Breast massages and blood

When I tell people I live in an intentional community/micro-monastry/commune I can often sense questions they are too polite to say aloud: Is it a cult? And is there….sex stuff? Reader, if we were a cult I wouldn’t tell you, but there is not sex stuff. However, several times in the last few weeks I have massaged a housemates boobs. It is not sexy. She was crying and swearing loudly and at one point a thin fountain of milk narrowly missed my face. Our smallest, newest housemate was born recently on the floor of our front room. I mainly shouted encouragement and made tea for the midwives. I also opened the door to three ambulance loads of (thankfully not needed) paramedics and generally confused everyone about how I was related. When the midwives and paramedics left after the home birth, I put bleach on the bloody towels and found a discarded catheter in the corner of the room. I managed to tip the remaining contents on myself while disposing of it. I didn’t really care. Now, we are all adapting to the new arrival, including those poor, sore, engorged boobs.

If you’ve ever breastfed, or tried to, you may have curled your toes at some of the sentences above. Often, as the mother’s body adapts to this new (ancient) function, milk ducts get blocked and a horrific infection called mastitis can occur. Massaging along the ducts helps make this less likely, and also really hurts. It is a hard thing to do to yourself with the firmness required, and partners tend to find it difficult to torture their beloved. I had mastitis, know in my bodies deep memory how much better this pain is than the alternative, and so I am the best placed person to perform this act of love for her1.

Does it feel weird, I hear you ask, getting hands on with someone else’s knockers2? Not at all. It feels like ancestral scripts kicking in. There are certain things I imagine women down the centuries have done for each other. Most of them are now only done by paid professionals. Thank God for midwives and lactation consultants and health visitors, and also, isn’t it sad that they alone perform most of these functions? Where are the women who just know how to help a baby latch because accompanying each other in these seasons is what we do? Why is it not normally veteran dads teaching other men how to change a nappy, but paid-for classes and groups?

Since the birth our house has been even fuller than usual with family sleeping over on sofas, church friends dropping off meals, neighbours. All of us, including my older children can hold the baby, give the expressed milk they needed to get the jaundice down and weight up, make meals, put a wash on, sterilise bottles. We’ve been able to send the new parents to bed and take the sleepy bundle into the garden while we plant out this years tomatoes.

Honestly, as we prepared for this major change in the life of our community I have often felt nervous. Worried we would not know how to be, fearful that the extra person with needs would tip us over the edge of our capacity, that we’d be at each other’s throats from the tiredness. I feared I would be too selfish to want to help look after a baby, too glad to be out of that relentless season with mine. Instead, it feels right. I’m sure there will be times where we get close to those things (we are early days), but I no longer feel afraid that this will break us. We all seem to just know what to do. My primary-school age son, previously the youngest member of the household, came down this morning, unstacked the dishwasher and restacked it without being asked for the first time ever. Then he held the baby so their mum could eat her breakfast. As he gazed down at the tiny, fragile body in his arms he looked older in the best possible way.

It actually doesn’t take a lot to make the experience of these early months less brutal for our housemates. Anyone who has been through it knows the worst parts are the isolation, the relentlessness and the constant fear you are doing it wrong. An extra pair of hands, a half hour cuddle so someone can take a shower or a nap, a hug and encouragement in the overwhelm ease all of those. It feels good, in some deep-down way, to be able to pass on some of our hard won knowledge (lightly, when it is requested). To regularly remind them that no-one knows what they are doing, that babies cry a lot, that breastfeeding can be really difficult, that it is normal for this to be the hardest and best thing they have ever done at the same time. My husband is a naturally early riser so will take some of the dawn feeds. My bet is he will enjoy that more than getting blearily sucked into work or doomscrolling at 5.30 am.

The way we live is a HUGE gamble. It is a rebellion against a culture that teaches us to prioritise comfort, convenience and control over almost everything else. Living up close with others does involve sacrificing those things. I cannot pretend it is not demanding, annoying, sometimes tiring. It is a risk, but a calculated one.

We have made it from the belief that comfort, convenience and control are fool’s gold: appealing but ultimately unsatisfying.

They are so shiny, and so highly valued by the culture I am formed by. Large parts of me still crave them. Many forces encourage me to orient my life around seeking them, not least because they tend to be profitable. Seasons like this, where the connection between what we have sacrificed and what we have gained in mutual care is so clear are really helpful. I thought I’d mainly feel the gamble paying off when we were the recipients rather than the givers of care, when the benefits were mainly flowing in our direction. It is becoming clear to me that this is a lie of our culture too, an ungrounded story about humans and how they flourish. We are not Homo Economicus, mainly looking to optimise our self-interest. Or we do not have to be. The look of satisfaction, dignity, pride even on my sons face as he realised he could help said it all. We are made for each other, we are made by each other, and it is good.

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