I'm writing a book about people's attitudes toward the body--everything from general body image to attitudes about sexuality, fertility, pregnancy, breastfeeding, and raising children with a healthy, relaxed body image--and the more I've read about it, written about it, and thought about it, the more important it seems to support mothers and families so that they can give their children the very best care.
I took the CLC training in November, and was the only guy there, but I was given a round of applause by the women in the group, and when it came time for a group picture, they weren't concerned to have the instructor in the center of the picture, but to have me there instead! It was good to get that kind of support.
I had previously joined several Myspace and Yahoo BF groups, too, just to get a pulse on what was being said, and at first some women were questioning why I was there, especially as a single guy, but I shared my testimony, values, and goals, and by the time the discussions were over, they were actually apologizing to me for being so skeptical and were inviting me to other groups as well!
I have seen that our society's views towards mothers feeding their children, including in public places, is a litmus test of its perversion, and it really is important and vital to send messages to the next generation of what the beauty of life and love and family is all about.
As a 30-year old single male, it’s obviously hard for me to get involved in breastfeeding advocacy, but I am a sincere person who has become thoroughly convinced that the way our society sees the body has to be changed, including how people view the beauty of reproduction and breastfeeding. My website, http://www.rediscoverbreastfeeding.com/, demonstrates my commitment to these values.
My book is a major effort, and I really do hope that it will make a strong impact on a lot of people, but it’s a big book (manuscript is several hundred pages long right now) so it will be at least a few months before it’s ready for publication. It's truly changing my worldview and my life. Awesome stuff.
I am sure it sounds weird to some for a guy to be a CLC, or just to think the way I do, and some people would probably not be able to think of it any other way, but isn't what I'm doing the point of it all?
When we think of men addicted to pornography, or men who do think of breasts or a woman's body only in terms of a man's pleasure, we destine men to failure, because they can't see it as anything other than the way the media portrays it. And men, in turn, are unable to support breastfeeding, and just to respect and appreciate women the way they should, because everything has been sexualized to the point that men can't even focus on the goodness of breastfeeding--they miss the beauty of it all for the turn-on that it could be. And that dynamic, in turn, affects women negatively, because they grow up feeling like they are supposed to keep covered at all costs, and don't feel free to breastfeed in public, or even supported to breastfeed at home in private in some cases. It's so sad. I feel bad for the men and women who never get out of that cycle of seeing the body that pornographic way.
Until I got involved in breastfeeding advocacy and education, I had never in my life heard anyone, male or female, say, "The human body is beautiful, and should be seen as art, and its natural functions, especially regarding reproduction, need to be elevated and understood as the wonderful works of God that they are."
If we ever want men to see a woman's body and not objectify it, and if we want men to stop thinking that the only kind of women that are attractive are the ones with a certain figure, or a figure that is possible only in a woman's teens and twenties, then we doom them to failure. Many of them won't see a breastfeeding woman as beautiful, and even if they do, they will see it only through sexual eyes, in which a woman is "hot" rather than "beautiful, " and her breasts as something to excite him rather than as a way to nourish a precious new life. I still can't get over the fact that I have never heard anyone tell me that there's another way to view the body than the shame-producing one I've always been sold.
For the most part, women have been very encouraging that a man would be involved in stuff like this. As I said above, when I was taking the CLC class last year, the class of thirty women gave me a round of applause for what I was doing. I think they did so because they knew how much of a missing element male involvement is. Women need men's support, and the awesome thing is that when women feel supported in being who they are supposed to be as women, wives, and mothers, they, in turn, are equipped to better support their husbands in all that they are supposed to be.
My primary goal with my book is for us to ask ourselves what kind of parents we should be when we raise our children. What if, instead of a kid being raised to see the way the body is shown on tv, or cartoons, or movies, or car ads in magazines, what if instead little boys great up watching their dad treat their mom like a princess, and what if the boys were invited from the earliest age to watch the beauty of their mom nursing the next baby. And what if that never switched to a mode of "you shouldn't see that," "Don't look," "If you look at that, you're dirty”?
