09/10/2025
"I checked out your website."
The teenage co-captain of the speech and debate team volunteered this the first time we met in person. As a new coach to the team, the captains were giving me a run down and lay of the land for my first day assistant coaching practice. She was confident and well spoken (shocker) and very much in charge. Up until that point our focus had been on the different students and prep for the upcoming tournament (which was last week and they were AMAZING). I was reading over the list of students that needed my help and what their events were when she volunteered that she had been to my website.
"Oh?" I looked up at her. This teen is put together and so cool. She's trendy and super smart. As popular as a speech and debate team captain can be (which is pretty high up there at this school). I wondered where this was going.
"Yeah, I got sucked in for like an hour."
"What did you think"
"Did you write all that?"
"Most of it but not all of it. There's way more info there on breastfeeding than you probably ever thought you'd want to know at this age."
"Yeah, kind of. But it was neat. Really neat. Do you mind if I ask you some questions some time on breastfeeding?"
"I don't mind at all. You also don't have to be interested in breastfeeding, that's ok too. I can talk about other topics, I promise."
"I want to. It's going to be a really long time before I have kids but you know, I think I'm going to need all that info some day and it's actually really interesting. I had no idea human milk had so much in it, that's amazing. I hadn't really thought about it before but when I have kids, I'm going to breastfeed."
"When the time comes, my website and I are here for you."
"Thanks, that's probably like 10 years from now or something but when I'm ready I'll probably have some questions."
Just then another student, a junior guy, chimed in: "I checked out your website too. Did you build it?"
"No, I didn't build it, someone built it for me and my husband does a lot of that too."
"If you ever want help with that, I'm pretty good at that sort of thing."
"Good to know, thank you."
We talked about what he charges (he says he doesn't and then we got into how he should charge) and what his skills are before he brought up breastfeeding.
"I showed my mom your site. She breastfed me and my brother. She said it was pretty cool. I didn't know how good it is for babies or how the milk is made, so... yeah. I learned something too. Let me know if you want my help with your site."
And that was it. Then we were diving into the public forum debate case (whether or not Britain should rejoin the EU- that was far more loaded than the breastfeeding convo) and I was in awe of these young humans and their amazing minds as I felt way out of my depth trying to find my footing to help coach these kids.
It wasn't weird or awkward. It wasn't a joke or seggualized. It wasn't grossed out or disgusted. There were no innuendos or wink-winks. The mixed gendered group around us didn't flinch or seem weirded out.
It was just a conversation about breastfeeding.
I've never hidden breastfeeding from kids of any age or gender. I breastfeed openly around my own children, their friends, at the playground, soccer games, theater and music performances (and rehearsals), school functions, the Christmas tree farm, out shopping, you name it. Toddlers to teens. It's never the kids that have an issue with it. Like the speech and debate teens curious about my website (of course they googled me), in my experience, kids of all ages are just curious and then... it's no big deal. Feeding a baby with your body? How does that work? Does it hurt? Oh. That's neat. I'm hungry. That's usually about it.
It's the adults that have the hangups.
In those teens that day I got to see a glimpse of what it really will be like for them as breastfeeding is more and more normalized. It made me excited and inspired to keep going with this work.
Kids these days are alright.
