Читать книгу Your First Grandchild: Useful, touching and hilarious guide for first-time grandparents - Paul Greenwood - Страница 32

Whatever your feelings on the subject, try not to feel (or at least, try not to show) embarrassment if your daughter or daughter-in-law chooses to breastfeed her baby in public. This can be difficult for some of us who are not used to the idea – especially perhaps for a grandfather who is not related to the mother by blood. One such confessed to me, rather shamefacedly, that he suddenly realized his disapproval was because of a secret fear that he might find the spectacle arousing.

For those who do find the whole issue a tricky one, I would say … remind yourself that this is the natural process. It’s a wonderful thing that a mother has ready, in no matter what circumstances, a source of nourishment for her baby that is perfect in every way (even the consistency of the milk changing to suit the baby’s need throughout the feed). Whilst she is feeding the baby, you can rest assured that she will be totally unaware of anything but the satisfaction of her baby’s hunger, and that the last thing she will be thinking of is appearing provocative, either of sexual or shocked reactions.

In the days when breastfeeding in public was not quite the done thing, I remember attending the rehearsal of a chamber-music concert. Between bouts of playing, a young woman cellist sat on a sunny windowsill and freely breastfed her little son, who had been sleeping in a Moses basket by her feet as she played. Her musician companions seemed entirely at ease with the situation – the making of music was all that mattered – and it struck me at the time that the breastfeeding seemed as natural as the flow of the music.

When I had my daughter in 1964, my obstetrician said briskly, ‘You’re planning to go back to work? Then don’t even consider breastfeeding.’ I have always regretted this decision being taken for me when I was not in any state to consider the alternative. The same obstetrician came in one day and was extremely unpleasant to me, making me burst into tears. That’s better,’ he said. ‘You were being too cheerful. I always like my new mothers to have a good cry. It saves them from having the “baby blues”’ Thank goodness attitudes have radically changed since then!