Balancing Act

I once posted a comment on a message board about certain people's unnatural approach to parenting and was accused of being so one-sided that I must be raising my kids with a skewed view of the world (although my accuser didn't put it quite that way). I was even on a natural parenting site and totally agreeing with the original poster, so I'm not sure why I was singled out.

A conversation my seven year old initiated last night contradicts that rather excitable (and defensive) person very well. We were watching a show about two families who have sextuplets. Kathleen turned to me and said, "Well, that mom has a good reason to give her babies bottles." She wasn't so "brainwashed" by my views to think that everyone who uses formula is "bad". I've always tried to teach her that there are reasons for people to use formula, but that most people do it because they want to without knowing that it's not the same as breastfeeding. We went on to discuss how hard it would be to nurse that many babies and that she wouldn't be able to make enough milk for all of them because people don't naturally have six at once. I pointed out that another mom of sextuplets I've seen on TV did manage to nurse hers for a while (with bottles of formula to supplement). I mentioned that rarely, a mom dies and formula is needed for her babies, and Kathleen chimed in that adopted babies need it too. I'm proud of the fact that she understands the difference between needing formula and choosing formula. I don't believe that a child whose mother was one-sided and judgemental would have come to that realization at the age of seven.