Ahem.
Now that I have your attention, you might want to read this… (I’ll wait, if you want.)
…in which a white, upper middle class, urban mom of three–and journalist!–takes on The Popular Establishment, which purports to tell you that nursing is actually better than formula feeding. Ok, maybe a it’s a tiny bit better, but when it comes to your other kids or your marriage or your career or your time or how to SAVE all of those things, screw the boob, it’s too much of a drain.
You might have thought, now that my children are close to five (and, mirable dictu, no longer nursing) and a month shy of three (and losing a nursing an average of once a day due to hitting me or throwing outrageously obnoxious temper tantrums) that I would be done blogging about breastfeeding.
Apparently not.
Let me just say that my reaction to this article was on the visceral side. Like fist-shaking, adrenaline-pumping het up and pissy. Reading it again, I am more sympathetic to the position that women–of course, women who have access to prenatal care and the popular baby magazines–have been perhaps unduly…guilted? Is that even true? I don’t know.
I only have my own experience. I wanted to nurse. My biggest influence was my mom, who nursed me even when it was extremely unpopular in the prevailing culture to do so. (One of my upstairs neighbors, a pediatrician who is exactly my age, tells me that she’s found among her patients that the support/non-support of the baby’s grandmother(s) is the biggest factor for breastfeeding success or not.) I surrounded myself with people who supported what I wanted. I was pissed when my OB handed me a can of formula at my 36-week appointment. I was prepared for EFFORT.
And the truth was, after some vague discomfort and adjustment in the settling-in period, it was effortless. The nursing, anyway.
The adjustments to my body, my sexuality, my priorities, my time, my marriage, my self-perception, my mothering? Those took time. I am still a work in progress, let’s say. Some time late in 2004 I believe I promised Taxman a night alone. Any year now, I’m going to make good on that. I PROMISE. But at the same time I haven’t heard him complaining. Not about nursing. That I yell too much and that I am too disorganized? Yes, indeed; I agree. That I have failed him and our marriage by committing myself to breastfeeding our babies? No. For not just weeks or months but YEARS? Also no.
I long ago gave up the idea of breastfeeding at all costs for everyone. I’ve been at the mothering gig long enough to know moms who have been hospitalized and on medications that are not ok for nursing, to know moms who truly did not have enough milk (a rare condition), to know moms whose babies have exquisitely sensitive stomachs, to know moms whose jobs did not allow them to pump, to know moms of micropreemies. These babies had formula of various kinds and thrived.
But I know moms who nursed–and nursed and pumped–through far harder times than I’ve experienced. Though residency, through twins, through babies with food allergies (therefore restricting their own diet). The ones that truly move me are the women that show up from time to time at my La Leche meeting: usually women of color who don’t have the support of their mom (like I did) or older sisters (like my mom did), who don’t have any kind of a nursing mentor, who have overcome preemies and NICU time or terrible thrush or impossible work situations and succeed. And successfully nursing, laying that foundation between mom and baby is something that shouldn’t just be tossed onto the garbage heap because the medical benefits aren’t as good as “they” say. The they, of course, who mostly assume that you’ll be weaning your baby, the one you worked so hard to nurse at the beginning, to cow’s milk at age one so you can get your “life” back.
What really outraged me about this article, though, other than the fact that the author basically said I was setting feminism back by 50 years with my wee breasts (and trust me, after four years and ten months straight of nursing they are pretty wee) and that she compared watching a friend pumping to a Nazi experiment (NOT COOL HANNA ROSIN, the Jewish Israeli) and (if you watch the podcast) painting every person who has ever been associated with La Leche League with the same brush (um, no, the only thing we have in common is that we are women), was that she didn’t seem to GET IT. Which is so shocking to me, because, by her own account, she has three children. And by “IT,” I mean the following things:
1. Babies change everything.
2. This includes, in no particular order: your life, your marriage, your relationship to your job/career, your social life, your environmental footprint, your identity, your priorities. Did I mention EVERYTHING? Don’t try to bullshit your way back to the person you were before. That life is over.
1a. and 2a. EACH baby you add to your family will do this. Whether you think 1 to 2 kids is the hardest or 2 to 3 or 11 to 12 or what have you, EACH baby is a new set of demands and a new personality.
