Since we are heading into World Breastfeeding Week, I obviously want to talk about breastfeeding and chestfeeding.  (If you know me in person, you probably know that's not limited to just the first week in August; I kiiiind of talk about it all the time.)  One of the things I like to talk about with this subject is what I call our 'Cultural Knowledge Deficit' around breastfeeding.  As a mainstream culture, Americans know very little about how breastfeeding works or what it looks like or what's normal.

As happens from time to time on the internet, there are some breastfeeding horror stories making the rounds.  I won't link to them because I don't want to give them traffic; scare tactics are a cruel way to make your point, whatever your point is.  And to that end, I want to say something about 'activism' and the natural parenting community (and the broader world in general): if your 'activism' tactics center around shaming individual people for making choices you don't agree with, you are not an activist, you are an asshole.  If your 'activism' tactics center around scaring people into following your advice, you are not an activist, you are a fearmonger.

That's not what we are about here at Rising Tide Women.  Our goal, always, is to help you be informed about the decisions you are making and then to support you in what you've chosen.  This doesn't mean we believe that all choices are equal and we should all just hold hands and sing together.