Breast is best, we all know that.  But for how long do we expect to see the benefits of breastfeeding?  Into toddlerhood, childhood, teen years, adulthood?  It seems that some people think there is just no end to how long we will continue to see benefits from a child who is breastfed, but I have to say I certainly can’t walk into any of my kids classrooms and point to the one who was breastfed and the one who was formula fed.  The kid eating paste very well could have been fed either way.  The young girl who’s more interested in boys than her studies could have been breastfed for all I know.  The child who has skipped two grades and is on track for Harvard, he might have been a formula fed baby for all I know.

My own kids are proving to be my own little case study here at home.  I have breastfed at varying degrees.  From not at all to over a year.  Since my youngest is only 2 I suppose we have many more years to see the long term effects of her breastfeeding into toddlerhood, but you know what?  Even from the very beginning you couldn’t see a huge benefit that was received from breastfeeding.  I mean not anything that would have someone walking up to me on the street when I wasn’t feeding my child and say that’s a breastfed baby isn’t it?  Or that baby has only had formula.

How It Breaks Down In My Family

So here’s how things have gone up until now in our family.  My oldest daughter (14) was born full term, with no complications in pregnancy or delivery.  I did not have any pain medication for her birth.  She came out a good 8 pounds 12 ounces and mad at the world.  A nice healthy set of lungs on her.  And she received not a drop of breastmilk.  At 17 months old she started birth to three for speech and received speech until the middle of her Kindergarten year.  By the time she was in 4th grade she was being tested for the gifted program and accepted.  She was the only one in her class who knew her times tables forwards and backwards.  Now she is in her final year of middle school.  She’s in two advanced classes maintains a B average (but definitely could get straight A’s), tests above grade level in reading and math on standardized tests, and is on the college track.  She will be taking 3 AP classes in high school next year.  Health wise she has been extremely healthy.  Her first major illness that required antibiotics was at 9 months old when she got bronchitis.  She had a bout with ear infections when she was around 5, but since then the only time she sees the doctor is when she goes in for her physical, or we’re there for one of her siblings.  This is the 100% of the time up until a year formula fed child.

Next, is my 11 year old daughter.   My pregnancy with her had some concerns with my blood pressure and an elevated heart rate, but for the most part it was an uneventful pregnancy.  My delivery with her was shockingly easier than that of her sisters.  She was 8 pounds 15 ounces at birth.  We did have a little trouble in the beginning with her with mucous which made her not want to eat much, but I did start out breastfeeding her.  She did pretty good for a day or so, but as soon as my milk came in she didn’t want it and I gave up and we switched to formula.  So she got the colostrum only.  She met milestones in the beginning either early or on time.  She picked up on talking very quickly and hasn’t stopped since.  While I thought she was going to be running by 9 months it took her a little longer to find her land legs, but she was walking by 13 months.  Once she started school that was where the trouble began.  This kid is a whiz with numbers, but reading and writing quickly became a struggle for her.  She is plugging right along in school now and is the hardest working kid you will ever meet.  She aims to please, that’s for sure.  Reading words might be a struggle for her, but reading music does not seem to be.  She has been getting really good at the clarinet.  It might be too soon to tell what the future holds for her.  But I do know her IQ is in the average range which is just where I like it.  On standardized tests she might test below grade level in reading, but above grade level in math.  Health wise she has been okay.  She does have asthma.  It’s exercise induced and can be made worse by some of her allergies (we need to get away from the pine).  Other than that her childhood illnesses have been pretty typical and minor.  So this was the colostrum only child of mine, the rest of the time it was formula.