3. Nursing is more than just a food delivery system, although this was alluded to in the last paragraph.
4. Babies take an inordinate amount of time. There is nothing more counter-productive than trying to calculate how much. People would never have babies if they knew how much time was going to be involved in raising them. If you do sit there calculating of course you are going to stew over how little mothers are “worth.”
5. Not everyone is dying to share the “chore” of breastfeeding. This is something I never wished Taxman could share. I mean, it is extraordinary, but I didn’t feel like it was a burden. There is enough else involved in childcare/feeding/raising (see #4) that I don’t feel like this ONE item, as time consuming as it can be, is going to make it or break it. Maybe I’m not remembering correctly? I do believe, though, that if you ask me ten times what child-related chore I always wanted help with but never got? Ten times you’ll get an answer of “nail clipping.”
6. Something I’m sure that The Atlantic or The New Yorker or The New York Times would never dare to publish is my perspective on this, which is that the whole thing, from conception though breastfeeding, smacks of the miraculous. I spent a couple years tooling around in the Badlands of Infertility, so just the fact that we made a baby! Two times! is pretty incredible. But then gestating said little zygote to an actual, real-live, breathing baby (again, something that not everyone gets to do) and then being able to provide 100% of this tiny, helpless human being’s nutritional needs with my own body? IT DOES NOT GET MORE AWESOME THAN THAT, PEOPLE. IT IS MAKING ME WANT TO HAVE ANOTHER BABY RIGHT THIS SECOND TO BE THAT CLOSE TO YAD HASHEM AGAIN, SO I AM GOING TO STOP THINKING ABOUT IT. RIGHT NOW.
Ahem.
So I guess that’s really the crux of my issue; I am trying to fight science with emotion, reason with religion.
I wish that this article had addressed what I would call a Very Useful Topic,*namely how to hook American women up with some decent maternity leave. Addressing the lack of parity between mothering (parenting) in all its facets and working in the so-called real world. I would have had a rough go pumping in my work environment. I never had to face it because I turned tail and ran away from a low-paying, family-unfriendly industry. I’m not sorry, but I absolutely acknowledge it is a privilege that many either don’t have or don’t want.
“We’re never going to be Norway,” intoned one of the participants in Hanna Rosin’s podcast, as if Norway and its 99% breastfeeding rates and universal health care and outrageously generous parental leave policies will be the United States’ very undoing, one step away from anarchy or, worse, socialism. But how about Canada? Can we at least try to be Canada? Better health coverage, better parental leave, better for breastfeeding?
Yeah, I did it. I drank the Kool-Aid. I nursed my babies. They are healthier than some, they are smarter than some, they are more bonded than some. (Breastfeeding? Genetics? Rose-colored glasses?) But looking back with a lot of hindsight, I did it for me as much as I did it for them. I was never sorry; I never will be. Ms. Rosin can go peddle her quasi-feminist ranting somewhere else. My breasts are fulfilling their destiny.
* Sorry, I just had to read Thomas the Tank Engine. I’m better now.
P.S. The only pressure I ever got from the medical establishment was to stop nursing so much (Miss M, age 10 months) and to nightwean her (age 20 months, when I was 2 months shy of delivering AM).
Uhhh, hi.
I can’t say I’m as passionate about breastfeeding as you are, although like you, it hasn’t been a struggle for me. Yo nurses 5 times a day, but nightweaned himself when he was like 4 months, so at least I get a full night’s sleep (more or less).
But I’m starting to get to the place where I see Rosin’s point. It’s true that babies change everything, but even in my world where I can stay home until 9:45 to get the second morning nursing in and pumping is just a matter of closing my office door, I’m getting tired of it. Yo is now 8 1/2 months, and except for those mistaken 2 months in September and October, has been exclusively nursed.
It seems weird to put him on formula NOW, when he’s so close to just moving to real food. And in fact, if only he would actually deign to eat real food, I wouldn’t be so worried–I’d let him have a couple of bottles during the day, maybe nurse in the evening still, and let him fill up on food. But of course, he’s still *completely* dependent on liquid nutrition and I have no idea when that’s going to end with him, so I feel bad giving up nursing for that reason.
But, I need my life back, too, at least a small part of it. In May I’m going to the west coast for 5 days for work, and there’s simply no way that I could leave him enough supply to make it through without supplementing. And then I think about how amazing that trip would be if I don’t have to pump during it. So now I’ve started to see this as my goal for weaning. I’ll have nursed him for about 11 months–pretty close to the recommendation–and if he has to drink formula for a month or so, well, so be it.
