A work friend of my husband’s evidently has seen my “WILL WRITE POSTS FOR WINE” sign because she asked him to ask me to write a post about Gisele Bundchen’s recent remarks about breastfeeding. I’ve asked my husband to ask her to pay the wine directly to me and not to pass it on via him because he is likely to have drunk the lot before the bottle even gets through the front door. Somehow I don’t think the message got through because I’ve yet to receive the wine. Or maybe she doesn’t actually know about the ‘FOR WINE’ part of my writing. However, I remain hopeful. And just a little less drunk than I would otherwise like.
Dear Gisele,
Thank you so much for sharing your recent thoughts regarding a world-wide law to ensure mothers breastfeed their babies for the first six months. You’re obviously an Ideas Person and as one Ideas Person to another, I applaud you.
However, I remain a little uncertain of how such a law might be enforced. My husband likes to think that there will be an international congress of topless women. I, personally, choose to imagine teams of special-force Lactating Ninjas creeping around after dark, conducting surprise inspections of recycling bins to make sure there are no empty SMA GOLD tins in there and squeezing new mother’s breasts to check that there’s adequate flow.
I mean, seriously, Gisele. What the fuck? Okay, okay, I know it’s likely that your comments were taken out of context. You probably said something much more innocent like women who don’t breastfeed should be nailed to the front doors of the maternity hospitals as an example to one and all that Breast is Best.
Now, don’t get me wrong, Gisele. I am pro-breastfeeding. I really am. I even was a card-carrying member of the Australian Breastfeeding Association and once had the uncomfortable experience of hosting an ABA meeting in my lounge room a few days after The Pixie had unexpectedly and suddenly self-weaned at 14 months. And yes, I was sad she had self-weaned, but not so sad that I was willing to pay $5 for the ABA brochure about ‘Relactation’ that they tried to sell me . After all, I was sick’n’pregnant with Tiddles McGee at the time and felt that ye olde “tandem feeding” was probably best left to other, more robust people or The Goodies cycling their way through a McDonald’s drive-thru.
Anyway, I have always known it was easy for me to be pro-breastfeeding because I had two fully-operational mama-jugs to offer my three healthy children in the comfort and safety of my first world home that I shared with my loving, supportive partner. Just like you, Gisele. Well not just like you because, unlike you, I wasn’t modeling swimwear six weeks after the birth of my first child. That shit ain’t right.
But did you ever stop to think that not all people might be as fortunate as you, Gisele? There are a whole myriad of reasons why women might not breastfeed, many of them completely of their control. Just as there are a myriad of reasons for why women might not be able to give birth vaginally.
Apparently you never thought for a moment that you wouldn’t be able to have a natural birth. “Billions of other women have come before me and have done this – so why can’t I do it?’ you reportedly said to Harper’s Bazaar.
Sure, I once thought I could do it, too. Turned out, after twenty-eight hours, I couldn’t and I had to say hello to my doctor’s friend ‘Mister Knife’. Of course, had you turned up at this point to share the story of your eight-hour labour enhanced by the power of meditation, I would probably have shown you the colour of both my fists and said “MEDITATE ON THESE, BITCH”.
I mean, to be completely honest here, Gisele, you were much more likeable when you were going out with Leonardo DiCaprio for a living. Fact.
Love,
The NDM
PS. In case you can’t tell, I did all the graphics for this letter while still under the influence of the drugs my oral surgeon gave me when he drilled into my skull.
Not Drowning, Mothering. 
You put into words (and pictures!) all of my ‘in-my-head’ responses to ‘Dear Gisele’ – completely saving me the bother of posting on some web forum discussion thread. Now all I need do is link to this post with a “In your face” prefix…Ta for that.
See? I look after you, my dear KC. I’m nice like that to all my friends. Just not to Gisele Bundchen.
So that explains the awesomeness of those graphics. Shazam!
So when are you going to post this letter to Ms Bundchen? Seriously, it needs to be done.
As I just said to someone else over on twitter, I think Gisele is probably too busy right now to be reading blog posts and open letters. Something about having to get her foot out of her mouth (a meditation pose, apparently).
I also love that it’s just been revealed that she only breastfeed for 3 weeks and admits she probably should’ve “persevered a bit longer” with breastfeeding. You think?
Quick! Someone nail her to the front doors of the nearest maternity hospital!
Phew it wasn’t as scary as I thought. It was bloody brilliant. Love coming here.
You’re welcome any time. I don’t bite. Much.
I had all 3 of my kids by c-section and breastfed for a grand total of 5 weeks (one lucky bugger got 3 of those 5 weeks to himself). Excuse me while I go and deal with my obese, sick, ADHD, slow, less intelligent children. Oh hang on, they’re all JUST FINE! Great! That means I’ll be free to go around to Gisele’s place with you. I’ll bring my wonder twins too.
