A Few More Thoughts on Censorship in Social Networking

Okay - I just want to get this out there, and hopefully after this we can all get on with our lives. I'm sorry if I've seen obsessive lately. I guess I have been a little obsessive. But it's like this when it comes to me: I need something to obsess on. When I was in junior high it was being as weird and out there as I could possibly be without getting arrested. High school was all about the drama surrounding boys. After high school was about partying (well, that was high school too, I must admit). When I was pregnant with Gracie, I obsessed on pregnancy so much that I read some 15-18 books on pregnancy and childbirth cover to cover. Then it was me and Jason getting married. I obsessed for 6 months on planning our wedding. I've had lots of little things in the in betweens, but I really need something big to focus on. Currently it's breastfeeding. You know, because it's a huge part of my life right now - just as all the things I've obsessed over in the past have been HUGE parts of my life. Asking me to not talk about breastfeeding (or to tone it down a bit) is the same as asking a woman about to be married not to obsess over her wedding. I'm sorry if it seems to be bordering on fanatacism (is that a word?) but you know what? At least I'm focusing on something that I can make a difference in. It might not be a big difference, but by talking openly about breastfeeding, by nursing in public (not "waving my tits around," as I've heard/seen it referred to in the past) I am hopefully making breastfeeding a little more normal to people. I hope, at least.

As well, every single day I get on Facebook or MySpace I see something someone has posted about Jesus. Now, before everyone gets all up in arms over this topic, let me stop you. I am not against religion (well, I'm against "religion," but that's a whole different post) - I am not against having spiritual beliefs and talking openly about them. Does that mean I want my News Feed on Facebook to be filled with notes on the sermon you attended last Sunday? No. But because I respect what my friends and family have to say, even if I don't agree with it necessarily, I keep my mouth shut. I skip the posts that are clearly religious. It's not that hard to do. Now, I am not trying to compare religion to breastfeeding. I am sure that there are some people out there who would argue that breastfeeding could easily be compared to religion - but I'm not gonna go there. The point is this: if I can respectfully scan over your posts, I would love it if you would do the same for mine. I don't start religious debates (or flat out call someone out for believing in some deity that I don't hold faith in.) Don't do that to me either.

Last, and this kind of goes with some of what I was saying above, if I am a fanatic about breastfeeding, I guess you could say that I am cult-leader fanatic about food. Why do I say this? Let me break this down for you. I counted my posts on Facebook over a period of 2 days. There were ~30 posts (I'm rounding up a little to make it easier to figure) total. Of those posts, 5 were about breastfeeding. 1 of the posts about breastfeeding was prompted by the people on Facebook. 10 posts were about my kids and/or husband. 15 of the posts were about food. "Man, I'm hungry!" ... "I'm making X for dinner. It's gonna be so good!" ... "OMG. Dinner was delish. What's for dessert? Who's bringing ice cream?" etc. So by all rights, if I'm a fanatic for breastfeeding, the damn it, I guess I'm pretty fucking freaky about my food.

Just because I'm posting about something you don't necessarily do or agree with that doesn't mean that you can demean me or make me feel bad for posting about it. I don't do that to you. Please pay me the same respect. And if the idea of breastfeeding bothers you THAT badly, maybe you really should delete me.

*sigh* Okay. I think I am done. For now. In the meantime, I will leave you with this picture and the reminder that this... ...was grown with breastmilk. I don't really see a problem in that. Do you?