What’s The Big Sucking Deal?
My mother told me that I stopped “wetting the bed” when I was about nine months old. Apparently, I was so disgusted by the feel of damp pampers, that as soon as I “had to go” I cried up a storm. To this day, mommy swears no other baby was potty trained faster than her first-born daughter. But it would take her almost another year to wean me off breastfeeding. Apparently, I made up for all the time she didn’t have to change my diapers by clinging to her bosom for far longer than she would have hoped. From the stories she and other relatives have told me, I consumed enough breast milk to render me an addict. With such over indulgence, it’s a wonder I’m not now among the 75 percent of black adults in the US who are lactose intolerant.
My mother stopped breastfeeding me well over three decades ago and she proudly recalls that she often did so in public – just like millions of women throughout history. It is a natural occurrence I see whenever I’m back home in the Caribbean and even here in Brooklyn. I mean, what is so unnatural about a healthy lactating mother feeding her baby the milk her body created for that purpose? Read more…
Island Soul City Dreams 