I’m sure my decision will be solidified in a week when I go to Washington DC for the day. I leave at 8am and return at 10pm, and this will involve pumping twice ON THE AMTRAK. I haven’t yet figured out exactly how that’s going to work, but I’m sure it ain’t going to be pretty.
I probably should have added that I have (of my own volition) come to view nursing as part of my job description. And although it’s not always exactly what I *want* to do, or sometimes I procrastinate (like from, say, 4:30 am to 6 am), it all falls under that rubric.
When I took part of my life back it involved joining one book club, then adding a second, then starting to exercise again. Any year now, I’ll start cooking again. It’s a give and take for everything; nursing has just been one of my non-negotiable terms.
I have to admit I’ve avoided that article, knowing the gist of what it’s about. I simply can’t allow myself to read it and get riled up because much of what you point out is exactly how I feel about nursing. And here I am, due to give birth almost exactly a year to the date since my last nursing session with my daughter (we made it 2 years, one month) – so I’m not allowing the any of the so-called negative parts of a nursing relationship into my thoughts. And I’m not allowing those who don’t view it as a gift to infiltrate my thoughts either.
But I am doing what I can to enjoy my “freedom” from nursing because I know what it will entail in a few months. For instance, a scheduled date night in the next week because I know that for the first few months or so, I’m not going to have one of those because of the hassle of pumping coupled with the lack of sleep meaning we won’t want to get out alone much at first without the kids anyway.
As you point out in your PS, there is so much more to finding time for me, for “taking back my life” that has nothing to do with nourishing my child, one I feel lucky to have and blessed to be able to feed from my own body (not to mention save precious funds on formula). I, too, have a great support system set up and am lucky for that. But yes, the me time – that’s why there is a thing called a Nintendo DS. Or baths with a good book. Email to a friend at 3 a.m. I guess it’s a matter of perspective but I know my time with my kids is fleeting, this time that they need need neeeeeed so much – so we just barrel on through, make adjustments as needed, and know that way too soon we’ll look back at each other and say, “Where’d the time go?”
hey, I found you again! And what a great post you’ve written, I agree with every word. ::hugs:: I hope you won’t mind me linking to it on my Facebook page, my current little soapbox.
Argh, I haven’t read this piece yet and you are one of many friends who’s commented on it recently. Will read and respond, umm… soon-ish.
You will never regret the time and energy you have given to your children. As an adoptive mom, I couldn’t nurse my first two, and my pediatrician and OB both advised against it when my biological child was born, due to practices at the time and to the fact that I then had 3 children under 5.. the middle child was a difficult personality and wasn’t accepting the new one either. But I have always regretted not being able to try. I am so proud of my daughter for her nursing and respect any mother who gives of herself to her children in this way.
You are the same age as Elder Son (ahem!) and I know whereof you speak about lack of support for nursing. I did nurse him for six months and I won’t detail the BS I was told by the dr. about how I should put him on solid food at six WEEKS etc. I was a young thing and did as I was told, but I wish I’d someone to tell me differently. Nor will I go into my other nursing stories (WW is the only TRULY successful one). But I do so wish that we could be Norway–or Canada–when it comes to this. Mothers–and families–deserve more support.
Did you see Rosin on the Today show?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/29718430#29718430
I just can’t read the article because I know I’ll get too riled up. And I’m about to go off right now, anyway. Bare with me…
I do believe that every woman/child/family have to make a choice about breastfeeding that’s right for them (for the ifs and when to weans, etc.). Everyone’s situation is different. I had to wean at almost 18 months if I wanted to conceive again due to fertility medications, and that was what was right for our family. And I had to stop pumping at 12 months because that was what was best for my tortured breasts. There is a chance that I might have to wean the baby due in June way earlier than I want due to other medication issues, but I lean heavily toward nursing and getting the medication as close as possible to helpful without being harmful for nursing. Those are my choices. Other people will make other choices based on their circumstances.
But my biggest issue is that, in our culture, we are not starting from the natural starting point. The natural starting point is that it is normal to nurse for the first few years of your child’s life. It’s normal to have to change your life around to meet the needs of your child, and that included breastfeeding on demand. It is natural and normal for your life to change in every way (as you say), and that breastfeeding should be what you do–unless there is some reason you truly can’t/shouldn’t.
