Introduction

In contemporary English-language literature for adults and young adults, breastfeeding is primarily described as a negative, painful, disgusting act and as something only for a select group in society. Many of the examples that I explore later in this chapter, which are typical of the stories and books that I found, depict suffering, ashamed women, who breastfeed out of a sense of duty because they believe they are supposed to, but do not enjoy it and do not generally do it for more than some weeks or months. They may also find that breastfeeding interferes with their relationship with their male partner. The great majority of these women are White, able-bodied, Western, middle-class, heterosexual, educated and otherwise ‘norm’, and the breastfed babies are likewise from the same categories and also tend to be full-term, single-birth newborns.

In other words, the depictions of breastfeeding in English are quite limited and tend to focus on practical problems and negative emotions. The Swedish examples, on the contrary, may show practical issues and negative feelings, too, but they also portray people thinking through such things and working to overcome them. As with the children's books discussed in the previous chapter, there is a sense in Swedish that breastfeeding is simply one part of life with children, with both good and bad things about it.

One English-language short story, ‘Orange World’ by Karen Russell (2018), can serve as a representative for what is explored in depth in this chapter. In her story, Russell writes about a character, Rae, who ‘in order to guarantee the health of the baby she's about to have, […] agrees to breastfeed the devil’ (Davidson 2018, n.p.). As Russell points out in an interview, becoming a mother is often imbued with fear and uncertainty, and society places much responsibility and blame on women when it comes to the health of the baby (ibid.). While it may be true that a typical mother worries a lot about her child and wants to protect the child, it is interesting and revealing that the deal Rae makes in this story specifically involves breastfeeding.