{"id":56,"date":"2010-06-08T13:01:52","date_gmt":"2010-06-08T13:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/2010\/06\/comments-on-my-real-views-on-breastfeeding-children.html"},"modified":"2010-06-08T13:01:52","modified_gmt":"2010-06-08T13:01:52","slug":"comments-on-my-real-views-on-breastfeeding-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/2010\/06\/comments-on-my-real-views-on-breastfeeding-children.htm","title":{"rendered":"Comments on My Real Views on Breastfeeding Children"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear friends,<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Over the weekend our office received many emails from angry women saying I had attacked breast-feeding. One woman even said I had equated breast-feeding with adultery, which has to be one of the most flagrant acts of misrepresentation I have ever encountered.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

In truth, the article they were quoting, which they said was new, was written four years ago in June, 2006. Even then it was severely misrepresented, so a few months later, in August 2006, I wrote this response below, portraying my real views on the importance of both breastfeeding and marriage.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Should the need arise, I will write an even newer response so that my views are in no way misrepresented.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n


\n<\/p>\n


<\/i><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n


<\/b><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

By Rabbi Shmuley
\nBoteach<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

?This past June (2006) I wrote a
\ncolumn and became the anti-Christ, which, in itself, is quite a feat for a
\nJewish rabbi. To be sure, in my life I have not hesitated to be controversial
\nwhen the situation warranted. But to become, in the eyes of my devoted readers,
\nthe twin brother of Saddam Hussein over a straightforward article on
\nbreastfeeding was, to say the least, unexpected.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

But OK, if I was wrong, I’ll admit
\nit. True, as many of you will point out, I’ve never been wrong before. But I
\nam, after all, human, that is, unless you’re one of my breastfeeding critics,
\nin which case I am a bushy-bearded, one-eyed Cyclops.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

But first the facts.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

The column I wrote was in response to
\na New York Times report on the benefits of breastfeeding for babies. I noted
\nthat while no one disagrees that breastfeeding is much better for a baby than
\nformula, as a marital counselor I had seen that in some marriages, admittedly a
\nminority, breastfeeding could come between a husband and wife, its incessant
\ndemands serving as an impediment to romance. For many couples it meant not
\nbeing able to go out on a date without the baby for months, and having the baby
\nsleep in the matrimonial bed, with the inevitable deleterious effect on the
\ncouples’ love life. My solution: if breastfeeding created distance between you
\nand your husband, don’t feel guilty about supplementing the breast with the
\nbottle.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Sounds innocuous, right? But the
\nsuggestion opened the floodgates of hell. Women who admired me as a lifelong
\nchampion of women’s rights, in books like ‘Hating Women’ and ‘Kosher Sex,’ felt
\nbetrayed. They were now calling me a misogynist because, in their mind, I took
\nthe side of male chauvinists whose selfish claim on their wives’ time imperiled
\ntheir children, and whose need to eroticize their wives’ breasts took
\nprecedence over the role of the breast in feeding a child.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Commentary on the article exploded
\nall over the internet with the inevitable misquotation and misrepresentation.
\nSuddenly, I was reading how I had dismissed breastfeeding as unsexy and
\ndestructive to marriages. Women’s breasts’ don’t belong to their husbands, was
\nhow critics castigated the article. One woman wrote a Blog saying,
\n“Breastfeeding does not hurt marriages. Selfish fathers hurt marriages.”
\nLess charitably, one blogger claimed that I had equated breastfeeding with
\nadultery, which is one of the stupidest things I have ever read.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

My article, of course, said none of
\nthese things. So here is my real position.<\/span><\/p>\n