If they could see the body from that elevated perspective, do you know what pornography would look like to them? It would look like graffiti on a Monet. They would know what's worth only $5 and what's worth $25 million, and they'd refuse the false, and want the real--and save themselves years of guilt in the dark, thinking they're all bad, when in reality, their desires are very, very good, but simply need to be understood in the right context, with the right boundaries.
It's amazing: when you bring this stuff out into the light, the bad stuff loses its power. It really does.
What I think will work is sending the clear message to the next generation that they are God's precious art, of overwhelming value, so much so that they wouldn't want to throw themselves away, and they won't want to miss enjoying the beauty of how God made them.
We don't mind throwing away a $2 clay pot when it breaks; we just buy a new one, put a new ribbon around it, and a flower inside it, and start over. But if we knew that the art we were dealing with was priceless, and especially if the Artist were putting hints and metaphors of transcendence into that art, wouldn't we care for it?
And we wonder why kids are cutting themselves these days ...
To me this subject is a paradox, as so much of life is. We have to think really deeply about this stuff, or we'll just perpetuate the same vicious cycles, viciously ashamed of what God is proud of, and if we were proud of it, we wouldn't be more whimsical, we'd be less. We'd take care of our bodies and pursue that reality, real life, where women look the way real women do, and celebrating the body, in the right context and the right way.
I've read a lot about Natural Family Planning, and it amazes me how wonderful the body is. God made the female body with cycles that are mind-boggling, and the extent that most of us guys have ever heard about it is PMS. But it is amazing, and something that would make guys respect women more, and protect them more, if they only took the time to really understand it and see the body as the wonderful creation that it is. Guys don't know the hundredth of it. Actually, from what I've read and the people I've talked to about it, most girls don't know much more, either, in terms of the actual details of what's going on inside them and why.
But it's all so beautiful! Why are we living in such ignorance? Why are we living on such mundane levels, almost like animals, when this transcendence, this elegance, this precious life is right there, in our own bodies and in the bodies of those around us, to be understood, appreciated, and honored?
We are living art. We stare at museum walls with paintings on them, but men and women are living, breathing, walking, reproducing, breastfeeding art. We are worth so much more than we act like we are.
That's why I love the idea of encouraging and helping my wife someday, of protecting and nurturing her in such a way that makes her safe, where she feels like she can take care of her body, and enjoy being a woman, and bring a life into this world, and know that she'll be supported as much as possible by me.
I was talking a few months ago to a woman at work who just returned to work from her maternity leave. She has a three-month old baby at home. This woman looks half the time like she's staring into the cubicle wall, eyes glazed over, and from several talks we've had, she misses her baby at home so much. Her face shows that her heart is there at home, and it's just a shadow of her that's there at work, typing away at a computer. I feel bad for her. She's expressed over and over how much she wants to be home with him.
Maybe that mental picture will offend some people, because they think it hinders a woman, but personally, I believe in what some might call "old-fashioned" values, where a woman has the opportunity, if she desires, to stay at home with her baby. I can't imagine the heart-wrenching that must go on when a woman has been caring for, cuddling, and breastfeeding her baby for several months straight, watching the baby fall asleep on her, warm body to warm body, and to have to exchange that for a computer screen and a grey cubicle.
I don't know about the other men my age who are single, but as for me, when I get married, I will be doing everything I can to help and support my wife in all these areas.
I had a teacher in college whose wife gave birth to a daughter during a semester when I was taking one of his classes, and the first day after he came back, he took an entire class to talk directly to the guys about how when their wives had children, that those guys were to treat their wives like queens (not to say treat them any less good before having kids). I think the ladies in that class wanted to give him applause by the time he was done.
You can probably see how much I care about these subjects, and thus how I could be working on a book that's now hundreds of pages long. But it's so worth it. I wouldn't trade what I'm learning for the world.
I feel like God has been preparing me for twenty years to write this book, and to truly "change my mind" about so many subjects, and I want to do that to the best of my ability, which means getting others' wisdom and feedback.
I want to be the best prepared husband I can be to my future wife, so I read books about Natural Family Planning, and about pregnancy, and breastfeeding, and raising children, and I really do think that despite the misunderstanding it will create with some people, I am honoring God in my desire to appreciate the body the way He would have us do, and that I am interested not in something I shouldn't be, but in something that we all should be, men included, from a healthy perspective.
