You Stop Telling Me What To Do With My Lactating Boobies and I’ll Do The Same
Dear Mouthy Housewives,
My sister-in-law nursed most of her kids until they were almost 4 years old. She had to wean her youngest child due to cancer since the treatment wouldn’t allow it. She recently had a miscarriage, which caused her milk to come in and she is now nursing the previously weaned child who is almost four. She claims it is helping with some ongoing health issues the child has had for the last year (thanks to not immunizing). I am totally weirded out by this. I don’t feel comfortable around it.
I know that breastfeeding is natural and what not, but I really don’t think this situation is! No one else but me and my husband seem to have a problem with this. We are expecting twins next month and are getting lectures from her on how it’s wrong that we aren’t planning to breastfeed the whole time. I want to tell her if she’s trying to convince me, that is DEFINITELY not the way to do it. I have tried to keep my mouth shut about what she’s doing, but the more she criticizes my decision, the more I want to tell her that what she’s doing is sick and wrong!! I mean really, who just starts nursing a 4-year-old child! If she really wants the benefits, couldn’t she at least pump and put it in a glass or something???
Am I wrong to be so grossed out by this? Is there anything I can say to her to get her to respect my decision and to nicely tell her that I don’t feel comfortable with what she’s doing?
Thank you,
Grossed Out
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Dear Grossed Out,
I must first advise everyone to don police riot armor and prepare for bottle feeders to chuck baby bottles at the lactivists, who are retaliating by squirting breast milk into the eyes. These things can turn ugly if you aren’t very careful.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I must say that I am a former breastfeeder, so I tend to side with other breastfeeding women. On the other hand, I was exclusively bottle-fed as a child and turned out to be highly intelligent, not to mention a first-class beauty, so I don’t think bottle-feeding is wrong either.
I’m not going to tell you if you are right or wrong to feel grossed out by your sister-in-law’s extended breastfeeding. What I will tell you is that it’s a waste of your time to keep feeling so, obviously your sister-in-law will continue on as she sees fit. Stop ruminating on it or your babies could be born with forked tails.
I think both you and your sister-in-law need to realize you haven’t lived each other’s lives. She’s been through cancer, had to wean her child in order to help SAVE HER LIFE, lost another child to miscarriage and because of it, suddenly had a second chance to nurse the child she was forced to wean. Can we really say what we would do in that situation? No, not if we’re truly honest with ourselves. I mean, if I had to face my own mortality, I would probably try to breastfeed baby Jesus.
You’re having twins and I don’t know what it’s like to try to exclusively breastfeed two babies. Who am I to judge what you should or shouldn’t do? But my sister-wife Kelcey does know. She began supplementing with formula and her twins are still absolutely gorgeous, happy, and I hear they are already solving polynomial equations.
If you can, find a way to talk with your sister-in-law about respecting each other’s choices, even if you don’t agree with them. If you want her to stop harping on your feeding choices, then you really should stop harping on hers. If this isn’t possible, then grin and bear it when she nurses, or just throw a blanket over your head so you can’t see it. When she tries to lecture you, say something dismissive, such as “Oh, who knows how long we’ll breastfeed, it’s hard to know ahead of time” (this is completely true) or “You can trust us to make the best decision for our twins” and hopefully she’ll take the hint.
Signed,
Heather, TMH
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Can I Skip Out on My Husband’s Birthday?
Dear Mouthy Housewives,
My husband’s birthday is coming up. It’s not a significant birthday and my book club is the same night. I really want to go to the book club because I actually finished the book and loved it. My husband says it’s fine and we’ll celebrate the night before. Is it okay if I go or am I a bad wife?
Signed,
Bookish Betty
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Dear Bookish Betty,
I guess it depends. Is your husband the passive-aggressive type that will tell you, “oh sure, go ahead and do that honey,” and then get angry if you do, because even though he said it was okay to go, if you really loved him, you wouldn’t go?
If he’s that type, don’t go, unless you enjoy passive-aggressive marital merry-go-rounds. It’s not my idea of fun in a marriage. I prefer fun marital games such as, I cook and you do the dishes!
If he’s not the passive-aggressive type, then it’s up to you whether to skip out and go to the book club, or celebrate his birthday on his actual birthday. I think the Golden Rule would apply well in this situation. Would you be hurt? We’re all getting up in there in age and there comes a point when a big celebration for your average odd-numbered birthday just doesn’t matter. It’s one of those things that sort of sucks about being a grown-up: We get death, taxes, and unexciting birthdays in exchange for cursing and alcoholic beverages. Maybe it really doesn’t matter to him.
