[reason 96] car conversations

Onyx and I drive to Boston from Connecticut just about every Monday. That's close to, if not more than, five hours in the car with my fifteen year old. Sometimes Onyx watches a movie, tv show, or videos while I drive and listen to the audio over the car speakers. Sometimes we ride in comfortable silence, both lost in our own thoughts ... or me lost in my thoughts and Onyx lost in a game on their phone. And at least an hour or two of each trip, we talk.

We talk about all sorts of things including human rights, social justice, dreams, games, current events, medical stuff, and future plans. More than occasionally, our conversations veer off to subjects such as words for genitalia, the origin of a word, or Emily's boobs. How, you ask, would a specific person's boobs come up in conversation? After all, throughout my children's childhoods, at various gatherings of friends, most of whom breastfed, through countless La Leche League meetings, and with my normal state of being for over fourteen years being breastfeeding someone every time I sat down, my kids have seen a lot of breasts. Various amounts of exposed breast while breastfeeding and moms pumping breastmilk were normal life. 

We were talking about people walking around shirtless and how ridiculous it really is that "men" with "manboobs" can walk around shirtless while it's improper for women with perhaps even smaller breasts to do that. (And why are men shirtless and women topless?) And then to the banning of the statue of David from school lessons and how body parts are body parts and why is a boob or a penis perceived so differently than an elbow. Somehow that conversation veered into the realm of breastfeeding and Onyx brought up our friend Emily, who was a breastmilk pumping goddess. Emily would, after a long day at work, come to our house to pick up her children, and would often sit in a chair in our living room and pump while we chatted for a bit. My kids wouldn't bat an eyelash and would carry on normal conversations with her because it was a completely normal thing. Neither would they react to a naked child running through our house or a friend's yard or think anything of a child's anatomy as they helped to change a diaper. 

So Emily, if you're reading this, your boobs were part of the same conversation as the statue of David on our ride home from Boston. You're welcome. (Or sorry???)