I used to be the judgiest person in the formula aisle. Not out loud—I would never SAY anything—but in my head? Oh, in my head I was a monster. A complete and total monster with a nutrition degree and a superiority complex and opinions about everything. I'd see a mom grab a can of the generic store-brand formula and think, "Really? You're going to cheap out on your baby's nutrition?" I'd see someone with the ready-to-feed bottles and think, "How lazy can you be, you can't even mix powder?" I'd see a cart loaded with the expensive hypoallergenic stuff and think, "That's probably unnecessary, you just want to seem fancy."
I know. I KNOW. Writing this down makes me want to crawl under my desk and never come out. But here's the thing—if I don't tell you who I used to be, you won't understand why the change matters. And the change matters. It matters more than almost anything else I've learned in my years as a dietitian and a mom.
The moment I remember most clearly happened at the Fred Meyer on Southeast Hawthorne, the one with the weirdly narrow parking lot that makes everyone angry. I was there buying formula for Lily—this was maybe three months after the kitchen floor crying incident, so I was still raw about the whole thing—and there was a woman in the same aisle. She had a baby in the cart seat, maybe six months old, and she was staring at the formula cans with that specific expression of exhausted bewilderment that I now recognize instantly but back then just looked like indecision. She'd pick up a can, read the label, put it back. Pick up another. Squint at the ingredients. Sigh. Put it back.
I stood there with my can of the formula I already knew Lily tolerated, and I remember thinking—get this—I remember thinking, "Wow, she really should have researched this before she came to the store. It's not that hard to just pick one."
I didn't say it. Thank God I didn't say it. But I thought it, and the thought was there, and that matters.
About six months later, I met that woman. Her name was Michelle and she was 34, a graphic designer who worked from home in Southeast Portland while simultaneously caring for her son, Owen. She came to one of the formula feeding support groups I'd started attending at a coffee shop on Hawthorne—the same group that saved my sanity, the one I've written about before. And over the course of several Tuesdays, as we drank lattes and bounced babies and traded horror stories about sleep regression, Michelle told me about that day in Fred Meyer.
"I'd just come from the pediatrician," she said. "Owen had been diagnosed with a milk protein allergy AND a soy sensitivity, and the doctor handed me a list of six formulas that might work and said 'try one for two weeks and see.' I was standing in the aisle trying to figure out which one to try first, and I was so tired I couldn't remember which one the doctor had mentioned first, and my phone was dead so I couldn't call my husband, and this woman next to me looked at me like I was the most incompetent person she'd ever seen."
I didn't tell her that woman was me. I should have. I should have said, "That was me, and I was wrong, and I'm so sorry." But I was too ashamed. I just sat there and nodded and felt my face get hot.
Here's the thing about judgment. It's almost never about the person you're judging. It's about you. It's about your own insecurities, your own fears, your own desperate need to believe that you're doing things the right way in a world where "the right way" is constantly shifting under your feet. When I judged that mom for buying generic formula, it was because I was terrified that MY choice to use formula at all was being judged by everyone else. When I judged the ready-to-feed mom, it was because I was exhausted from mixing powder at 3 AM and jealous that she might be getting more sleep. When I judged the hypoallergenic formula mom, it was because I was still processing my own guilt about not being able to breastfeed and I needed someone else to be doing something "wrong" so I could feel like I was doing something right.
None of that excuses it. But understanding it helps.
The grocery store is this weird pressure cooker for parenting judgment. Think about it—it's one of the only public places where your parenting choices are literally on display. What's in your cart? Organic apples or the regular ones? Pouches or jars or homemade purees? Name-brand snacks or store-brand? And in the formula aisle, it's even more loaded. Every can in your cart is a statement. Or at least it feels like one.
I've talked to dozens of moms about their grocery store experiences since I started paying attention to this. There was Jenna, who switched to formula after six weeks of triple-feeding hell and said she used to drive to a Fred Meyer twenty minutes from her house just so she wouldn't run into anyone she knew in the formula aisle. There was Priya, whose mother-in-law visited from India and went grocery shopping with her and stood in the formula aisle asking loudly why she wasn't breastfeeding, while strangers pretended not to listen. There was Rachel, who once had an older woman pat her on the arm in the checkout line and say "don't worry dear, some babies just need the bottle" in a tone that suggested Rachel should definitely be worried.