When my parents’ generation were told not to breastfeed AT ALL and that formula was better than breastfeeding, that changed what our culture/society believes is normal. It moved us away from what is natural and set different expectations and priorities than what had come for millenia before.
How do we get things to swing back to the natural and true norms of childrearing, especially breastfeeding? If we keep promoting articles like the one you referred to, we are simply keeping the starting point for the breastfeeding decision making in a place that is unnatural and skewed. If instead, we promote that breast is best, not just for the baby but also for many many mothers, than we can start bring the norm back to what is truly normal and natural.
Yes, I need “me” time too. Yes, I need “us” time for me and my husband without our child(ren). But is it breastfeeding that has to go? I think in most circumstances it doesn’t. But people think it does because they are not are not at the natural starting point for thinking about it and making the decision. And I (and my husband) always try to keep in mind that this baby years are a really very small time period in the overall scheme of our lives. When we decided to have children, we decided to change our lives permanently, and we knew that the first few years of their lives would be the most drastically changed and given over to the kids and their needs. We try very hard to work within the parameters of the family unit, where everyone has needs that have to met. But some needs outweigh others, such a the baby’s need to eat outweighs my need to use my gift certificate to the spa.
Okay, rambling. I hope you get my point. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this! I love how you expressed them. 🙂
Wow.
Great comments. How frustrating to be having this conversation. AGAIN.
A great post, thanks! I am a lot more militant about it in my own rebuttal, but you have a very inviting way of addressing the issue.
And for the record, I never found breastfeeding to be a chore or limiting in any way. That’s just part of becoming a new mom, I thought. There is plenty of time to go off and do your own thing later, but babies are just babies for a short time. Why would someone even want to have babies if they aren’t “into” all the baby-type stuff: late nights, nursing, etc? Anyway, like you said, I’d rather share poopy diapers or bath times any day of the week.
p.s. taking care of your children doesn’t get any easier once they are weaned. Anyone who has had to make three meals and endless snacks in one day while potty training for a toddler can attest to that.
Hi,
I’m going to try an phrase this carefully, but if it comes off wrong, please be charitable in your reading: I’m not trying to be agressive. for the record, I’ve been nursing for the last 4 years, never gave the babies formula, don’t intend to stop anytime soon, and there’s little about mothering I love so whole-heartedly and easily. But, for all thats’ wrong with rosin’s article, I think she is pointing to something that you (one) might be missing if you haven’t tried to combine breastfeeding with work outside: it really does make it much much harder to work, much harder to appear professional, and I say this as someone who had little difficulty pumping and had to do it only a couple of days a week. This isn’t just about wanting time to go to the spa, and I think that claim is disngenuous. Its’ about the fact – fact – that breastfeeding in an office environment requires a lot of good will and time that sometimes just is not available. If you’ve got a young baby, you’re already subsisting on as little sleep as possible: you’re already missing as much work as possible; pumping, storing, all that – it takes a lot of time. formula is much easier if you’re not home. breastfeeding makes it harder for women to have “men’s jobs”. Rosin is right about that. Now, i’m not at all saying that means we shoudln’t breasfeed – but I think we owe people – women – honesty: the honest truth is that the biology here works against classic, “anything you can do I can do better’ feminism.
Rachel,
I totally agree with your points about pumping and working, which is why my argument is for extended maternity leave instead of the 6-12 weeks (unpaid, in some cases) that many women receive. Even in the most breastfeeding-friendly work environments — dedicated nursing rooms, subsidized breast pumps, etc.– you’re right that women are missing out on part of what’s going on in the “corporate” environment. In my ideal universe, that shouldn’t happen, they shouldn’t have to be pulled in 12 different directions because they would be able to be home for a significant amount of their babies’ first year without trashing their careers. I think it takes a good 2-3 months for a mom-baby pair to get their bearings, then to introduce a pump and other responsibilities to that is just asking women to be super-human. Parenting, but mothering in particular, is sometimes belittled into something that you should be able to do in your spare time. Nursing is no longer my primary mothering responsibility, and I still can’t quite fathom going back to work at anything more than 3/4 time AT MOST (and then only with babysitting-cleaning-laundry-shopping help).
You’re right that biology betrays the equality aspect; based on the pay gap, equality is still a farce, so why buy into it?
