Mommy’s Opinion

I may be late to the party on this one, but I had to have my say.  Do you remember Rabbi Shmuley Boteach?  He’s the guy from TLC’s Shalom in the Home.  Although I have never seen that show before, I have seen him on Dr. Phil in the past, and I have usually agreed with his point of view.

Not. Any. More.

I came across this article called “Moms Don’t, Forget to Feed Your Marriages” today.  The tag line says “Why nurturing a passionate marriage is more important than breastfeeding”.  Now, let me start off by saying I essentially agree with this premise.  I firmly believe that my number one earthly love should be my husband.  I made a vow to love him for my entire life, and in doing so, I made him the most important thing in my life.  Even though it may seem easier to love my son more, that is not how my priorities should be.  This is not to say that I don’t love my baby – I love him SO much!  But I have to work at loving my husband even more than that.

I recognize that as a new mom, it is SO easy to love my little bundle of preciousness.  Cameron is so dependant on me and he just soaks up love so easily and he is just so cute that it is so easy to give him all of my time, energy, and affections.  I’m working on it.  But that just proves how much MORE I have to put into my husband, because I promised him that I would when I committed my life to him.

So, I don’t disagree with the point that the Rabbi is trying to get across in his article.  What I do have a problem with is how he tells women to go about it.

Obviously, breast-feeding is not the same as carrying on an extramarital affair. But when a mother gives her breasts to her son and takes them away from her husband, the effect on the marriage can feel the same.

According to Rabbi Boteach, I am committing the cardinal sin of marriage by breastfeeding my son in front of my husband.  “Public breast-feeding is profoundly de-eroticizing, and I believe that wives should cover up, even when they nurse their babies in their husband’s presence.”  Here lies my main problem with this article.  Being a good wife, in my opinion, does not mean I have to constantly be sexy.  If I am to live my life according the the principles laid out by this article however, my primary priority in life would be to constantly satisfy my husband’s every sexual desire.

On one hand, this isn’t a bad thing.  On the other, it speaks to an issue that I have seen come up in faith communities and it gets my blood boiling.  Sex is not one directional.  It is not the woman’s job to continually satisfy her husbands needs and the husband’s job to let his needs be met.  This leads down a dangerous path where husbands feel that they have the right to seek out gratification elsewhere if their wife isn’t doing an adequate job.  And somehow, if the man seeks gratification elsewhere, it is the woman’s fault for breastfeeding her baby in public.

If I were writing an article to new parents trying to figure out how to nurture a passionate marriage, I would speak to the husband as well as the wife.  I would point out that a woman’s body has just been through a ridiculously traumatic experience.  They no longer feel the same about themselves.  They have been ripped open and sewn back together, and this early on still do not feel back to normal.  They have extra jiggles here and there, and angry stretch marks all over their bodies.  Many women do not feel attractive after they have given birth.  Many women fear being intimate because of the pain.  The solution to this is not for the woman to suck it up, cover up, use make up then make your husband feel gratified.  Maybe the husband needs to do a little work here too.  Maybe he needs to go the extra mile to make the wife feel attractive, wanted, and desirable.

Furthermore, breastfeeding should not be vilified but encouraged!  Women should not be told to cover up in front of the men that they are most intimate and comfortable with.  Instead, women should feel free to nurse wherever and whenever she needs to, without feeling the public backlash that this article reinforces.

I know that I need to work on putting my marriage first.  I know that I do not do this perfectly.  I know that I need to encourage passion and intimacy in my marriage, even if it is the last thing I want to do right now.  But I will not stop nursing in front of my husband.  And I will not accept that my role as a wife is to constantly be erotic.  I can be both a woman and the mother of his children, and I hope that my husband can see me as both of these things.

**Edited to add: Turns out that this article was written about four years ago, but was recently reposted on beliefnet, bringing a flood of criticism once more.  After the first wave of criticism in 2006, Rabbi Shmuley wrote a response article (edited to add on January 1, 2015: This response is no longer on his site and cannot be linked).  In reality, I get his point, which he states a little clearer in his response article.  I stand by my criticism of the way he went about making that point, and I still feel like Rabbi Shmuley is too much on the defensive to really see that some of what he said appeared misogynistic: “But OK, if I was wrong, I’ll admit it.”**

(There will not be a Cameron picture today.  Although he’s been looking cute as a button the past few days, I have very few photos of him.  Plus, I would feel awkward posting a picture of Cam right after this discussion above.)