Haven't seen the link (I'm an old fart who doesn't 'get' facebook) but it sounds a little silly, but facebook groups by their nature appear gauche, corny and often irritating.
Maybe it's just to label for nurseries, childminders or the workplace fridge. My colleague would have certainly appreciated a '100% Mummy's Milk' label on the small receptacle he used for his tea once... he did say at the time it was sweet.
But this has got me thinking. I think any formula feeders who see any action by a collection of breastfeeding mothers as denigrating their parenting are missing the point. In popular parlance, "they're just not that into you".
Think about it. When you've had a baby, and dealt with that shitstorm, and then you start out breastfeeding and hit the many roadblocks you are likely to hit, and for whatever reason, pass by them (support of HCPs, luck, family circumstances, supportive family and plain old bloody mindedness all help) you feel a sense of achievement, some pride, I guess. This isn't to necessarily mean you are totally proud, as I guess many first-time mothers however they parent are still anxious, and unsure, but succeeding at breastfeeding beyond the toughest infant weeks should give a little sense of achievement.
Now you may have had to bat away disapproval at deigning to do it in public (everyone wants you to breastfeed, just not next to them, or while their eating). You may have had to turn away invitations, if like me, you couldn't express diddly squat. You will have been sat on the sofa until you've watched all of The Wire back to back -- in one week.
If you were like me you will have had the extra challenge of an early 35 weeker who didn't want to feed. You'll have freaked out before every weigh in. You'll have cried every night. You'll have spent hours on kellymom/forums. You'll have spent 100s on breastfeeding counsellors. And after all that you'll still be paranoid that it wasn't enough and you're slender baby wasn't thriving. So you'll have upped the feeding even more.
I don't care that feeders or either stripe say its easier to breastfeed. In a very superficial sense it is. But you are tied (I can't think of a more neutral word) more or less to your child. That's kind of the point. You may have issues with sleeping and feeding to sleep which can wear you down. You may still feel hormonally as if you are pregnant (I do, 20 months on), you may feel a little less like jumping into bed (not everyone feels like this, but some do, and it may be hormonally driven)
I don't want a medal. I'm not trying to win a competition. I've really enjoyed (mostly) breastfeeding loved it, in fact but that's not to say it hasn't been incredibly fucking hard at times. Lonely and bloody boring and the skin on my chest was singing with irritation at having been fiddled with. And if she wakes up one more time an hour after bedtime, I'll scream.
Anyway. All of this fervid obsession, anxiety, upset at feeling you're imposing on the world if you breastfeed as and when, well, it can send people a little batty and clamorous. They want to club together with other nutbags and gas about it, talk about how they are going to 'change opinions', 'normalise the experience' and 'educate.'
That is very different from these groups actually saying formula feeders are crap parents. Yes, formula is a second-class substance, but many first-class mothers have to use it. Want to use it, even.
Sure, I've judged before, but always inside, and I try to remind myself that people's family circumstances, health circumstances and personal preferences are unknown to me, and I'm sure, given breastfeeders are human too, they are prone to all the manifold frailties of jealousy, overweening pride and bitchiness as all of us.
All this talk of 'dirty looks', 'nasty comments'. Well, that cuts both ways. Mothers out and about are physically drawn to look at other mums and what they do. I'm sure that dirty look isn't a dirty look, just one of bovine curiosity. Similarly, the judgey comment, it's more likely to just be idle, unguarded and slightly tactless chatter.
It's so easy to read something into the bollocks people say when you're raw and tender about something as important as babies. I know. I do it all the time myself. There was no one more paranoid than me as a first-time, sleep-deprived mum.