Man, if you’d managed to breastfeed those healthy kids of yours to the six month mark, they might be like some kind of Super Species, living longer lives, with extra speed and agility and maybe even special psychic powers. Oh, hang on, I seem to have returned to the topic of ‘Twilight’ again.
By the way, I’m now wondering if ‘wonder twins’ might have been a better euphemism for breasts?
Dear NDM
That was one of your best posts….I loved it….made me laugh….brilliant!!!
You’re very welcome. I always say “If you can’t think of anything nice to say, you should just make some crap graphics and make people laugh”.
Brilliant! Such a ridiculous statement – even if it was taken out of context.
@lelah – that wasn’t her that gave up after 3 weeks it was some other random model who opted not to breastfeed because of the paparazzi
Oops… must have misread that when I was reading the article on my iPhone whilst breastfeeding during the middle of the night. True story.
I think it was a case of wishful thinking, dear lelah.
Whoops! I’d better cancel that order for having her nailed to the maternity hospital doors… Although… on second thoughts…
Dear NDM,
Thank you for being a voice of reason in this matter. Perhaps Gisele was under the influence of some drugs her oral surgeon gave her when she made those comments, but someone needed to remind her that some mothers, like me, were unfortunately not blessed with “fully-operational mama-jugs” and that most of us do the best we can with what we have, physically and mentally. That someone is you, NDM, with the aid of your excellent graphics.
Love,
LSK
Dear LSK,
I think if Gisele had taken some of those drugs, she might have made *more* sense, quite frankly.
By the way, I’m chuffed you’ve referred to me as “the voice of reason”. As you can imagine, it doesn’t happen very often.
Love
The NDM
Thanks, NDM. You’ve made it all ok. Funnily enough, one of the gis-bits that affronted my motherly person more than any other was the part where she got up and made pancakes for (that cheating dawg) tom and her the day after her son was born. first of all, big effing deal. second of all, shut up. wanna know what i was doing the day after my first cihld was born? blimping it up in a hospital bed looking like Roseanne after a meth session (bad reaction to the cocktail of drugs) with a drip, a big mat in my hair and a catheter… well, you get the picture. Pancakes. Bah.
And no, I didn’t know about the wine, which is a shame cos i just drank the last of our supplies last night. But now that I do know, it shall be forthcoming.
I know EXACTLY what you mean about the pancakes thing. I mean, for one thing, hasn’t she got People to do that kind of thing for her? What’s the point of being a supermodel if you have to make your own pancakes the day after you’ve given birth??
Totally stupid.
PS. Looking forward to that wine.
Thanks so much for writing this! Giselle has become beyond annoying with all her natural birth and breastfeeding comments. She comes across as self-centered, ignorant, and even worse, as holier-than-thou. Women should support one another and whatever parenting decisions they willingly or unwillingly make.
Yes, it’s a shame that so many people treat childbirth and breastfeeding like some kind of competitive sport. We’re all doing the best we can with what we’ve got! And, unfortunately, what *I’ve* got isn’t fit to be seen in a bikini six YEARS after the birth of my first child.
Is that Gisele hiding behind the mask of the Boobie Checker? I applaud her for doing all those spot checks herself. Glad she managed the whole vaginal birth – would’ve been a bitch to model a bikini six weeks after a C-section. The Welcome Smile takes on a whole new meaning.
I think the real Gisele’s thighs are much slimmer – apparently she puts it down to her aerobic meditation and the organic wholegrain pancakes she makes post-birth.
Hmmm… I wonder if she mixed the placenta in with the pancake batter?
I once nearly wrote a letter to Salma Hayek on a related subject. And by “wrote a letter”…..
I don’t want to open up Pandora’s box here, but what was your stance on Salma breastfeeding a baby that wasn’t her own?
I think that there are many men who would pay good money to suckle at Salma’s bosom – my friend MM evidently being one of them.
LOL. Hilarious. I totally missed what your friend MM was really saying 😀
Personally Salma rocked my world when she breastfed that baby.
LisaNReynolds
Absolutely freakin’ hilarious. I laughed so much I lactated.
Seriously though, I am genuinely thrilled to hear of a woman having a trouble-free natural birth followed by a smooth start to breastfeeding. We can’t ask for more than that. But really, she’s one of the lucky ones. I for one didn’t give birth in the middle of a sun salute (although I did spend a lot of time in child pose – actually that could have been the foetal position:). G.Bud shouldn’t suggest that birth should be that simple just because women have been doing it since the dawn of time.
