My Amazing Milk Machines
After growing up in a frenzy of feminism and bra burning, Martha McPhee learned to understand & embrace her breasts after she became a mother.
By Martha McPhee
As a girl, I was not keen on developing breasts. I watched with trepidation as my older sisters entered this milestone: Laura was told by my stepmother to pray that she wouldn't inherit my mother's overly ample bust; Sarah was given (also by my stepmother) a purple, lacy bra at age 11 in preparation for her budding breasts—she hooked it to the tip of a piece of kindling, stuck it in the fire like a marshmallow, and watched it burn. It was the early 1970s; the woman's movement was in full swing. Bra-burning myths and brainlessness, complexities—I wanted none of that. When my breasts blossomed into an unobtrusive 34B, I was relieved. My breasts stirred little emotion. They were just there; simply a fact.

Then I had a baby, and everything changed.

My breasts became more than a fact; they became an intricate, beautiful machine, swelling, abundant with milk that streamed into the chirping mouth of my baby girl who fed for hours, then fell off, like an apple from a tree, head back, drunk with my milk. I'd eat brownies and macaroons endlessly, fuel to supply the machine. This was biology, science at work, and it was happening in me. The more milk my baby wanted, the more I ate, the more I made, the fatter she became. I was part of a continuum that reached back to the beginning of time and stretched forward to the end. Wow, I thought, they can do this, my breasts. Extraordinary. I was euphoric. I was not even deterred by mastitis. My doctor wanted me to switch to formula. I refused. My breasts could do this. They burned and ached, a terrible pain. But this was about creation, production, & about plumbing. I learned from a midwife that if you caught the infection early, you could push it out with hot compresses and hot showers. So I did. And the milk flowed again.

"Don't you feel like a cow?" my sister Jenny asked. No, I did not feel like a cow. I felt like Mother Earth. I fell in love with my powers; I fell in love with my hardworking, purposeful, magical breasts.

Thirteen months passed, and one day my daughter decided she'd had enough. She refused to latch on. She has finished. I was devastated. No weaning. Done. How long would the grieving last? For exactly one day, in fact. I woke up on the second day and the grief, to my astonishment, was gone.

Our creator like our mothers is very kind. When we come to this world two milk machines are kept ready for us. This nectar makes us immune to many dangerous diseases. We don't need additional water or any food at least for six months. But what to say of ignorance, the life supporting machines have become sex symbols & every form of experiment including silicon fluid inject, to plastic surgery have become common things.