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Even Fictional Characters Get Mom Shamed: ‘Girls’ Finale Delves Into the Breastfeeding Wars

If you’ve watched “Girls” at all over the past six seasons, you probably knew it was kind of a given that we’d see Lena Dunham’s boobs one last time in the series finale. But (spoiler alert?) who could have predicted that they’d be hooked up to a breast pump at the time?

The final episode flashes forward 5 months, and Hannah is now mom to a bouncing baby boy. He’s about 6 weeks old, and he’s been on a nursing strike that Hannah is desperate to break— mostly because best friend Marnie is in full on sanctimommy mode despite not possessing a child of her own (and we all know that people without children give the best parenting advice). She’s pressuring Hannah not to quit breastfeeding, dubiously promising that it’ll make her son smarter and more successful later in life.

If you’ve ever struggled with breastfeeding (or maybe didn’t struggle at all as you simply opted for formula instead), I’m betting you’ve had similar conversations with well-meaning friends. They profess to want to help you, but they actually just make you want to scream.

I don’t have much in common with the girls of “Girls,” but this final episode kind of nailed what it’s like to be a new mom in 2017. There’s so much pressure to keep pumping out that “liquid gold” no matter what it might be doing to your psyche in the meantime, and it’s hard not to feel like you’re a terrible mother if you’re not completely in love with every single moment of being a mom.

I couldn’t help but laugh at Hannah’s frustration as she struggled to get her baby to nurse, though I feel a little guilty about how hilarious I found it when she called her baby a “fuckhead” and “a little bit of an asshole.”

When all is said and done, Hannah does get her baby to latch once again. But what I appreciated about it was that it was Hannah’s choice to give it another shot— because she wanted to, and not because she was caving into judgment or fear mongering about formula.

Hannah Horvath has never been much of a role model, but in her final act she just might be.