Although I don’t agree with the majority viewpoint expressed here, I can certainly appreciate that some portion of nursing mamas out there do not enjoy being compared to our bovine counterparts. As such, I will make an effort to refrain from using the analogy.

I will say that as a lactating woman I feel a sort of kinship with other lactating mammals that I didn’t before. When I visit a dairy farm and see cows ready to be milked, I feel that physical too-full sensation in sympathy. But this isn’t specific to cows, exactly.

I suppose, in the end, I agree that the comparison normalizes cow’s milk over breast milk. Much like the word ‘milk’ itself, which in our culture means, ‘a bottle of cow’s milk in the fridge’. We’ve given all things milk over to the bovine set, and that’s not really good.

I like that instructor you had. Her imagery might also have been an attempt to give moms an active animal to identify with that would defend her young like that mama bear we’re always calling upon.

So my mixed feelings really are: Should we embrace the term to show the naturalness of the act or should we try to get away from the term in order to avoid negative connotations? I just don’t have a good answer.

In the breastfeeding class at the hospital I took many years ago, the woman leading the class told women to them of themselves as tigers who nurse their young. I think she was trying to give us a better image than that of the “dumb” cow who is just used for her milk.