
 

Yes, and apparently you would be surprised to know I have a similar perspective ("just because I relate my own story doesn't mean I'm judging yours"). But do recognize that it can sound different coming from someone who hasn't actually been there, and that these issues in particular sometimes hit women in particularly personal ways. For the record, I wasn't *personally* bothered by what you said or implied, feeling both very happy about my epis and nursing for a collective almost 2 years. But do understand that when you say nursing will be "like falling off a log," I may say, "that's crap." I didn't have it as bad as many, and I chose to stay with it, and yes it was easy after 3 months or so, but I'd never give that kind of blanket statement, because I know better. Depends on your definition of easy, I guess, but saying so, especially if you haven't done it, is, as they say, Not Helpful.

I still don't think there's much of a comparison to be drawn between my saying "you sound condescending to suggest that nursing is a piece of cake and women should do it, even if you think it's really hard," and my saying, "people who can't hear their kid is 10% for weight without thinking this jeopardizes Harvard or means years of intensive nutritional and weight-training therapy need to get a grip." One's a physical issue, and the other is an atittude adjustment.

trying to help
 

What I said is that for 90% of woman it becomes as easy as falling off a log. I was never very good at math, but I think that leaves open the possibility that for some women it never gets even a little bit easier. Those women should --- and I use "should" here in a very gentle sense, since I have never "been there" in the sense that you seem to require --- bottle feed. I give them my permission to do so without regret or remorse. I'm a giver. The others for whom it gets only slightly easier but never as easy as falling off a log are also free to make whatever decisions they like. But I think we're in basic agreement that you should proceed between Week 1 and Week 6 under the assumption that you'll someday find it easy, rather than assume that you never will.

I know nothing about you IRL,* like whether you're a single mom, but you'd best believe I have "been there" in whatever pitiful, secondary sense men can participate in the delivery, care for and rearing of their own children. Either you have my deserved sympathy for going this alone, or you're the one being a pompous jackass about who has valid input to offer on parenting issues. Someone should tell Dr. Sears that he's full of shit, too.

*You may be a sock for an FB poster who doesn't want it known she has kids for outability reasons. If this is the case, I may know something about you IRL, but I don't know that I know.

trying to help
 

Less agreed to the child support, but its subject to a confidentiality agreement. Try not to blow the lid off this Atticus.

trying to help
 

I never said you had no right to a perspective on it. But I am telling you, if you have never had a baby bite your nipples, or had them crack and bleed so bad you cried everytime the child (who ate every other hour) needed to nurse, or had the child then throw up said blood, then you just haven't exactly "been there." You can be sympathetic super-daddy all you want, but it just ain't the same. None of which is to say, I hasten to add, you don't have anything valid to say about it, but you aren't in the same position, which is why your comments could benefit from being a little more circumspect.

Haven't paid much attention to Dr. Sears, but I would be happy to tell him he's full of shit if he makes women feel like failures if for some reason they can't do the nursing thing. I have seen him, and others who comment as you have, make women feel that way. AGAIN, not me *personally*, because I'm the happy super-lawyer-mommy (said with tongue in cheek, before there are any freakouts), but it's unnecessary nonetheless.

And no, I do not think proceeding assuming it will get easier is necessarily the best route. In fact, I think that is a recipe for stress. Rather, I found it much easier just to go day-by-day, committed to it, but not feeling some imaginary competition out there to see if I could "make it" and be a tough girl. Mind games about parenting issues are bullshit.

trying to help
 

Well, dammit, just drag it all out in the open, why don't you!

trying to help
 

Atticus, my boy, I think that everyone will agree that I am mostly correct* when I say that the grief you got was because it seemed like maybe you were being just a wee bit condescending and judgmental in your posts about pain control during labor. And, based solely on my experience with Mrs. Not Bob, I think that some women tend to get annoyed with men who say anything about childbirth (other than, "wow, I don't know how chicks do it").

I still love you, though. :love:

*Circle-jerk alert: This is a phrase coined by sebastian dangerfield, and which has been adopted as shorthand by many posters for a sweeping generalization.

trying to help
 

I find it ironic (hahahaha) that the guy who says he freaked out totally thinking he was a failure because his kid wasn't in the upper percentiles of weight, or whatever, doesn't see how saying "for 90% of women it's eventually as easy as falling off a log" might possibly create a feeling that if you are in the 10%, you are somehow a failure.

trying to help
 

Oh, give poor Atticus a break. I took his 90% comment to mean "don't give up because for most women it gets really easy even if at the beginning it seems it never will." And I never took his pain relief during labor posts to be as polluted with superiority as many of the rest of you did; I simply saw it as general philosophizing about the apparent cultural desire to pretend that all pain and sacrifice relating to parenting can be reduced to a barely perceptible level.

trying to help
 

You are no fun when you are pregnant.

Or, your newest crush is Atticus.

trying to help
 

I'm working on my nurturing instinct, bitch.

trying to help
 

WHATever. And, I sometimes think str8s posts are yours now, because of the baby avatar. Put that in your crack pipe and smoke it.

trying to help
 

To be clear I highly doubt atticus has lactacted, but that shouldn't disqualify his experiences with having babies bite his nipples. Not every country has such repressive age of consent laws and who are we to judge.

School is for Dummies
 

Pre-school was rocky for L'il Ty for at least a few months, but he loves it now. But they tried moving him to another class yesterday morning, the class he'll go to f/t in another month, and he apparently spent much of the morning sobbing. He doesn't take well to change, that boy.

School is for Dummies
 

We have some kids who are natural conservatives in every class. On the plus side, they usually don't draw outside the lines.

trying to help
 

You're right; I've been unfair.