Yeah hi. Babies? Did you know that you little guys were all born to be breastfed? Yes, that is your calling in life apparently, your entire reason for being. To suck on a boob.

I hate the billboards I’ve been seeing lately that are part of the National Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign. They simply read:

Babies were born to be breastfed.

Isn’t that annoying? I’m certainly not trying to get in the middle of the big scary breastfeeding debate. I don’t really care what you feed your baby—formula, breast milk, chocolate covered pickles, whatever. That’s not the point. What I hate is how idiotic that statement is.

When you say that someone was born to do something, you’re basically saying that is the reason they are alive, the reason they were created, the reason they exist. Like, “Florence was born to dance” means that Florence was put on this earth to dance and entertain and express ideas through dance. It means she was born with an innate talent for dancing, and if Florence ever decided to quit dancing in order to pursue, say, archery, at which she is pathetically awful, everyone would sigh with disappointment and beg her to stop with the crazy talk, put down the arrows and pick up the damn tutu!

To say that babies are born to be breastfed means that every baby ever born is born simply for the purpose of breastfeeding. Like women all over the world are sitting around with their overfull breasts squirting milk, hoping a baby will come along soon and relieve them. And once the babies are too old to breastfeed, well their life’s purpose is done and everything that comes after that is meaningless. They weren’t born to compose music or save lives or raise families or love someone. They weren’t even born to scrub toilets or break hearts. Nope, just to breastfeed.

When babies grow up and get old and eventually die, they’ll go to meet their maker and they’ll ask, Maker, what was the purspose of my life? And their maker will say, To breastfeed, my child, and that is all.

Yes I realize that we can be born for more than one purpose, but does anyone really believe that babies were actually born to be breastfed? Read that again. Born to be breastfed. I hope not. Let’s try rewording the sentence to make it a little less absurd.

• Babies should be breastfed.
• Babies are healthiest when breastfed.
• Babies like to be breastfed.
• Babies were born to do great things, therefore you should breastfeed them so they are as healthy as they can be.

Okay maybe those aren’t as cute and catchy, but at least they’re not stupid. Because what if I choose not to breastfeed my baby? Or what if I adopt a child and I can’t breastfeed? Does that mean that I’m denying my baby its reason for living? That I’m keeping it from its life’s purpose?

I don’t think so. Because my (future) babies will be born to be doctors or artists or presidents or rock stars. My babies will be born to kick some ass in this world, not just to suck on my boobs.