I’m also as pro-breastfeeding as they come (fed my first until he was 2 years 7 months, and am still feeding my 11 month old daughter) but am always supportive of however a baby is fed (maybe not so much if it’s Bundy & Coke). Not surprisingly I’ve been on the flipside where I’m told I breastfeed too long. Of course I don’t give a supermodel shit. And if anyone tries to tell me their breastfeeding ‘opinions’ again l’ll squirt them in the eye 😀
You are totally right. It *is* wonderful that she had an uncomplicated labour and that she was able to turn her milk on like her breasts were some kind of tap. It’s also great she was able to make her husband placenta-flavoured pancakes (see comments above – I’m not sure where I’m going with all that).
I guess there’s a difference between educating and inspiring people and being a smug cow. Just sayin’.
Also I think if someone were to have told me I’d been breastfeeding “too long”, I’d suggest they’d been an interfering busybody “too long” – and THEN I’d squirt them in the eye with my foremilk.
Totally agree. Her comments are far too smug to appeal to anyone who isn’t a meditating, homebirthing, pancake making supermodel. And according to my calculations that is 99% of the female population 😀
Not qualified to comment on this one, as I only have man boobs. Love the enforcer outfit, though. Do you wear that to the supermarket?………
Only when I’m doing routine breast checks of hot young women hanging out near the dairy aisle. (That’s adding fuel to the fire, isn’t it?)
Now there’s a whole blog right there.
Yep.
Look, I’m in the *managed a natural birth, breastfed for “too long”* camp, and consider myself bloody lucky that I got to make those choices!
I DON’T, unlike Ms Bund, think it’s my duty to make other people feel inadequate for not living up to my frankly awesome standards. 😉
Also, I think she is setting women’s rights back decades by that ‘got up the day after and cooked pancakes’ shit (of any flavour)…why the hell wasn’t her lazy douchebag of a partner cooking the damn things?
Still chuckling, m’dear! Post it, post it, post it…!
Yes, indeed. I’m definitely wondering where so-called “Tom Brady” was on Pancake Day. If he was getting a sleep-in, I’d be pretty cross.
Hey, I’m probably not the first one to say this, but if they double-barrel their names, they’ll be the “Brady-Bunchden”.
Them’s comedy gold.
I personally am a big fan of sweeping statements made by genetically freaklicious supermodels about how to have, birth, and rear children. Totally makes sense to simply do whatever they say, because it has to be right…right?
Yes, just because they are incredibly beautiful and skinny means they are natural role-models for all aspects of life. I, personally, am waiting for Gisele to start offering advice on tax returns, holiday planning and ethical dilemmas.
distracted by the Gisele article you kindly linked us to. What a journo, eh. This sentence is my personal wacky favourite: “The model, who is married to American football star Tom Brady, got up to make pancakes a day after her first child, son Benjamin Rein, was born and was modelling swimwear just six weeks later.” The nuns who taught me grammar would recommend dividing that one into several sentences. Too many ideas in the one sentence, man.
I love it that, even though you are distracted by the Gisele article, you still come back to comment about it here. Such a loyal reader.
BTW, I expect the nuns who taught you grammar also would tell Gisele to get dressed and go tend to her baby.
is that a maternity bra, Gisele?
I’m assuming she was just modeling swimwear and underwear without any underwire – otherwise she might have interrupted her milk flow and her ‘chi’.
Here now after reading your post – and bravo, lady. A rollicking rant. Particularly love the bit about the breastfeeding association meeting you hosted in your own loungeroom (ARE YOU CRAZY?)
Yes. Yes, I am crazy.
I would have been thrown in the stocks for sure as I never really managed to breastfeed any of my three kids. It was devastating to me and cows like her don’t make it any easier.
I wrote about this on PowderRoomGrafitti and came up with what will surely be a ground-breaking piece of legal defence work when this law is passed.
“Diminished Mammaries”. You have to be able to prove that no matter how hard you tried, your boobs just didn’t produce the goods. In my case, I would win hands down as my bra size never changed throughout any pregnancy. Bit of a red flag right there.
Not that I’ve been over-thinking this at all.
“Diminished Mammaries”? Genius. Pure legal genius.
I expect the courts will be so tied up with Failure To Breastfeed cases that they will have to just let all the murderers and rapists go free. It’ll be a win for justice all round.
Sometimes even having the best mamma-jugs doesn’t mean you can breast feed for 6 months. I breastfed our first two for about 12 – 18 months. Number three on the other hand, was born at 36 weeks, a little vague about the idea of sucking, and was fed by a tube. too easy …wayyyyy to easy. Even when she worked out sucking she wasn’t going to go to all the trouble of sucking it out of a boob. she’d pout her lips in the vicinity and wait for the milk to ‘magically’ appear in her stomach a’la tube feeding. Even a bottle was a bit to much like hard work for the lazy little madam.
