In case you hadn't heard, Gisele Bundchen recently went on the record to say that mandatory breastfeeding should be a law. She also had a few other irritatingly self-important comments.
Since I believe that those who seek and achieve mega-celebrity should be careful about the images they portray, and since I believe influential people have to be careful not to cross a line between influence and sheer smugness, here is my response (a day late and a dollar short, I'm sure, but who's counting?).
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Dear Gisele,
I appreciate that in your recent comments to Harper's Bazaar, you were just trying to share your opinion about the importance of breastfeeding.
Yeah, I get that.
But you, as a celebrity and a mom, are extremely influential, and the smugness you portrayed, as you said what you seem to think is right for all women, had the potential to hurt many women who chose differently than you. You potentially added to the collective guilt working-class mothers in all countries have to face, and that is shameful.
It's one thing to say, flat out, "Yes, I think breastfeeding is crucial for a baby," and leave it at that. Had you said that, I would have agreed with you.
It's entirely different to judge as criminal those women around you who have made decisions either to stop breastfeeding early, or not breastfeed at all. (It's also mildly distasteful to brag about your painless labor, your Kung Fu at week 38, etc.)
In the future, you should keep in mind that there are many women in the world not as genetically blessed as you are, who are physically capable of modeling lingerie six weeks after giving birth. I'm sure you work hard to maintain your face and physique (I certainly would, if I were in your shoes and was making the kind of money you make for being beautiful), but you have to admit that somewhere along the way, you hit a genetic jackpot. You are beautful, and that has made you rich.
So. Let's talk about money for a minute. Do you have any idea how much your money can buy that even most middle-class women can't afford? For one, I'm guessing you had a personal trainer with whom to practice your Kung Fu, so that you were doing it safely and effectively even in those advanced stages of pregnancy. I can't afford that, nor can most of the women I know. And while I've known lots of women who have had home births, I'll bet that your home birth was attended by the best doctors and midwives that money can buy.
My own birth plan looked far different from yours from the start, but I did plan to do it au natural. No drugs for me. No inducing. But my daughter had other ideas, and her perfect pike position, booty-down, forced my doctor's hand - C-section it was, for me. Plus, due to some technical difficulties, breastfeeding didn't work for us. While a lactation consultant at my side 24/7 might have helped us to figure it out, that costs money, and it wasn't an expense we could justify.
I would bet my experience is far more common than yours.
That said, please keep in mind that you live in a bubble. A very safe, protected bubble that I have no doubt you worked hard to achieve, but live in it you do. And most of us do not. So please go take that bubble to your new farm (which I am sure will be fully staffed...I do not foresee you or your husband getting up at dawn to milk the cows or muck the stalls), raise your children quietly, and don't try to tell the rest of the world how to live their lives.
Thank you.
Very truly not yours,
Leah
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