not to say a nursing baby is the same as an ill-mannered brat and a nursing mom is equivalent to some trollop flashing a nipple in the park. Psychologically it can be difficult for us to quickly differentiate, or at all, from the revulsion/uneasiness at noisy eating and undressed breasts to gracefully embrace it when the two are suddenly united as some beatific, Circle of Life thing right in our faces.

Then Jacko arrived, after a long labor, and a martial maternity nurse came along to demonstrate how attach him to his mom with the mechanical roughness of a wrench to a lug nut (upon request she was promptly replaced with far nicer nurse.) She was followed by La Leche League’s Mz. Furrlip with her rolling kiosk of books, tapes, lubes, lotions, Tupperware, rubber hats…and machines with gears, nozzles, tubes, whirligigs and what appeared to be little brain transference caps straight out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon. With her whiskery, smile-free face and brusque demeanor I’d wondered why she was allowed to sell her wares in the hospital. Wasn’t breast feeding just as much about love and bonding as it was nutrition? This sour gant was far better suited for abortion protests or working an organic turnip stand. It had gotten very weird