She was kept in hospital for WEEKS waiting for her to breastfeed while the maternity nazis – i mean NURSES -tried to forcefeed her my tit. Didn’t work. eventually I pointed out to them that I had two other kids at home that needed feeding too, and I could no longer make the 1 1/2 hr round trip to the hostipal 6 times every 24 hours (nothing like a phone call at 2am to say your baby is awake, hungry and crying and get here NOW) just so i could dangle my rapidly deflating tit in front of a disinterested baby for an hour and if they didnt release her they would be feeding her themselves.
So far she seems to be coping with life even though she was a bottle fed baby. she doesn’t have the titty issues that her older brothers have(boobs, hee hee …ohhh my doodle has gone all funny), but I’m thinking that may be a gender thing.
I want to say something in response to this story, except I’m not sure what the appropriate thing to write is. I had a baby at 33 weeks and went through some of the same difficulties with breastfeeding, BUT I didn’t have all the road trips and 2 children at home as you did at the time so I guess I’m saying …I hear you sista. Well done for getting through that time x
Both my kids were breast addicts in the end and I now have an attractive pair of oven gloves (think it through…) to remind me off that time!
Thanks for sharing your story, paula. At the end of the day, what is ‘best’ for the baby is that the mummy isn’t completely strung out and pulled in all directions.
BTW “boobs, hee hee… ohhh my doodle has gone all funny” made me laugh out loud.
Loved your open letter. I boobyfed all my sprogs, the youngest of 5 clung on for 2 & a half years. While such a ludicrous statement doesn’t really warrant a reply from women living in the real world, this beautiful model living such a privelaged life must not have even the most basic understanding of the metrics involved in this process. A nursing mom needs to be totally zen with all around her. Forcing women by law to breastfeed defeats the ethos entirely
Totally right. One of my husband’s other workmates recently reminded us of the phrase “Scratch a hippy, find a fascist” and it’s totally applicable in this case.
Just realised I used ‘totally’ twice in that comment. Like, totally.
hee hee – I wrote hospital the way my poor wittle bottlefed baby says it – hostipal. oops
We all speak that language fluently and knew *exactly* what you meant.
Love it. Best article on the Bundchen Booby thing I’ve heard all week. x
That’s a big compliment considering how much has been written on the subject. If Giselle ever wished she could be famous for more than her ‘on-off’ relationship with Leo DiC, she’s probably regretting it now.
Top work. Got to love a snarky post with lots of breast feeding and birth choice crossness! Well served I say – hope she of the silly name feels served.
Snarky posts are the funnest ones to write – particularly when high on oral surgery drugs.
No matter what breastfeeding is still the best, mothers keep it up but remember the husbands also needs the breastfeeding not baby’s only, baby’s can go for six months but husbands are continueous.
Is there a strange coded language at work here? I’m a little bit frightened… I think I need a photo of My Little Pony dressed as Princess Leia to make me feel better.
Wow, Anyanwu. If your husband is still feeding continuously through the night, it’s time his ass was weaned.
Perfect NDM. I was hoping you’d respond to darling lit’l Gisele’s Mothering Manifesto and your post couldn’t have been better (or funnier).
Don’t ya just love celebs who’ve been mothers for 5 minutes telling everyone what they should do? Ugh. I hope Ms.Bundchen breastfeeds for long enough that her once splendid boobs end up sagging down to her knees. Just like the rest of us.
p.s. WTF Anyanwu Macdonald C.? We have to breastfeed the husband as well now? You’re making Gisele sound positively sane.
Yeah, baby! Let’s see her roll those flappin’-in-the-wind beauties into a bikini for her next swimsuit shoot!
[…] trust in what their bodies can do? Is it any wonder that fat mothers, living in a culture where the Gisele Bundchens and Angelina Jolies set the bar for maternal aesthetics struggle even more than most to engage in […]
Hi! I loved the post, though i have some disagreements and admit i am a huge Gisele fan. If possible, I’d like a link to read about the thing that she only breastfed for 3 weeks, as when she was in Brazil a reporter went to her hotel to interview her and she had already gotten milk for the baby for the few hours she’d spend at São Paulo Fashion Week (in june). Thanks for the post, lots of laughs here! 😀
Thanks for the comment. I’m curious about your disagreements – was it about whether The Goodies really would ask for fries with their order??
[…] More on Breastfeeding and Moral Outrage from Steph at ladynews, breastfeeding guilt from Nicole at Another Mother and Not Drowning, Mothering on Gisele Bundchen’s thoughts on breastfeeding […]
How could I miss this? Stupid depression. I’ll get you. My new New Year’s resolution is to never miss another NDM post.
[…] was both of those ignorant and insensitive. But possibly 1 mother summed it up most effective in an open letter to the product, asking, “Did you at any time halt to assume that not all men and women may possibly be as […]
[…] to why her statement was both ignorant and insensitive. But perhaps one mom summed it up best in an open letter to the model, asking, “Did you ever stop to think that not all people might be as fortunate as you, […]