Return to remission... and an attack on natural parenting

Today was the day... the day I had to see my rheumatologist and see what she said about my Lupus. Luckily, as I have been predicting for a few weeks now, she thinks I am well enough that I don't need to be medicated. It appears that my Lupus is back into remission! What a relief!

However, the experience was not just one of relief and joy. The first thing she asked upon entering the exam room, before she'd even examined me to see if I was back in remission, was, "I guess you haven't weaned yet?"

This, to me, was incredibly offensive. True, the medication she wanted to prescribe (CellCept) is contraindicated in breastfeeding, but when you haven't even examined your patient to see if they'll need the medication in question, why ask if they've weaned yet in preparation of being put on the medication?

Once she examined me (and after the Baby Beast wandered over to me once to tug at my legs hopefully, wanting to be picked up, and I had passed him on to his grandma), she gave him a doubtful look and said, "Aren't you worried about how he'll be when he has to go to kindergarten?"

Yes, because an 18-month-old toddler is JUST like a 5-year-old child.

I was so floored that she would ask me such a stupid question that all I could manage was, "Studies on attachment parenting show that that's not a problem."

That was all I could manage. Lame. Pitiful. Worse than pitiful.

How would you have handled the situation? In a society obsessed with toddlers and infants being "self-sufficient" (which is an oxymoronic idea for people who eat dirt and rocks for a living, or who can't even make it across a room without help), how do you handle the naysayers who think you're creating a "momma's boy?"


Playing outside... amazingly enough, without clinging to my leg
like a limpet. But what about when he goes to kindergarten?