Serena Williams Stopped Breastfeeding For This Reason
Next to hearing that first cry when your baby enters this world, breastfeeding your child is one of the most rewarding and beautiful experiences you may ever have as a mother.
The moment your baby finally latches on is like none other, and that reconnection you and the baby feel is priceless. And while many mothers aren't able to exclusively breastfeed due to a variety of reasons, like lack of milk production to limited maternity leave, it's one of the most natural things any woman can do.
Every woman is different and will have to make different choices for her baby, but for Serena Williams, breastfeeding was one of her priorities. The tennis star recently spoke with TIME to discuss motherhood, her return to tennis, and making time for herself in the midst of it all.
Yet another example of a woman's innate superpowers: we give life and we nourish it simply with our bodies. It's amazing that Williams was able to go through a near-death experience from complications she experienced post-delivery (including five surgeries to address the pulmonary embolism, the ruptured C-section incision, and hematoma in her abdomen), and STILL have the strength to breastfeed her daughter Olympia. As a mom that breastfed both of her kids, the act is, on one hand, incredibly soothing, and on the other, incredibly draining. You become the baby's pacifier, their sole source of food and, at times, their only means of comfort.
But for Williams, she wouldn't have it any other way. She says:
"You have the power to sustain the life that God gave her. You have the power to make her happy, to calm her. At any other time in your life, you don't have this magical superpower."
And while her leave of maternity isn't quite like the leave of the majority of mothers around the world, she still faced some of the same pressures, like deciding whether or not she would continue to breastfeed Olympia. In fact, her coach urged her to stop because it was impacting her game, but Williams resisted. As a man, there is no way her coach could understand the bond that comes with breastfeeding. This decision might have have slowed down her tennis comeback, but this time the 22-time Grand Slam champion finally was able to do something that she wanted to do, rather than please everyone else. She says:
"It's absolutely hard to take from a guy. He's not a woman, he doesn't understand that connection, that the best time of the day for me was when I tried to feed her. I've spent my whole life making everyone happy, just servicing it seems like everyone. And this is something I wanted to do."
Ultimately, she did have to make the decision to wean Olympia off of nursing in order to rededicate herself to her first baby: tennis. The process isn't as simple as replacing the breast with a bottle, and Williams even reveals that she had to have a "talk" with Olympia requesting her body back.
"I looked at Olympia, and I was like, 'Listen, Mommy needs to get her body back, so Mommy's going to stop now.' We had a really good conversation. We talked it out."
Sometimes when you become a mother, self-care falls by the wayside. Williams also recognizes that it's so easy to put yourself last once you become a mother. She says that she is learning how to balance the expectations of motherhood with her return to her career and need for time for herself. She reveals:
"Sometimes she just wants Mommy, she doesn't want anyone else. I still have to learn a balance of being there for her, and being there for me. I'm working on it. I never understood women before, when they put themselves in second or third place. And it's so easy to do. It's so easy to do."
When she returned to Wimbledon this year, there wasn't a black woman that I know who wasn't glued to their televisions that Saturday afternoon. As she played her heart out, you could feel every grunt and moment of despair even more, knowing everything she's been through. When she eventually came up short, Williams took that moment to dedicate the match to all of the other mothers out there who were watching her in awe. She says if she can do it, so can we. She revealed:
"I dedicated that to all the moms out there who've been through a lot. Some days, I cry. I'm really sad. I've had meltdowns. It's been a really tough 11 months. If I can do it, you guys can do it too."
Her return to tennis wasn't without its own round of controversy. When she beat her own sister at the 2017 Australian Open, all while two months pregnant, she was the number one seeded tennis player in the world. By the time she returned, there was no ranking reserved for arguably the most dominant female tennis player that ever lived. Williams wants to use her experience to help change these unfair tennis rules, and in doing so, she might not only change tennis' minds but the minds of employers all around the world. She told TIME:
"It would be nice to recognize that women shouldn't be treated differently because they take time to bring life into this world."
And while her return to tennis has had its share of ups and downs, Williams knows she has a lot more to prove, not only to the sport but to herself. She wants to make sure her daughter gets to witness with her own eyes, her tennis greatness and vows to keep going, even at the age of 36. She says:
"I'm not done yet, simple. My story doesn't end here."
Serena Williams is the epitome of a strong, Black woman. And while we don't all have the opportunity to win grand slams or any other championship for that matter, we can still be inspired by Williams' tenacity, ability to make decisions that are best suited for her and her family, and her unmatched drive and belief in herself.
Keep pushing towards those dreams: your story doesn't have to end once you have a baby!
To read more of her conversation with TIME, click here.
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Michelle Schmitz is a writer and editor based in Washington, DC originally from Ft Lauderdale, FL. A self-described ambivert, you can find her figuring out ways to read more than her monthly limit of The New York Times, attending concerts, and being a badass, multi-tasking supermom. She also runs her own blog MichelleSasha.com. Keep up with her latest moves on IG: @michellesashawrites and Twitter: @michellesashas
ItGirl 100 Honors Black Women Who Create Culture & Put On For Their Cities
As they say, create the change you want to see in this world, besties. That’s why xoNecole linked up with Hyundai for the inaugural ItGirl 100 List, a celebration of 100 Genzennial women who aren’t afraid to pull up their own seats to the table. Across regions and industries, these women embody the essence of discovering self-value through purpose, honey! They're fierce, they’re ultra-creative, and we know they make their cities proud.
