Salt Lake City Based Photographer Timbra Wiist owns/operates Landslide Photography & Photographs the Journey of Motherhood (see bottom of page or sidebar for more info. . .depending on what this blog is choosing to do for the day).

Friday, July 15, 2011

Maybe means?

Welcome to The Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival!

This post was written as part of The Breastfeeding Cafe's Carnival. For more info on the Breastfeeding Cafe, go to www.breastfeedingcafe.wordpress.com. For more info on the Carnival or if you want to participate, contact Claire at clindstrom2 {at} gmail {dot} com. Today's post is about language and breastfeeding. Please read the other blogs in today's carnival listed below and check back for more posts July 18th through the 31st!





There are so many directions to go with this, and I'd love to just site Dianne Wiessinger's Watch Your Language, but won't follow down that path.

Language can influence so many things in life. I appreciate what a friend once said to another friend, when he'd offended him and then hadn't seen him for a while. When they discussed what the problem had been, the one man said that the words of the other had bothered him, and the first man replied with "Well, I can't know everyone's dictionary dude!"

Sometimes you just have to give it your best effort, to say what needs to be said in an appropriate manner, and realize that part of the responsibility lies with the hearer. If you are on the one side of breastfeeding information, the support side, there is a tendency to over-analyze how every single word will be interpreted and read into. As soon as you have analyzed all the angles and all the ways that what is being said can be internalized as, here comes a third party to hear it all in a completely OTHER way.

Sometimes I'm just a mom, and I realize that people just SAY STUFF, without thinking, that they're just doing their best to support and give information and talking from what they know. Sometimes, the "lay" mom, is just hearing "lay mom" jargon. She's not internalizing and analyzing the way EVERY word was put together, when it comes to ANYTHING, even breastfeeding. She's looking for support and information. Maybe she's looking for wording that will make her feel justified in making a decision that she thinks others will look down on. Maybe she's looking for wording or information to support a decision she wants to follow through on but doesn't feel she has the support for elsewhere. Maybe she's just looking to hear others talk about breastfeeding being normal, so she can feel in good company. Maybe she's listening for all the horror stories of other nursing moms, because she feels alone. Or maybe, or it could be, perhaps she's. . .You could say ONE sentence and fifteen different people would hear it differently.

We do our best, to share the information and understanding we have, with the words that seem right for the situation. The hearer also must take responsibility for what she hears, and why she hears what she hears. My husband, he never tells me "maybe." Why? Because to me, "maybe" means "yes." To my five year old "maybe" sounds like "no" (because it means, not right now), and to my husband, "maybe" just sounds like "maybe." We hear what we want to hear, we take what we WANT to take, so when we are the speaker, we just do our best to say what needs to be said.





Here are more post by the Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival participants! Check back because more will be added throughout the day.


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Anonymous said...

Very true, people are different and what we say isn't always heard how we meant for it to be. it's hard to know how to reach the masses with our encouragements, without causing guilt, but I think the more people that share will create more opportunities to resonate.

July 22, 2011 at 1:34 PM

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