Then there is my 5 year old son.  My pregnancy was not without its issues.  Again the blood pressure, but then also gestational diabetes.  He had to be born via c-section because he was breech with the cord wrapped around his neck twice.  I did not labor with him at all, it was a scheduled c-section.  He was 7 pounds 12 ounces at birth.  When he came out we put him to breast as soon as we were in the recovery room.  He was having some trouble regulating his temperature so he had to be left under the warming lights.  His sugar levels were a bit of a concern as well.  We breastfed though.  Then he was jaundice and needed to be left under the bilirubin lights.  He was only allowed out every hour for about 15 minutes or so if I recall correctly.  I would breastfeed him, but he also needed to have formula to help him poop out all of the added bilirubin.  Once he was discharged he was only getting breastmilk.  It was not easy.  He quickly began falling off the growth curve.  By the time he was 3 months old he ended up in the hospital being tested for all sorts of things and finally they decided that he needed to be on a high calorie formula; I just wasn’t producing enough breastmilk.  That lead to the end of our breastfeeding relationship.  It also lead to him being delayed in gross motor and needing physical therapy.  He did not sit up until he was 8 months and walk until he was 15 months.  He has been behind in most things from his classmates since starting school, but that’s likely due to his younger age.  He has had several ear infections over the years and from about October until April he tends to have a permanently runny nose.  That does seem to be improving the older he gets.  He is a smart, creative, fun loving little boy though.  I don’t really know where I see his life going just yet.  He had 3 months of breastmilk and then formula until a year and Pediasure until he was 2.

And last, but certainly not least is my youngest daughter who is 2.  I had all the same problems with her pregnancy that I had with my son only with the added worry of a pregnancy loss before her.  And well, she wasn’t breech.  I didn’t need a c-section for her.  I did have some pain medication during her labor though.  She was not a happy camper when she came out either.  All 7 pounds 9 ounces of her screamed and screamed and screamed until she was put to the breast.  Her sugar got a little low and they gave her a little formula in the beginning there, but that was the only time it was needed.  She was exclusively breastfed for 9 months actually (she wouldn’t eat baby food so she didn’t get anything but breast milk until she could eat table food).  This exclusively breastfed child of mine had an ear infection at 2 weeks old.  She was pretty healthy after that.  I think she has had two more ear infections since that one.  She is in birth to three for speech therapy like her older sister was.  We will see if she continues to receive speech after she turns 3.  Other than that developmentally has been very typical.  She has been just about as healthy as the rest of the kids.  I have no idea what the future holds for her.  She was exclusively breastfed for 9 months and continued with table food until 14 months.

So There You Have It

That’s four children who have each had their own struggles in life and for the most part the same amount of health problems.  And yet they all couldn’t possibly have been fed any more different.  My two youngest who had the most breast milk have also both been the ones to struggle the most with keeping weight on or gaining weight.  The struggles and triumphs that they have in life really truly don’t seem to have any correlation with how they were fed to start out with though.  There are a number of factors which play into a person’s IQ and health.  I have no doubt that breast milk can provide the antibodies needed to fight off infection in the early stages of life.  Even though my 2 year old got an ear infection at 2 weeks old it’s possible that breastfeeding helped it not turn into something worse.  And I do know that she got her 2nd ear infection right after she stopped breastfeeding.  Probably not a coincidence.   But she was over a year old and her immune system had developed enough to make its own antibodies.  And with a little help of antibiotics it cleared up.

Since the World Health Organization (WHO) has come out again to say there’s no long term health benefit to breastfeeding, then I think it’s safe to say that no one should feel guilty for not having breastfed at all or even for stopping at a certain age.  Because in the long run, years from now, none of this matters.  It doesn’t matter how a child was born, it doesn’t matter what her first food was, and it certainly doesn’t matter how long she received that first food.  As long as she is receiving the proper nutrients our children are going to grow up to be who they are going to be regardless of whether or not you breastfed fed them for 5 days or 5 years.  There just is no considerable physical or intellectual difference based on the length of time a child breastfeeds.

Can you tell which adults have been formula fed and which where breastfed and for how long?

In keeping up with my oldest daughter’s grades as I do last week I noticed that halfway through the final marking period of her middle school career she’s teetering on having straight A’s.  Straight A’s in classes which include advanced classes.  Something which I have every confidence she can achieve, but she doesn’t think is possible.  And something which I would love to see her do and fear that the excitement of the end of the year and the warmer weather could possibly cause her to not push quite so hard.

So in wanting to give her a little extra incentive I presented a challenge to her.  I told her if she can bring all of her grades (her lowest in her Advanced Social Studies class being an 86) up to 90 and above, then we will pay her $20.  I hadn’t given much thought to it.  It was just in conversation I was like, hey you know how close you are to having straight A’s this marking period?  She kind of blushed and then questioned what her grades were.  I told her and saw this look of pride in her eye and wanted to push her that much harder to get what I know she’s capable of so I said I’ll pay you if you get straight A’s.

