Thread has disappeared. This is the one where I explain what I mean.

[weasleymum]

IMO

There is no BF mafia on MN.

There are people who are very strongly in favour of BF. They are right to be, it is better.

There are people who haven't BF and are upset and/or guilty. This is very sad.

But there is no mafia.

I agree about that thread - even I was on it, supplying a bit of information to someone (despite being on a break from MN!!) who criticised NCT for not being able to put her in touch with some mixed feeders (I more or less said 'um, how could they do that without keeping intrusive records of how everyone in NCT feeds their babies?!') .

Look, a talk board is a conversation, and it's one that's open to all. Someone writes something you don't like, you can respond to it. Someone makes an assumption, or gets something entirely wrong, you can put a few facts their way.

In any community, there are going to be people who behave insensitively, as in RL. There is no conspiratorial movement to undermine formula feeders or to gang up on them - but I know it can feel that way to people. With a bit of distance on their experience, they can come to understand that often, they may have imagined the 'looks' they get when formula feeding, just as breastfeeders may imagine the 'looks' they get when breastfeeding.

Even out and out criticism or stupid comments (about bf or ff) may represent nothing more than an individual's stupid and/or unkind outlook - not 'society's'.

That linked thread is a good illustration of what you say, tiktok, in the way some posts were interpreted completely differently by different people, depending on their experiences of bf.

We're all reading seeing these issues through distorting lenses really, and each person's lens is different. But I like to think that by putting all our perceptions together, we can build up a truer picture.

It'll never happen though, unless we recognise that each poster is an individual with their own preoccupations and emotions, not a faceless member of a sinister organisation.

such as the Muffia? ROFL...

It's a pity I don't believe in the Muffia, because that's a brilliant name for a gang.

OK, it's pumpkin o'clock here in NZ, must go and sleep, thanks for an interesting conversation chaps.

you 'tink?

i'm newish to mumsnet and to be honest whenevr someone refers to the breastfeeding mafia/muffia, i'm a bit intrigued, because although i read all the threads on feeding, i've never come across a mafia!

Watch it muff, or you'll be sleeping with the fishes....[threatening]

one false move, bfing nah-zee, and you're mincemeat. the muffia's in town now.

You mean the crosshairs? [bravado]

BANG!

FWIW the mumsnet world is full of secret organisations: the BF Mafia, the midnight group, the flylady cult, the death to controlled crying fundamentalists, the secret worshippers of Gina Ford, and the pregnancy threads whose membership is aquired through an obscure combination of numbers and dates, etc.

Everybody is meant to feel hurt at some point, no matter how well you are doing. We are all different, no way we would agree on everything

and there's another one...

BANG!

I'm taking alla you smart mouths out, today.

Are you german or italian? You cant seem to decide on your accent

sono italian-american, capisce?

your-a number's-a uppa, meessy. (better? )

Oooh a touch of south american too

You are multinational, arent you

I'm guessing you have travelled the world.....

fucka offa.

I like this muffiosa person. My accent wanders all over the place too.

Can I join your gang? I have a violin case and everything!

Oh, and I love Isabel's theory of MN as a shady underworld full of mysterious organisations and secret codes.

How could I never have noticed this before? Especially as the Codfather is so blatant with coded messages to her sinister henchmums. I mean, no-one would be so naive as to assume she really types like that. And "croc wearers" is clearly code for a rival organisation that Cod has sworn to exterminate.

meet me atta da deserted car lot, wellie, and we'll tawk. if you tell da feds, i shoot you on sight. i got crosshairs and i ain't afraid to use 'em. dat vvv has dusted gunshot residoo offa her shoulders for-a da last time. [french]

the death to controlled crying fundamentalists also go by the pseudonym 'cosleepers anonymous'.