by Sara Mcgrath

Created on: June 14, 2008

Growing up with a subculture mom (tattooed, braless, and tie-dyed), I always felt a little different than most everyone else. However, it wasn't until I became a mother myself that I began to seriously consider the idea of being acceptable in the eyes of society.

With my first baby ever-present in a sling across my chest, trying to be the best mom I knew how, I began to look around at the significantly different way the majority of parents in my culture appeared to care for their children and at the way the majority of public society seemed to shun the inclusion of children in general. Mostly because I chose to breastfeed, but also because my baby might cry or otherwise be a baby, I didn't feel welcome to bring her along to most public events or to many public places. I'd been asked to leave for breastfeeding where bottle feeding would have been acceptable.

More than ever before, I began to feel like an outcast, alienated, and like I just didn't fit in. I didn't want to push my baby in a stroller. I didn't want to leave her with a sitter. I didn't want to use disposable diapers or baby formula or bottles or pacifiers or much else among the "mother substitute" products, gizmos, and contraptions. It didn't feel right and I didn't feel the need.

I would have contentedly carried on alone in my own way, doing what my baby seemed to prefer and what felt right to me, but I kept receiving criticisms, often heated, from other parents. I will certainly never forget when a policewoman tapped on the window of my parked car where I sat waiting for my husband to get out of work. She told me she had received an indecent exposure complaint from a passerby. The woman didn't specify that I had been breastfeeding, just that I had exposed myself. I had worn a special nursing top that day for discreet breastfeeding in public. I knew that I had not exposed myself.

Nothing came of the complaint, of course, because breastfeeding is exempt from indecent exposure laws in my state, even if I had exposed myself, but I felt humiliated and unfairly judged nonetheless. I felt bullied and offended. I was doing what I felt was best for my baby. Why wouldn't people just leave me alone?

I know I'm not alone in this. I may be in the minority for this more involved style of parenting (attachment parenting), but I'm not alone. I just wish I didn't feel so alone.

I don't look as "alternative" as my mother did, but as far as the mainstream society is concerned, I may as well.

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