And then there was the woman I saw last week. She was young—maybe 22, 23—and she was standing in the formula aisle at the Hawthorne Fred Meyer with a newborn in a carrier and a WIC folder in her hand. She was staring at the shelf with this expression of pure overwhelm, and a woman in her 60s walked up to her and said, "You know, breast is best. You should really try harder before you give up."
I swear to you, I saw red. Actual red. The kind of red where your vision narrows and you can hear your pulse in your ears.
I walked over—I never do this, I'm a mind-my-own-business person by nature—and I said, "Ma'am, I'm a registered dietitian who specializes in infant nutrition. This mom is making a perfectly healthy choice for her baby. Is there something I can help YOU with?"
The older woman huffed and walked away. The young mom looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "I tried. I really tried. My milk never came in. I've been pumping for three weeks and getting nothing. I just—" and she started crying right there in the formula aisle.
We sat down on the floor. Right on the floor of the Fred Meyer formula aisle, between the Enfamil and the Similac, and I held her baby while she cried and I told her my story. The NICU. The lactation consultant. The empty can at 2 AM. The shame. The slow, messy process of letting it go.
Her name was Jasmine. Her daughter was named Violet, she was four weeks old, and she was beautiful and healthy and thriving on formula. Jasmine had been surviving on maybe three hours of sleep a night and the only thing keeping her going was the knowledge that her baby was fed. And then a stranger in a grocery store told her she wasn't trying hard enough.
I've been thinking about Jasmine a lot since that day. I've been thinking about the version of me who would have judged her. That Emily—the one with the nutrition degree and the superiority complex—would have walked past Jasmine and maybe felt a flicker of pity, but not enough to stop. Not enough to sit on the floor. Not enough to see her as a person instead of a cautionary tale.
The change didn't happen all at once. It happened in small moments. It happened when I held Lily while she screamed with gas pains from the formula we were trying, and I realized that no amount of nutrition expertise could make a baby's digestive system cooperate. It happened when Mark lost his job for four months and we were suddenly counting every dollar, and I understood why someone might choose the generic formula even if the fancy stuff had slightly better ingredients. It happened when I was so depressed and sleep-deprived that mixing powder felt like an impossible task, and I finally got why someone would pay extra for ready-to-feed.
It happened when I realized that behind every cart in the formula aisle is a story I can't see. A NICU stay. A postpartum depression diagnosis. A breast cancer survivor who had a double mastectomy. An adoption. A mom who's taking medication she can't pass through breast milk. A mom who just didn't want to breastfeed and THAT IS ALSO VALID. Or maybe none of those things. Maybe just a mom who's doing her best, same as all of us, and doesn't need a stranger in a grocery store adding weight to a load that's already too heavy.
I'm not saying I never judge anymore. I'm human. Judgment is a reflex, not a choice—but what you DO with the judgment, that's the choice. When I feel that old familiar superiority creeping in, I try to catch it. I try to ask myself: what am I actually afraid of right now? What insecurity is this judgment protecting me from? And then I try to look at the person in front of me—really look at them—and see a story instead of a shortcut.
Jasmine and I text now. She sends me pictures of Violet, who is getting chunky and smiley and perfect. She asked me last week if I thought it was okay to switch to generic formula to save money. I told her what I tell everyone: the best formula is the one that works for your baby and your budget. Full stop.
I don't shop at the Hawthorne Fred Meyer as much anymore. Too much parking lot trauma. But when I do go, I always linger a little in the formula aisle. Not to judge. To watch. To be the person who smiles instead of stares. To be the person who says "you're doing great" instead of nothing. I can't undo the years I spent being the judg mental one. But I can be different now. And I can teach Lily to be different too—to see stories instead of snapshots, to assume complexity instead of simplicity, to lead with curiosity instead of criticism.
The formula aisle is just an aisle. But it's also a test. Every time we stand in front of those cans, we get to decide: are we going to be the person who judges, or the person who sits on the floor? I'm trying really hard to be the floor person.
— From Portland with exhaustion
