Motherhood Smotherhood Quotes

“I think of the Internet as a massive starving monster that feeds on page clicks and insecurity. Who's insecure? Teenagers and new parents. Who's all over the Internet generating those page clicks? Teenagers and new parents. And actually, new parenthood is a sort of second adolescence.”
― J.J. Keith, Motherhood Smotherhood: Fighting Back Against the Lactivists, Mompetitions, Germophobes, and So-Called Experts Who Are Driving Us Crazy

“I wish I could go back in time and stop myself from obsessing over "my" labor (phrased as if I were the one being born) as something more than getting a baby out of my body and into his family's arms.”
― J.J. Keith, Motherhood Smotherhood: Fighting Back Against the Lactivists, Mompetitions, Germophobes, and So-Called Experts Who Are Driving Us Crazy

“As is often the way in parenting controversies, the people with the most extreme views tend to be the loudest, and so natural birth message boards are crawling with people stricken with an affliction that I call Noble Savage Fever, which is a tendency to romanticize pre- or nonindustrial societies as somehow more pure than our "civilized" one. That is some ignorant crap. For starters, it's based upon a reductionist idea of what nonindustrial life looks like, often by people who think Africa is a country.”
― J.J. Keith, Motherhood Smotherhood: Fighting Back Against the Lactivists, Mompetitions, Germophobes, and So-Called Experts Who Are Driving Us Crazy

“The vast majority of chatter surrounding parenthood is junk. All of these seemingly divisive decisions - like pain meds in labor, newborn sleep arrangements, and scheduling - are often phrased as moral imperatives from both sides. Screw that. Take care of your kid. Do what works.”
― J.J. Keith, Motherhood Smotherhood: Fighting Back Against the Lactivists, Mompetitions, Germophobes, and So-Called Experts Who Are Driving Us Crazy