A jackass

A couple of weeks ago, something happened on Facebook that really pissed me off. Really. Like lying awake at night, grinding my teeth and thinking until my brain got sore kind of pissed off. It still makes my upper lip scrunch when I think about it, but I had to wait a couple of weeks before posting this rant about it so that I could get my thoughts clear and write rationally, albeit still passionately, on the subject of dumbasses who make judgmental comments when they know absolutely nothing about a situation.

The context to all of this is that we have been working closely with Bubble’s pediatric nurse and doctors at two different hospitals to try and work out why she is not gaining weight very well. She’s slipped from the 55th percentile down to between the 3rd and 10th, depending on which chart you’re referring to. Even though most people would tell you not to worry, of course as a parent you’re going to worry.

So after much agonizing (and I mean tears, guilt, self-blame etc., etc.) I gave in and started to supplement Bubble’s feedings with formula. Just once a day, but just to make sure she was getting enough food, and enough calories. Even though I have no judgment towards others who formula feed their babies, I had always expected to be able to exclusively breastfeed my baby, and felt awful that I had to compromise that. In many ways I would have felt better if the reason had been that I didn’t have enough milk to give her, but it felt truly terrible to know that I had milk for her, but she wouldn’t take it, only feeding for two or three minutes at a time.

After a couple of weeks, while she didn’t start really putting on weight, she did start to stabilize a bit. Her appetite, at least for bottled milk (formula or breastmilk) seemed to increase a bit. She still didn’t really want to breastfeed, but I persevered with that, as well as pumping milk for her and giving her the one bottle of formula per day.

When we finally got in to see the pediatrician at the hospital, his first advice was to stop the milk-based formula and go on to a prescription formula that contained no milk or soy proteins, plus I had to stop eating all dairy products, even in trace amounts, for two weeks so we could rule out (or in) that Bubble has a milk protein allergy or intolerance. Although I didn’t really believe that to be the case, given that she didn’t have any adverse reactions when we started her on formula, it was a nice gentle start to seeking the problem that didn’t involve sticking a tube down my baby’s throat.

That night, I posted a status on Facebook bemoaning my dairy-free diet. I received lots of comments from friends offering their support and wishes of luck, which really meant a lot to me. It was a tough time for us, emotionally and physically (Bubble was sleeping maybe 3 hours a night in fits and starts) and I was feeling pretty demoralized. During the comment thread, it also came up that we would be starting Bubble on prescription formula.

So then some jackass that I haven’t seen since highschool, and frankly wasn’t friends with even then, posts a comment that went something like:

Cow’s milk is only for baby cows. Funny that hey? The best thing for your baby is for you to be a vegetarian and to breastfeed your baby. But you have chosen not to do that and to feed it synthetic crap.

The reason I say it went something like that, is because I was so steamed that I immediately deleted it, so can’t remember exactly how it was worded, or exactly how many spelling and grammatical errors it contained (there were many). I then sent an email to the poster telling them that I had deleted the comment and that he didn’t know the situation and should keep his thoughts to himself. I then changed my status to “I wish people would keep their narrow-minded crap to themselves and not go making comments about things they know zero about”. The idiot then commented on that post “Yeah Zoe, I know zero. Goodbye Facebook friend.”

I don’t know what made me angrier. The fact that this moron insisted that he knew what he was talking about, or that he got to delete me as a friend before I could do it to him first! Yes, I know, petty. But I was mad.

But as the evening wore on, I found myself getting angrier and angrier and not being able to stop thinking about it. I felt like emailing him again, but restrained myself. I knew it would just result in another barrage of self-righteous garbage from this guy, and I would end up more upset than ever.

Some of you may not understand why this made me so mad, since people make idiotic comments on Facebook all the time. But the point is that unless you really know the whole story in a situation, who are you to judge? Let’s face it, even if you do know the whole story, it’s not your place to tell people how to raise their children. He didn’t know if I had a medical issue that prevented me from breastfeeding, or if I had milk at all. What if I’d had a mastectomy? He had no idea, but decided to throw his self-righteous, ignorant comment out there instead of being supportive, or, if he couldn’t manage that, simply silent.

I know a few people who have had to feed their babies formula when they didn’t really want to, and they don’t take the decision lightly. There are also people who don’t agonize over the decision; they simply do it because it is the right choice for them. The fact is that modern formula is just as nutritious as breastmilk, just without the antibodies that breastmilk has. Plenty of babies thrive on it. So while I still feel and acknowledge that human breastmilk is the best food for human babies, there are legitimate reasons why people choose to give their babies other food.

There are some pretty militant people out there when it comes to breastfeeding (I’m not even going to go into the whole vegetarianism part of the comment), but no one, not even a baby’s father, has the right to tell a mother what to do with her own breasts. It is a mother’s choice what is best for her and her baby, and sometimes she has to make a tough decision when her baby’s health is at stake.

So I want to say thank you to all the people who made supportive and helpful comments, and send a big UP YOURS to anyone who doesn’t stop to think before they post about what their comment might actually mean to the person receiving it. Although “Friend” is a loose definition in the Facebook world, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t act like a true friend when posting comments.

To end on a positive note, although Bubble is still only slowly gaining weight, since her two first teeth popped this week, she’s been much happier and her appetite seems to be slowly on the increase. We’re back on dairy now (to see if there is any adverse reaction after taking a break) and with a bit of luck things will get back on track soon.