VIEW THE FULL ITGIRL 100 LIST HERE.
Don’t forget to also check out the ItGirl Directory, featuring 50 Black-woman-owned marketing and branding agencies, photographers and videographers, publicists, and more.
THE ITGIRL MEMO
I. An ItGirl puts on for her city and masters her self-worth through purpose.
II. An ItGirl celebrates all the things that make her unique.
III. An ItGirl empowers others to become the best versions of themselves.
IV. An ItGirl leads by example, inspiring others through her actions and integrity.
V. An ItGirl paves the way for authenticity and diversity in all aspects of life.
VI. An ItGirl uses the power of her voice to advocate for positive change in the world.
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It’s been nearly twenty years since India.Arie’s crown anthem, “I am not my hair,” gave Black women an affirmation to live by. What followed was a natural hair revolution that birthed a new level of self-love and acceptance. Concerns around how to better care for our hair birthed an entire new generation of entrepreneurs who benefitted from the power of the Black dollar. Retailers made room for product lines made for us, by us, on their shelves, and we further affirmed that though our hair doesn’t define us, it is part of our unique self-expression.
Today, that movement has turned into a wig uprising where Black women are able to experiment with colors, styles, and more without causing irreparable damage to our hair. It could even be said that we’ve arrived at a new level of acceptance: one that does not equate love of oneself to one’s willingness or lack thereof to wear her hair the way others deem acceptable. Not even other people who look like us.
However, as with Blackness itself, the issue of Black women’s hair is layered.
On the surface, it’s nothing more than a matter of personal preference. However, in a deeper dive, issues of texture, curl pattern, and of course, proximity to social acceptance, as well as other runoff streams from the waters of racism and patriarchy, rear their heads. The natural hair movement, though a wide-reaching and liberating community builder, also gave way to colorism and often upheld mainstream beauty standards.
Sometimes, favoring lighter-skinned influencers/creators with very specific hair textures, the white gaze leaked into our safe space and forced us to reckon with it. Accurate representations of natural hair in various states of being—undefined curls, kinks, and unlaid edges—are still absent from brand marketing. Protective styles, though intended to provide breaks from styling for our sensitive hair, have become a mask to help our hair be more palatable. A figurative straddle of the fence in order to appease the comfort of others in the face of our hair’s power.
And then there’s the issue of length.
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As a woman who has spent much of the last decade voluntarily wearing her hair in many variations of short hairstyles, from a pixie cut to a curly fro and a sleek bob, what I’ve gleaned throughout the years is that there is a glaring difference between how I am treated when wearing my hair short than when I opt for weaves, extensions or even grow it out slightly longer than my chin.
The differential treatment comes from women and men alike and spans professional and personal settings, including friends, coworkers, and industry peers.
What has become abundantly clear is that long hair is often conflated with beauty, softness, and any number of other words we relate to femininity in a way that short hair is not. That perceived marker of the essence of womanhood shows up in how I am received, communicated with, and complimented.
Even more so than texture, length has a way of deciding who among us is deserving of our attention, affection, and adoration. Whether naturally grown or proudly bought, the commentary around someone’s look or image greatly shifts when “inches” are present.
When it comes to long hair, we really, really do care.
In an effort to understand whether I had simply been misinterpreting the energy around my hair, I decided to take my findings to social media. I began with two side-by-side photos of myself. In both pictures, my hair is straightened; however, in one, I am wearing my signature pixie cut, and in the other, I am wearing extensions.
I posited that treatment based on hair length is a real thing, and what followed was confirmation that I was not alone in my feelings. “Long hair, like light skin, button noses, and being thin are all forms of social capital,” one user commented. “Some Black women enforce the status quo too, why wouldn’t we?”
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This also brought to mind the many times celebrity women (like most recently Beyoncé's Cécred hair tutorial) have done big reveals of their own natural tresses in an attempt to silence any doubt that Black women are able to grow their hair beyond a certain length. Of course, we all know that to be true, so why do we still feel the need to prove it so?
The responses continued to pour in from women of all skin tones, who felt that hair length played a role in people’s treatment of them. “When I have short hair I always feel like people don’t treat me like a woman, they treat me like a kid,” another user commented. “When my hair is long I get a lot more respect for some reason.”
From revelations about feeling invisible to admitted shifts in their own perceived beauty, Black woman after Black woman poured out her experience as it relates to hair length. Though affirmed by their shared realities, knowing that reactions to something so trivial have become yet another hair battle for Black women to fight was disheartening. Though we continue to defy gravity and push the bounds of imagination and creativity by way of our strands, will it always be in response to the idea that we are, somehow, falling short?
Unlike more obvious instances of hair discrimination, the glorification of longer length is sneakier in its connection to Eurocentric beauty standards. Hair commercials, beauty ads, and even hip-hop music have long celebrated the idea of gloriously long tresses while holding onto the ignorant notion that it is inaccessible for Black women.
Even as we continue to fight to prove our hair professional, elegant, and worthy in its natural state to the world at large, we’ve also adopted harmful value markers of our own as a community. It’s evident in how we talk about who has the right to start a haircare line and which influencers we easily platform. It’s evident in the language we use to identify those with long hair versus short hair. And it’s painfully obvious in how we treat one another.
It makes me wonder if India.Arie’s brave rallying cry, almost two decades old in its existence, will ever actually hold true for us. Or will we just continue to invent new ways to uphold the harmful status quo?
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Feature image by Willie B. Thomas/ Getty Images