No wonder women in our culture find BF difficult, when children are taught that cows "Eat grass and turn it into milk" FFS...

[BertieBotts]

DS was watching something on CBeebies the other day, (I can't remember what it was, TBH) and they were talking about farm animals, and said "Cows eat grass, and turn it into milk!" - is it any wonder that women find it difficult to breastfeed, when this is what we learn about milk production (albeit in a different mammal, but really, it's not that different in reality) during childhood?

And before you write it off as a silly comment in a TV programme - it made me think, and I distinctly remember my form tutor in year 8 telling someone off for calling another girl a cow, saying "I don't know why people think 'cow' is an insult anyway. Cows are very intelligent. They stand around in a field all day and turn grass into milk. Can you do that?" and I remember finding this very insightful at the time despite knowing that mammals feed their young, presumably I knew that they did so with milk, and having been breastfed myself and seen my mum breastfeed my younger sister.

In fact I remember being quite surprised to learn in my teens that cows don't produce milk all the time, and that they are fairly constantly pregnant and have the calves taken off them soon after the birth so that they can be milked. Again, I'm not sure why since I knew that cats, pigs, sheep etc produced milk to feed their young and not at other times. And I am/was not thick, honest

Is it any wonder that we have so many myths floating around about "having to drink milk to make milk" and the like?

Oh well, I did that too Jack, but I did'nt want to mention it here as I could be seen as a bad mother.

actually i kind of HATE comparisons of cows to bf mums.

For example at a Christmas party when I was breastfeeding I go "Don't you just feel like a cow having to feed your baby all the time" [angry}

I can remember aged 6 my friend and I putting grass in hot water trying to turn it into milk using the trusty cow+grass=milk equation.

I also remember my cousin telling me that if we stirred our strawberry milkshakes enough we could change the flavour. (Turn it into cheese more like!)

Despite my barmy milk based childhood shenanigans thing've turned out ok on the dairy front here..well, mostly.

'Salright for you lot, try being married to an ex-diary farmer! I had ALL the comparisons and ALL the jokes to contend with.

Cows do eat grass and make milk.

Sheep eat grass and make milk.

Goats eat, erm, your clothes if you go to the farm and get too close, and they make milk too.

I'd think this would contradict your last line (on 'drink milk to make milk') because cows clearly don't drink milk but are very good at making it.

Oh poor you Rhubarb! He doesn't have any of those scary extra long gloves they use does he?!

He probably did BendyBob, he was milking cows and helping with the births from being a young boy. He gave it all up in his late teens to go to college, but yes I was often compared to a cow when breastfeeding.

I often see the cross section model or diagram of the inside of a cow used to explain the 'grass into milk' thing.
The way the four stomachs work is interesting.
And as someone said earlier - fine for cbeebies level.

Quite so, op, it's a disgrace. Cbeebies should make it clear to our children that the milk on their cornflakes is stolen from the mouths of helpless newborn calves, who are taken away from their mothers and probably slaughtered. Maybe we should get a petition together for the BBC

lolol at liath and JackBauer

Cows are particularly good at turning grass, which we can't eat but which there is a lot of around, into milk, which we can eat. Hence they were chosen by humans to be domesticated. I don't see a problem with the CBeebies line as a starting-point - it doesn't imply that no-one else lactates.

JackBauer - I think Katie could have all the kids skinning rabbits, for a start.

Oops I seem to have come across more serious than I meant to - I don't by any means think that it is a major factor in women finding breastfeeding difficult - just another of those little things which stays in the subconscious. In fact I did something quite sad last night and went through the progs on iplayer to see if I could find what it was on. I couldn't find it but in an episode of Show Me Show Me they had Penelope's grandpa tell her "Milk is the food a mother cow makes for her calf" as he milked it, which I thought was much better. You don't have to tell them the calves get taken away at birth...

It's true though. It's awful really. Our cosy lives are built on the most wretched brutality.

It was that "ffs" made it look like you meant it more seriously to me.

"Milk is the food a mother cow makes for her calf"

See I find this way more annoying than "cows eat grass and turn it into milk"

Milk is the food ALL mammals make for their young.

Your second example is far more misleading than your first and encourages the idea that milk is something that comes exclusively from cows.

For my sister it was partly the comparison with cows that prevented her from bf'ing, that and the thought of it making her feel physically sick. In her AN group, 4 out of 5 were not going to bf, mostly because of the cow comparison.

So in that respect I can see where the OP is coming from - but otherwise, yes, cows do turn grass into milk. So do lots of other mammals, including elephants (that doesn't help, does it!)

But the vast majority of the milk that most people consume does come from cows (and a small amount from sheep and goats), so it's not at all inaccurate to say that milk comes from cows.

I don't see how you can avoid the cow comparison really. I felt very bovine when I first breastfed. You think milk, you think cows and udders. So when you first start lactating yourself, you are bound to identify with cows and other milk producing creatres. The mistake is to regard it as a negative thing. The whole process of childbirth and lactation forces us to confront ourselves as fundamentally animal. That's one of the things that is so great about it.

I don't think I ever felt like a cow, and I bf DS until he was 23mo. Not that there's anything wrong with feeling bovine, I just don't think I ever did.

I felt a lot less like a cow as time went on (I breastfed for 4 years in the end, rather unexpectedly).

I have a very clear memory of going to a farm in the early weeks and (slightly crazily) being overwhelmed with envy and admiration for a huge sow who was lying on her side with her piglets feeding from her. She looked immensely comfortable and satisfied, and it was incredible to me at the time, as at that point every feed was excruciatingly painful and fraught. I could have done with being a lot more animal-like really.

I feel rather sorry for dairy cows having BF my children, and a certain kinship.

I don;t see why it is offensive to be compared to a cow when you are producing milk really either - cows aren't evil horrible smelly or anything. In our society unfortunately it is unusual to BF, the majority of milk consumed comes from cows. So from that perspective a lactating mother is doing what cows do.

Poor old cows.

Why would anyone decide not to BF because cows produce milk?

My DH's family are dairy farmers and have been for many, many years. His lovely nana, who is 91, quite well spoken, very nice elderly lady, told us that when she had her three children, she was NOT going to be milked like a cow....and that was in the 1940's?!!? But to be fair, MIL, wife of dairy farmer did not breastfeed any of her 4 DC, (apart from DH for very short period) because there would be 'men'...gasp...coming in and out of the farmhouse...

isn't there a slyvia plath poem where she compared herself to a cow? and her baby's clean mouth to a cat's...weird.

yes. i was right. here you are. today's dose of culture.

Morning Song
by Slyvia Plath.

The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry

Took its place among the elements.Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.

In a drafty museum, your nakedness

Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.I'm no more your mother

Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow

Effacement at the wind's hand.All night your moth-breath

Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:

A far sea moves in my ear.One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral

In my Victorian nightgown.

Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window squareWhitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try

Your handful of notes;

The clear vowels rise like balloons.

[as you were]