Dotty Parker

supreme, extraordinary knowledge. except for this

We were talking, on Saturday, about women who breastfeed their children for what we, the possessors of extraordinary knowledge, deemed too long. One example was of, I believe, a three year old who was still being breast-fed. The child may have been older. The mom said that it was a way for them to remain close, a private, quiet time.

Whoa, I say. That’s a lot of breast-feeding. Try reading a book. I attempted to think of a good reason for this phenomenon. Or even a bad reason would be fine. I could only come up with this: Maybe this is the only allowed form of birth control. I’d heard that if a woman is still breast-feeding, she can’t become pregnant.

But no! Apparently, I can attribute this information to Florette and LeTigress, it’s just not true. LeTigress, who is in possession of a baby of her own, indicated that her doctor said, “Hey, look out. That whole ‘you can’t get pregnant when you’re breastfeeding’ thing isn’t exactly true. So watch it, sister.”

I am paraphrasing, of course.

This was news to me! I had only learned that old wives tale (if they are old and wives, at least some of them should know that this tale is of the fairy variety) a few years ago. Now the idea that some woman, who is in bondage to a religion or ideology that refuses to allow birth control, could just breast feed her child until she reaches menopause so she’d have only one child…well, that idea is just won’t cut the mustard! My dream of super-secret breast pumps in the closets of Catholic women—women who would siphon a magical elixir that will be used to feed the cat that stalks and kills the stork--will no longer be relevant to birth control.

That’s an impressive, convoluted, and very strange dream, too.

I sat there on our picnic blanket, as we were enjoying our supreme command of knowledge at a picnic, and thought, “Wow. I’m glad someone told me not to have a baby so I don’t have a baby.”

What a strange circumstance that would have been.

Posted by dotty at July 19, 2004 03:22 PM