I used to get a gift at the end of the school year if I maintained good grades for the whole year when I was in school.  While I knew that my job was to do my best in school having this extra incentive I think made me work that much harder.  After I had done it though, I got to thinking what others might think of me doing this.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to defend my actions and I won’t go back on what I promised her either at this point because that would be breaking a promise which I think could be even worse than offering to pay her for grades.  But I do want to explain why I’m doing this and why I would do it again.  Because I did ask others and I heard a lot of flat out, “No I would never do that!”

I Understand Everyone’s Best Is Different

While I have offered payment to my oldest for straight A’s in my mind this is more of a challenge.  Like lets see if you can go above and beyond and if you do that here’s the reward I will give you.  For my other children the challenge might look different and even the reward might look different.  Because everyone has their own thing that motivates them.  And everyone has their own skill level.

If my oldest had all B’s and they were in the lower 80 range I don’t think I ever would have offered this.  She is so very close to getting straight A’s though and knowing her the way I do while she would love to have high honors she also doesn’t have that confidence and drive to really pursue it on her own.  Not just for the high honors anyways.  When she achieves high honors though I know that will be a huge confidence boost for her, but she hasn’t felt that yet so she doesn’t know what it feels like.

But It’s Her Job To Get Good Grades In School

Yes, that is the ultimate goal of school to do your best.  It’s a child’s job.  So why wouldn’t we pay for it?  When you think about it schools reward our kids.  Not monetarily, but they do have checks and balances in place in school.  Honors rewards and reward programs where our children are honored for their hard work.  And of course the ultimate reward of hard work throughout school is getting into the college of your choice with scholarships.

I have been stressing to my daughter since she started middle school that everything she does from here on out is going to shape her future.  She knows this, everyone is telling her this, but at the same time it’s also so far off.  It’s hard to look that far in advance.  Smaller goals to work towards are better.

I have learned this in dealing with my middle daughter’s education.  I can’t look too far ahead for her because it’s too hard to see where she’s going to be.  And of course she’s her own goal setter.  She tends to set big goals for herself and then sets out to accomplish them.  I don’t have to make those goals for her, but I do have to do that for my oldest.

My kids know their job is school and they are always expected to do their very best at their job, but I don’t think we should say they don’t deserve some form of incentive to work a little harder, especially when they have had a difficult year.

And This Has Been A Difficult Year

The fact that my oldest has managed to accomplish even what she has is pretty good given the amount of times her schedule had to change because of how the school messed things up.  Yet all year she maintained mostly B’s.  Despite having to change classes.  It took a huge toll on her and truth be told if it hadn’t worked out I was considering home schooling her.  It did work out and better than I could have imagined.

It’s honestly all because she managed to make the best of a rotten situation.  So quite frankly for all she has been through if she can pull off straight A’s, then I think she deserves a little extra reward.  I have no doubt that she will be bragging to everyone (in particular her sister) that she got straight A’s when she does it and I’m sure that it will be all about how smart she is and not all about the money she receives from it.  She really truly will have earned whatever she gets if she gets straight A’s.  So I will not apologize for offering her this.

Good Grades = Money

There really is a connection between good grades and money.  The better your grades are, the better college you’ll get into, and ideally the better job you’ll get.  So I don’t think this is too far of a stretch to go this way.  I think so long as we know our child’s ability and we know what incentives will work best for them it isn’t going to ruin them.  I’ll have to let you know in a month how well it worked out with my daughter in this case, but so far she is really buckling down and doing her work without me having to tell her to.  Part of me is wondering, why didn’t I do this sooner.  It might have saved me a lot of fights.

If a situation presents itself with my other children I will not hesitate to do this with them as well.  Perhaps the payment will look a little different for them.  To an extent on a much smaller scale I have already done it with my middle daughter.  She came home with a few good grades and as a reward I allowed her to go to a dance.  Although, I did not tell her in advance that she would be allowed to attend this dance if she had good grades.  But I might have told her she couldn’t go if she had gotten bad grades.  So if I’m going to punish for bad grades, why wouldn’t I reward for good ones?  After all, we are told from the beginning in parenting that positive reinforcement is better than negative.  If we’re going to start them out rewarding them for something like using the toilet, then mine as well keep the rewards coming for grades.

And on my Facebook wall there was actually a very intriguing suggestion of when her children get bad grades they have to pay her, when they get good grades she pays them.  I can’t say I would do it that they had to pay me for every grade less than an A because I know an A really might be asking too much for my kids depending on the class and level at which it’s being taught.  But it definitely could be a good motivator.

