This week, Women’s News reported that advocates for breast feeding have lobbied Michelle Obama to speak about the advantages of breast feeding, since she has come out in the past to say that she breast fed her two children when they were babies.
The case to lobby in favor of breast feeding is strong, with studies showing that breast feeding babies is linked to a reduction in the risk of cancer, obesity and chronic diseases, many of which are prevalent in the African American mothers. Studies have also shown that it can help prevent diseases amongst children, namely respiratory infections, asthma and childhood leukemia.
The reason that I’m personally lobbying for Michelle Obama to speak out in favor of breast feeding is because it will be the most ultimate mom-embarrassing-her-kids speech in well over a decade. It probably will not trump Bill Clinton having to come clean about Lewinsky, but Bill was Chelsea’s dad and that was more saddening than funny.
Healthy and humiliated
Could you imagine the pain you’d go through if your mom were given a podium and a national stage to go into detail about how she breast fed you as a baby? It seems like a teenager’s worst nightmare to tune into CNN and talk about how cuddly you were as a baby and why you’re not stricken with diseases because she breast fed when you were young. The only way it could be topped is if she would hold up naked baby pictures while standing next to your prom date just to prove how healthy of a child you were.
It just seems like one of the last subjects on which you would want your mother to have a national platform to promote. It could possibly be topped by Michelle Obama hosting the national convention on going shopping for your daughter’s first training bra. Or if Barack had to give a keynote speech about sitting down your daughters so they could have “the talk” broadcast on an international stage (Taliban: not happy).
Either way, the point is that it’s important to weigh pros to breast feeding your children, and to get this message out in the most public way, regardless of how well it will embarrass your kids.
