Helen Joyce tells of how her grandmother, upon learning that Joyce's mother was planning on switching to breastfeeding, thought she was crazy. Joyce says her mother later told her that the grandmother's generation viewed bottle-feeding as a "liberation from the tyranny of the baby".
Joyce's mother had 9 children. I expect her grandmother had that many, or more. Probably in close succession (see also "birth control is a sin and each baby is a blessing").
I suspect the women in Joyce's grandmother's generation were facing the possibility of spending essentially all their fertile years near-continuously tethered to breastfeeding. If that was the case, I can absolutely see how they would come to view it as a tyranny, and the bottle as a liberation.
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@Gnomeshatecheese Some communities in the West do it now, (as many babies possible per woman) eg the Amish.
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@RadicalCartoons So do the Laestadians. I'm well aware of the phenomenon (good deal of those people where I grew up).
But whether they do full breast-feeding for each baby, is another matter.
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@Gnomeshatecheese If you've got enough nursing mothers around in an extended family, they can share duties, so to speak. And store breast milk in the fridge.
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@RadicalCartoons @Gnomeshatecheese yes, the rich used to use slaves or servants as wet nurses in the days before formula.
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