Feminist Parenting: Fighting the Doctor

Below is an essay written as part of Feminist Underground's series on feminist parenting.

For us, it started when I got pregnant.

The condescending comments, the nurses who wanted to keep my husband out of the exam room, the pushing of unnecessary procedures.

The birth itself went smoothly, thanks to our partner-coached childbirth classes and our amazing doula, but even so I ended up with an episiotomy that could probably have been avoided, and an infection caused by unnecessary antibiotics that I hadn't wanted in the first place.

Then when we went in for our first visit after the birth, we told the doctor that my husband would be having a vasectomy.

"Well," she said, "You should really wait a year, just in case, you know, something happens."

I was so blind-sided by the suggestion that a) she could veto our reproductive health choices, and b) that our daughter could be easily replaced if she died, that I didn't say anything. My husband got his vasectomy a few months later.

By my daughter's 12-month well-baby visit, we had caught on. We lied to the doctor.

After the weighing and measuring, the inquisition began.

“How many meals does she eat a day? She really ought to be eating at least two meals a day of solid food,” the doctor said.

“She probably eats about two meals a day,” I said, knowing full well she really only got one real meal a day (and lots of snacks).

“She’s very active,” said the doctor, “Is she still breastfeeding?”

Now here was a question I could answer honestly! Our HMO and doctor were very pro-breastfeeding, and had encouraged us to breastfeed, provided lactation consultants, discounts on breast pumps, etc., so I felt confident with this one.

“Yes, we’re still breastfeeding,” I said proudly.

“You need to work on weaning.”

I sat there in shock. After a year of strong breastfeeding encouragement I was suddenly supposed to immediately wean her?

“Well, we were planning to let her self-wean when…” I started.

The doctor cut me off in mid-sentence. “Is she sleeping through the night yet?”

“No,” I said, guiltily wondering if that was somehow my fault.

“That’s because of the breastfeeding; it doesn’t fill their stomachs enough. You also need to move her into a crib,” she said, looking at us significantly, “You need to be able to get more time as a couple. Move her into her own room if you can.”

Jesus Christ, I thought, is she actively trying to destroy any chance of sleep for me? As a co-sleeper, all I had to do during the night was shift a little bit, let her latch on, and drift back into sleep. With a crib and a bottle I would need to fully wake up, get a bottle ready, walk into another room and soothe her back to sleep. And since she wasn’t used to waiting for food during the night, my daughter would have plenty of time to get herself worked into a fit before I got there.

And who was she to tell us with that knowing look that my husband and I needed “more time as a couple”? When did my baby’s pediatrician get a say in our sex life?

I nodded and smiled.

I work for a women’s rights organization, I’ve been a professional activist for over ten years, I should have this shit down. But I froze.

I guess we’re just so trained to listen to the doctor, taught that the doctor knows best. But you know what? No one knows my daughter the way that her father and I do, no one. The doctor may know babies better than we do, but we know our baby.

Dealing with this hostility to our parenting choices from a source that I expected to be supportive has forced me to look at all the ways that mothers get caught in a web of societal expectations and conflicting demands. Nothing we do ever seems to be right, or good enough. Stay-at-home parents are lazy, parents who work outside the home are neglectful, and work-at-home parents are too busy multi-tasking to do either job right. And for all that every politician stumps about how much family matters, we still don't have the things that would truly support working families, like paid family leave, or state-sponsored child care, or even a freakin' bathroom at the local playground (we're potty-training now, so lack of bathrooms is a serious issue)!

As a society, we speak out of both sides of our mouths when it comes to kids. "Children are our future," but the future isn't worth funding. We get endless lessons in what we're doing wrong, and no praise or recognition for the hard work of parenting. We call parenting a job, but we don't respect it as one. We're fed reports on how bad TV is for kids right alongside ads for children's videos. I've decided to do my part to end the hypocrisy by telling my doctor the truth about my parenting choices, and defending them.

Since then, our doctor visits have become a lot less comfortable, but a lot more satisfying. We stuck to our delayed immunization schedule, and I was able to speak up when the pediatrician criticized our non-punitive discipline choices. For the record, at 25 months we still breastfeed regularly (and I have no time for people who can't deal with the reality of breastfeeding), and she now sleeps through the night with no problems.

Comments

[la pobre habladora]

Hello! I've put up a post discussing this one over at The Feminist Underground... thanks for being a part of the Feminist Parenting project. I would say series, but with the computer problems I've been having throwing off my posting schedule, its been a bit random. Sorry about the delays and keep us informed if you have any more post that could be included!

[Maplin]

Thank you for taking out time to share this with all of us, we have been relying on your posts a lot, you have been more than helpful.
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