But before making your decision, I think we should interpret the man-speak that is screaming at me from between the lines. When your husband says, “we’ll celebrate the night before,” you know what that means, right? It means in exchange for skipping out on his actual birthday, you are expected to perform odd and kinky sex tricks the night before. If these tricks involve excessive amounts of lubricant and a morning-after treatment of hemorrhoid cream, I’m of the opinion that no book club is worth it. I don’t care if I made it through the Iliad and could interpret the hexameters so well that it left the book club members not only speechless, but scrambling for a plaque to inscribe my name and greatness in their own poetic hexameters. NO. However something like that may be right up your (ahem) alley, and if so, please seek immediate professional help – none of the Mouthy Housewives have any experience with proctology and would be unable to help you further.
Signed,
Heather, TMH
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Help, My Daughter is Freakishly Hairy!
Dear Mouthy Housewives,
My ten-year-old daughter is tall and gorgeous with lovely olive skin and glowing green eyes. She’s also freakishly hairy. There is hair e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e. Her armpits, her legs, her fou-fou girly bits. Everywhere. What’s the best way to napalm this hair situation without making her feel self-conscious about it? I also don’t want to have to shave her daily to keep it at bay. But I can’t get an arm wax for my ten year old for goodness sake. Help!
Signed,
The Mother of Sasquatch
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Dear Mother of Sasquatch,
Hello, long lost relative! I’m so excited to find you! I, too, am tall, gorgeous with lovely olive skin and glowing green eyes. Did I also mention that I have black hair? I do, a LOT of it. Lots and lots of extra thick, curly, black hair.
I’ve been this way since the tender age of ten, just like your daughter. Wait, let me take that back. I was actually born hairy and my mother loves to regale people with the story of my hairy baby back. (That’s okay, when she’s old and decrepit, I’ll enjoy regaling everyone with the stories of playing hide-and-seek with her dentures.)
It was around age 10 that I became self-conscious of my Sasquatch heritage. Fourth grade turdhead boys began teasing me over my hairy arms and legs. It was horrible because I was just coming to an age where I began to care what boys thought, and there they were, making fun of something I couldn’t control.
In a torrent of tears, I begged my mother to allow me to shave, but she was torn. Fourth grade seemed awfully young to begin shaving and she said we couldn’t afford a new weed whacker. I persisted! I really wanted Ricky to be my boyfriend and no one, not even a cute boy with white trash parents, was going to ask a Planet of the Apes reject to be their girlfriend.
My mother relented and I am so glad she did. If your daughter is bothered by her hairiness, I suggest you do the same. And none of this “shave her daily” talk, as if you would do it for her. While I know teenage GPS implantations are just around the helicopter parenting corner, some of us parents have to keep the sanity for the rest of society. Instruct your daughter in the womanly art of shaving and, if she’s as motivated as I was at that age, she’ll be shaving independently in no time.
Signed,
Heather, TMH
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Is This My Daughter’s Room or a Pigsty?
Dear Mouthy Housewives,
My 14-year-old daughter’s room is a MESS. It’s seriously disgusting, like old soda bottles, dirty snack plates, and just stuff everywhere. I am very neat and the rest of our house is pretty tidy. I’ve always just let her do what she wants with her room, but it’s starting to gross me out. Should I go in and clean it while she’s at school? Or just shut the door and go to a relaxation/meditation class?
Signed,
Tidy in Tampa
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Dear Tidy in Tampa
First, stop allowing your daughter to take soda bottles and snack plates into her room. Don’t ask me how such obscure solutions like this come to me; I’m pretty sure I channel them straight from Mr. Clean.
If that doesn’t work, refuse to speak to her in English and insist everyone speak to her in pig Latin ONLY. If she’s going to live like a pig, then treat her like a pig, ouyay owknay atwhay Iway eanmay? At dinner time, I highly recommend calling her to the table the way a farmer calls a pig to the slop trough, which is also the Arkansas Razorback football cheer: “WOOOOO, Pig! Sooiee!” Do this especially when she has friends over. (Peer embarrassment is a helpful motivational tool at this age.)
I don’t think you should clean your daughter’s room for her. By fourteen the gravy train is over and we should be preparing our children for the joys of adulthood, such as entry-level job responsibilities and taxes.
In fact, I think you should pass a law called the “Messy Room Tax.” If your daughter doesn’t meet a mutually-agreed upon minimum standard of cleanliness in her room, she will pay a tax for the “government” to do it. And, would you look at that? The tax is the exact same amount as the texting plan on her cell phone! Darn, it looks like she won’t be texting her friends at all this month!
Adulthood is hard with the responsibilities and taxes and death. It’s our job to prepare our children for it. It’s like what we learned in undercover wet nurse school: you must rub your nipples with sandpaper to toughen them up for breastfeeding. So it’s really best to toughen your children up sooner rather than later.
Signed,
Heather, TMH
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Heather’s Mouthy Housewife BlogHer Party for One
This video was recorded in front of a live studio audience. Of my cats. Many thanks to JVC, a Mouthy Housewife BlogHer Party sponsor, for the HD Everio camcorder, which made this vlog (and the party) possible!
