Dear Daughter,

There was a day in elementary school that I simply stopped running during gym class and walked instead. It was the day that I became aware that I was not the fastest runner, and the day that no one sat me down to explain to me that the reason for running isn’t to be the first person across the finish line. Or the second. Or the third.

There’s this odd social consensus that if we can’t do things easily, it’s a good idea to just stop. When we don’t stop we’re subject to mocking by the bullies that simply never grow up. They’re there to mock us at every stage of our life and every stage of our existence for how slow we are, how funny we look if we dance, or how badly we sing.

They’re there to tell us in the hospital that we “can’t” breastfeed. Or if they don’t tell us that, we sometimes tell ourselves this.

It’s supposed to be natural.

I can’t coordinate getting my baby to the breast.

The latch looks good but it HURTS.

I failed again.

Failure takes a lot of time, little girl. When you stop running because everyone passed you.. You haven’t failed, you have made a choice to stop trying. And when you “fail” to breastfeed before you have even left the hospital, you haven’t “failed”. You have made a choice to stop trying. A choice that has been made because you don’t fully understand the options available, or because you’re like me and one day you chose to stop running because it felt too terrible to be so far behind everyone else.

I’m hoping to raise you to the understanding that when you’re behind you keep running even if you are that last person. You choose your pace, you feel your feet hit the ground, and you focus on breathing. Not because you will be the best. Not because you will pass others. But because you need to learn how to do each thing and how to stretch your limits and understand where your true limits are rather than where you compare to others that very first time that you have tried.

Don’t judge others that have stopped running, because we all stop running sometimes. And do not judge yourself if this is an area in which you choose to stop. Instead try and recognize when it is that you’ve “stopped” and when it is that you’ve “failed”, because it helps you make different choices in your future when you have the chance again.

When your oldest brother was born and I was trying to breastfeed.. I was failing. Over and over and over and over again I was failing. That’s when I started to run again. That’s when I looked around at the photographs of all the moms that were breastfeeding their babies and I looked down at your brother and realized that I was that clumsy creature running  behind everyone else.. And it quite simply did not matter to me anymore.

I put in the effort. I yelped in pain when he latched on. I slathered everything with lanolin and ground my teeth through the pain. I bled. I cracked. I blistered.

I didn’t have to go through any of that, I realize now. I could have sought out the support necessary to understand all the things that you can do to fix those things. I could have insisted on seeing the lactation consultant after I was told to “just give him formula if you’re worried”.

I could also have stopped running. But I didn’t. And I hope you won’t, either.

Because it’s not where everyone else is on that track that matters. It’s the ground under your own two feet. It’s your own record that matters. It’s your own successes, no matter how small. It’s your own definition of “success” and “failure”.

Don’t stop running, little girl. Not until you know what your true limits are. Because when you stop without having truly tried, you always wonder. When you give it your all, you earn the peace of mind in knowing that you have truly tried. It’s not about being a better woman than someone else. It’s not about a competition.

It’s about not giving up just because you’re a bit behind.

❤ Mama