?Firstly, I absolutely believe that
\nwomen should breastfeed. My wife has breastfed every single one of our nine
\nchildren. It was good for her, it was good for the children, and it good for
\nour marriage because it endeared my wife to me to see the extent of her
\ndevotion to our children. When we took a cross-country RV trip this summer, I
\ntold my wife repeatedly that she should avail herself, on the long daily
\ndrives, of breastfeeding our baby completely rather than giving him the
\noccasional bottle which she had begun. I ?believe that a woman’s first choice
\nshould always<\/i> be to breastfeed?<\/span><\/p>\n

So why did I write my article?
\nBecause when we make breastfeeding an outright obsession<\/i>, we cause harm
\nto those families for whom the practice is a hardship. For instance, many
\nfamilies are absolutely dependent on a wife’s income for their basic
\nsustenance. So a few weeks after having a baby, a mom will often be forced to
\nreturn to work. She will feel extremely guilty at not being able to breastfeed
\nduring the day. Should we dig in the knife by telling her that she is harming
\nher children? Since formula, albeit as a lesser alternative, exists, should we
\nmake her feel that quitting a necessary job must be prioritized over her rent
\nand food money for her children? To be sure, it would be much better, of
\ncourse, if she were to stay home with her baby. But for many women, that is
\nsimply not an option. And yes, I realize that she can express milk. But for
\nmany women, who are already overrun with too many job and household responsibilities,
\nthe added chore of having to express milk prior to rushing to work, after
\ngetting their other kids ready for school and making lunch, becomes the straw
\nthat breaks the camel’s back.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Then there are all the women who
\nsimply cannot breastfeed do to medical considerations. Many moms simply don’t
\nhave enough milk. And every time they read one of these article about how cruel
\nit is not to breastfeed, they feel like inadequate mothers.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore, however much people will
\ndisagree with and condemn me, I have counseled many marriages where
\nbreastfeeding became an impediment to romance. We can criticize those husbands
\nall we want for not being understanding about their children’s need to be
\nsuckled. And in those counseling sessions, I did. I made it clear to the men
\nthat love and romance is holistic, encompassing a spouse as woman, wife, and
\nmother. But in the final analysis if a husband and wife<\/i> both<\/i>
\nagree that the little time they have together is being compromised by the
\nconstantly demands of breastfeeding, then it is for them to make the choice of
\nan alternative, without those wives being made to feel like  they are
\nhorrendous moms.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

In my article, I gave the example of
\na couple who appeared on Shalom in the Home,<\/i> even though the
\nbreastfeeding aspect was not included in their on-air story. Their marriage was
\npassionate and their attraction strong until the birth of their baby boy. This
\nshould not surprise us since a Harvard study indicates that sexual activity
\nbetween a husband and wife decreases by about 74 percent in the first year
\nafter the birth of a child. What increased the loss of eroticism for this
\nparticular couple was that the mother nursed her baby constantly, so much so
\nthat the husband no longer felt he even had a place in their marital bed and
\nmoved into a spare bedroom.<\/span><\/p>\n

?When I met them the baby was already
\na year old. The mom told me that her sex and romantic life with her husband had
\natrophied because of her being constantly on-call to breastfeed. I told her
\nthat in her case, having nursed the baby for an entire year, there was nothing
\nwrong with putting him on the bottle some of the time and that the family would
\nbe better served if the marriage was brought back from the brink. Many readers
\nassailed me for that advice, arguing that I should have told the husband to
\nstop being so selfish and put the interests of his children first. I would
\nrespond that the husband felt that he had done so for an entire year, but now
\nwanted to share intimacy with his wife and felt unable to do so because the
\nbaby was always in their bed. I believe strongly that children should have
\ntheir own beds and should not be sleeping with their parents. I am adamant
\nabout this advice, what hatred is shown to me for it.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