Will you be paying your children for good grades from now on?

Image courtesy of Huffington Post. Left: new Merida Right: Original Merida

Last summer Disney had another blockbuster hit called Brave.  One of several movies last year showing confident girls with bows and arrows doing their thing.  Between Brave and The Hunger Games it really piqued my daughter’s interest in archery.  Sort of a lost art which I am amazed at her ability in this area because I was awful at it in school.

Merida wasn’t the most glamorous of characters.  She wasn’t meant to be.  That was really part of her charm.  She was the tomboy of princesses.  She didn’t want to be your typical princess.  That was the whole story line.  She fought her mother on the teachings of being a proper princess.

But Disney apparently decided for her to fit the princess look Merida needed a new look.  My husband drew my attention to it over the weekend actually.  I didn’t think too much of it until I saw the image myself.  And I don’t like it, but not for the reason that most parents dislike it.

I don’t view her as the “feminist” of heroines.  And really to me all of these characters are just that, characters.  I don’t put too much stock in how a cartoon character looks or even behaves.  I have three daughters and they sure love their princesses.  Well, my youngest hasn’t seemed to find a favorite just yet.  My oldest loved Snow White, my middle is a Tinkerbell fanatic.  I don’t really look at any of these characters as life teachers for my kids.  My job as their parent is to make sure they understand the difference between reality and fiction.  And cartoons don’t really get much more fiction.  I mean come on now, who has ever seen a talking mouse.

So I don’t make too much out of Disney movies.  Sure there is a lesson to be learned in the story, but that lesson isn’t found in the drawn lines in the cartoon characters, it’s found in the story plot and the words that are said.

My issue with the makeover of Merida is it just makes her lose all meaning to the movie now.  I mean sure you can be beautiful and still be strong.  I mean come on people, you don’t have to be homely looking to be intelligent and strong.  There are plenty of amazingly drop dead gorgeous women out there who are very intelligent and strong.  So I certainly don’t think we should be giving the look of feminism a certain one size fits all look.  I mean that’s really kind of silly when you think about it, right?  We want equality, but beautiful women can’t be equal in the brains department to more plain women?  Seems like that’s creating more stereotypes for women.

However, at the same time if we’re looking at cartoon characters to give our daughter’s a sense of womanhood and what it means to be a woman, then I think we’re seriously failing them.  Merida’s change of appearance is unfortunate in that it just doesn’t fit her character’s personality not because of what it’s teaching our daughters.  If we’re relying on Disney movies to teach our daughters how to be a woman and what feminism is, then we have more problems than stereotypes and the idea that women have to be beautiful to be heard.  Or to be a princess you have to look a certain way.

It’s plain and simple.  Merida’s makeover is disappointing because it simply does not portray that tomboy headstrong look and attitude that is Merida.  It’s not because now our daughters don’t have a good strong feminist look to emulate out of a cartoon character.  It’s a cartoon.  It’s not like it’s possible to achieve the look of a cartoon character.

If we want to teach our young daughters to be equal, then we should lead by example.  We should learn to value ourselves and treat everyone around us as equals, including men.  Because we are our children’s first and most important teacher, not media and not Disney movies.

I’m all for media showing our girls what real women look like.  We know Barbie’s body imagine is unattainable and the average pant size of women in America is I believe 12.  So it’s nice that our daughters are understanding that women come in all shapes and sizes and we should be celebrated, but this is still our number one job as their parents to to teach them these things and instill the confidence to find beauty in their own skin.

I come from a generation where Jessica Rabbit was the unattainable body image of cartoons.  I knew she was ridiculously exaggerated and women don’t look like that; can’t look like that.  If I’m going to spend any time worrying about how women are portrayed it’s just not going to be through cartoons, plain and simple.  Because if I’m doing my job as a parent correctly, then my children know that cartoons are not real and my 5 year old won’t be putting any dynamite in bird seed to catch a bird.  And my daughters aren’t going to look at a fairy princess and think she has to look just like her.

But Disney, on the off chance you are reading this I do implore you to change back the look of Merida.  Not because I think she’s a feminist icon to teach our children what headstrong women look like, but because you had it right the first time.  Her original image suited her  character much better.

What do you think about the makeover of Merida from Brave?