I think it depends on who is saying it and in reference to what.

To re-visit a few examples on the thread (probably misremembering and getting it wrong...). The woman who had a traumatic birth and didn't get BFing established then going on to have an elective section and FF from birth next time. Happy mum? WHere? I don't see a happy mum. I see a woman so traumatised by her first month at motherhood that she has decided to embrace the failure she feels herself to be rather than attempt to re-connect with the mother she WANTED to be. Do i feel for her? Yes. Do i blame her for her response? Not at all. In this society it's hard to talk to people about birth and the overall trend of "Your baby is healthy so stop moaning" means many women remain traumatised for years after their babies are born. But do i really believe she is happy or that her chosen path for #2 will make her happy? Nope.

The women (several were mentioned) who leave their kids with virtual strangers (as far as the kids are concerned) so they can go out. Is it possible that those women are not engaging in their role as mother and are not enjoying it? Is it possible that the desperate need to "escape" at whatever cost it has to the baby is a reflection on their inability to really embrace the role of Mother? Again, it's not really relevant in terms of Right or Wrong, but it's interesting to me. How many women in our society struggle in this way? Remember being a teenager at a party and feeling TOTALLY out of place and like you don't get why everyone else looks so natural and happy? Imagine if that was your parenting journey, looking at other people connected with their kids and loving their roles as parents and thinking "why not me?". It must be really hard. And i know that some women decide to push on being Gentle despite those sorts of feelings, but i think that a) those women deserve bloody medals, and b) it's possible that those who are going off out and drinking and generally spending the first decade of their kids' lives bemoaning how irritating having kids is WERE NEVER going to be Gentle anyway.

To be honest i think that our society devalues motherhood. Parenthood in fact. Getting a decent, normal birth with compassionate care is very difficult. Getting decent caring support during the early days of your baby's life, when you might be really struggling with the 15 or 20 new skills you have to learn (and which you had previously been given the impression would magically arrive when the placenta came out) is also very hard. Some women are naturally maternal. Some women from childhood take every opportunity to hold babies, change them, cuddle them. Some women have many friends with babies, have been at births, have read every book written on the subject of birth they could find and have read about and seen BFing. Some women are able to look at the "Be thin, be pretty, be rich, be successful" message fired from every corner of the media and think "meh" and get on with being fulfilled instead. But not every woman.

When i hear "happy mum = happy baby" i usually think to myself "now here we have an unhappy mum". From my own POV - i wanted to BF. I read about it, i went to classes, i met with friends who fed and gave them the 3rd degree about it. DD was born, she did just what the books had said she would and for 4 months we did beautifully. Then a combination of me moving out of XP's flat following our messy and stressy break-up, terrible stress and no respite from caring for her and a seriously low thyroxine level meant my milk supply started to drop. At 5.5 months i began giving FF once a day because XP was using it when he had her overnight (i couldn't pump enough by then to keep her fed when she was away from me) and i felt it unfair that she had such a massive dietary change once a week for 24 hours. Then i went on the minipill to avoid pregnancy with my new partner. My let-down got very sluggish and DD began to fuss at the breast and skip whole feeds rather than suck for the 5 minutes it took to stimulate let-down. My bloods were done and re-done and my thyroid got more and more sluggish. By 6 months i was feeding FF twice a day, by 6months2weeks i was only able to feed once a day and on the morning of the day she turned 7 months i gave her her last BF.

Now, could i have avoided that? CERTAINLY i could. I could have told XP to stuff off and not let him have access to DD but the guilt would have made me miserable. I could have stayed off the Pill but being unable to get close with DP, who was the only joyful thing in my life at that point, would have made me miserable. I could have gone to bed with DD for days and fed and fed and taken motilium and fenugreek and whatever else is out there, but i couldn't afford the drugs, and there was NO ONE to help care for me. My family is hundreds of miles away, my ex-in-laws were not talking to me because of the break-up and i had literally no-one who could help me. I could have taken the radioactive tests they wanted to do on my thyroid and risked losing my milk for the week i'd not be able to feed in order to get the thyroxine and possibly get my supply back. But i wasn't ready to wean and wanted to "keep trying", at least i felt that between feeds when i was faced with a hungry angry baby and sagging dry breasts... I could have done many things differently.

But i didn't. I decided to FF. Did it help? Yes it did. Within 4 weeks my thyroid was doing far better, my goitre was gone and i had much more energy and was able to do so much more. Not worrying about whether i could feed her made my time with DD so much less stressful and i felt more "well" than i had for months. Did it make me happy? No it did not. It made me feel terrible. I KNOW BFing is what is best for my babies. I wanted to BF, i planned and learned and tried and i failed. I failed my baby and i failed myself. I forgive me, because i can still remember how low the place i was in was back then, but i will be doing my damndest to avoid it happening again. I never said "happy mum=happy baby" but people said it to me. I wasn't happy. I was living against my parenting ideals and it is a miserable way to live for me.

Equally though, i don't feel that being a SAHM, especially for the 2.5 years i was single and on welfare and very poor with it (because right now my life is CUSHY!!!), was a sacrifice i made for my kids or anything particularly special. That's the way i wanted to do it. That's what i chose. It isn't the ideal for me or for anyone but it was the best option for me in the situation i was actually in. Lots of things about it were rubbish, but the main thing, my relationship with DD, was and is great, and i loved it. It was more than worth it. So from that POV it's just lucky that homebirth, BFing, SAHPing etc. is good for DD and meets her needs, because it's how i want to do it and i'm not too interested in changing it! LOL. I AM happy. I might not say HM=HB, but for us it's true, we're both happy. I'm planning another baby next year and i am CRAPPING it about BFing next time because my Hashi's is still a wildcard, but there is no way i will be FFing JIC i fail again. If i fail again i will do so at the end of a long, every-avenue-explored and much-tramped-before-exhaustion-drives-me-off-it road, because THAT is the kind of motherhood that makes me happy, and THAT is the sort of happy mother who my (hopefully!) happy kids get.

Bx