In this couple’s case, the wife would
\nnurse the baby in bed and both would fall asleep. I am, in general, a great
\nopponent of children sleeping in the matrimonial bed because, first, it is
\ninappropriate, and second, it prevents parents from being lovers, and a bad and
\nloveless marriage is ultimately detrimental to the children who are a product
\nof that marriage. Giving up breastfeeding was the right choice for this
\ncouple<\/i> because the wife herself complained that she was too tired for sex
\nsince she was up most of the night feeding. She also said that she and her
\nhusband had stopped going out together on dates because she had to be back to
\nfeed the baby. In the first year after the baby’s birth, they did not go out
\nalone together even once. When she put the baby on the bottle, her love life
\nwas restored and she and her husband were happier.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Who has the right to judge this
\ncouple, and condemn the parents for being selfish, when their only desire was
\nto recapture the affection that had produced the baby in the first place?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

While I am a staunch advocate of breastfeeding,
\nand would not recommend the above advice for most couples, including myself, if
\nforced to choose between a couple’s romantic life and supplementing
\nbreastfeeding with the bottle, I would advocate the bottle. Period. And I will
\nendure the withering criticism that I have of late to stand by this advice. I
\nam in the business of saving families and reversing the out of control American
\ndivorce rate. The best thing for children is to see their parents in love
\nrather than the children becoming yo-yos of a divorced household, pulled
\nbetween Mom and Dad every other weekend.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Even so, breastfeeding remains the
\ncorrect decision for the vast majority of couples and husbands should go out of
\ntheir way to support and encourage their wives in making that choice. However
\nin a case where both spouses <\/i>agree that breastfeeding has come between them,
\nthen the baby will survive perfectly well on a bottle.<\/span><\/p>\n

?I have written many times that the
\ngreatest gift a man can give his children is to love their mother, and the
\ngreatest gift a woman can give her children is to love their father. In a
\nhealthy marriage, horrible as it may sound, the relationship comes before the
\nchildren. In an unhealthy marriage, the parents put the children before each
\nother. This, as an marital counselor can tell you, simply doesn’t work.
\nHusbands and wives with small children should feel no sense of guilt getting a
\nbabysitter once a week so that they can be a man and a woman on a date again.
\nAnd they should try and go away at least one, and perhaps, twice a year
\ntogether, even though it means leaving the children with family or friends.
\nMarriages have needs to, and if you starve your marriage it will not survive.
\nPeriod.<\/span><\/p>\n

?As for the many women who were
\npuzzled by my advice that when they breastfeed they should do so modestly and
\ntry, even a little, to cover up, this is consistent with my advice, given in my
\nbook ‘Kosher Adultery’ and elsewhere, that even after marriage husbands and
\nwives should not parade around the bedroom naked for fear that overexposure to
\neach other’s bodies could invite erotic boredom. Yes, the breast is an organ
\nbeautifully designed by G-d for the nurturance of a baby. But even as it
\nbecomes an infant’s milksource, it should always retain its erotic allure.
\nSurely every woman is, and wishes to remain, attractive in every phase of life,
\nand surely a husband who truly loves his wife will always show her how
\nindescribably beautiful she is to him – as mother, wife, and woman.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the
\ninternational best-selling author of 23 books, is the host of TLC’s Shalom in
\nthe Home and ‘The Shmuley Show’ on WABC in NYC. His new book ‘The Kosher
\nSutra,’ is published by HarperOne. His website is <\/span><\/i>www.shmuley.com<\/span><\/i><\/a>. Follow him on
\nTwitter @RabbiShmuley.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear friends, Over the weekend our office received many emails from angry women saying I had attacked breast-feeding. One woman even said I had equated breast-feeding with adultery, which has to be one of the most flagrant acts of misrepresentation I have ever encountered.   In truth, the article they were quoting, which they said…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":203,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-relationships","category-values"],"yoast_head":"\nComments on My Real Views on Breastfeeding Children - Rabbi Shmuley Unleashed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/2010\/06\/comments-on-my-real-views-on-breastfeeding-children.htm\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Comments on My Real Views on Breastfeeding Children - Rabbi Shmuley Unleashed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dear friends, Over the weekend our office received many emails from angry women saying I had attacked breast-feeding. 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