I’ve been lurking for awhile, enjoying your blog, and feel moved to comment this time. Unfortunately, it is a bit of a hodge-podge of thoughts on this subject.
I just weaned my 23 month old baby last week. I went back to work when she was 3 months old, part time for a month, and after that pretty much fulltime. I pumped until she was 17 months old. I actually wouldn’t have wanted an entire year maternity leave- I would have liked a longer run of part time, though. For me, going back to work was a positive experience on the whole, for many reasons I won’t go into here.
She’d been slowly dropping feedings for awhile. I finally gave a little push on the last one because I’m pregnant and it just wasn’t working as well for me anymore. But I was still a little sad to do it, and I do miss it.
I consider myself a feminist. I work in a very male-dominated field. No one at work EVER, EVER gave me any grief about needing time to pump. Maybe that is because I live in California, where it is protected by law. Or maybe it is because they saw that I still got my work done- I am lucky that large aspects of my job can be done at any computer, so I just made sure I always had a computer in the lactation room.
I remember getting a little antsy at about 9-10 months, and wishing I could have “my body” back. I think I was wanting to go out and drink more than one drink without thinking about when I was going to nurse next. In retrospect, I think it was more about the totality of the demands of motherhood than nursing. Adjusting to the demands of motherhood is HUGE and hard, and of course some of us are going to have a little bit of trouble with it. But I’m with you- it is the sum of motherhood, not any one of its parts, that causes the need for adjustment.
I can’t bring myself to go read the article you reference because I can’t afford the amount of time I’d spend really, really angry if I did. But I will say- anyone who sets up feminism/workplace equality as something that is undermined by any aspect of motherhood, including breastfeeding, is setting up a false choice. Someone doesn’t want to nurse her baby? Fine, I won’t judge her as a mother for that choice. But it is wrong and incredibly unhelpful to imply that those of use who do want to breastfeed are necessarily less dedicated to our careers or less interested in the equality of women. What bunk.
My reading of the science is that breastfeeding is definitely better for the baby than formula. The brain development link that has been weakened by some recent studies (which basically found that in babies with certain genetic profiles, it doesn’t matter) is only one of many reasons why breastfeeding is better, if you can do it. And right now, there is no way for you to know whether or not your baby has the genetic profile in which breastfeeding IS beneficial to brain development.
Oh and @Ianqui- I pumped on a plane once. Get a large shawl and wrap that around yourself, sit next to a wall or window, turn you back to the rest of the train and pump away. Honestly, the guy two seats over didn’t even notice what I was doing.
Cloud,
The premise of the article was that the science is so weak as to be really a false argument. And that the science (as a false argument) is being used to pressure women into nursing and continue nursing even when it is inconvenient, difficult, or sets up a certain inequality [in career, marriage, etc.].
Emily Jones (the commenter above) had a great post with rebuttals to Rosin’s claims vis-a-vis the science.
My reaction was purely from an emotional perspective 🙂
Thanks for the reply, OTE. Do you mind if I carry on (because this is preying on my mind)? I’m not sure what you mean by “based on the pay gap, equality is still a farce, so why buy into it?”. Could you elaborate? Because here’s where I’m at: I love the idea of extended leave, but I can’t help thinking that means giving up on equality. And at the moment that’s a price I willing – I think – to pay, but it is a price.
I broke down and read the article. I had my usual problems with reading articles about science in the mainstream media (I find that mainstream media authors tend to oversimplify and overstate conclusions), but I’m used to that. I’m glad someone has refuted her.
But I’m still fuming about other things.
The bit at the end that seemed to imply that breastfeeding (or was it just motherhood in general?) was part of the reason her female peers weren’t appearing in positions of power was infuriating. IF motherhood is part of the reason why women aren’t breaking through the glass ceiling, the problem is with the ceiling, not with motherhood.
And the bit about how difficult it is to breastfeed and go back to work was so far from my experience that I hardly know how to respond.
And this line:
“It is a serious time commitment that pretty much guarantees that you will not work in any meaningful way.”
is utter BS. I exclusively BF for 6 months, didn’t wean until 23 months, and never supplemented with formula (not because I think formula is evil, but because I never had to). As I said in my earlier comment, I was back at work at 3 months and like to think that I’ve been working in a “meaningful way” ever since. For that matter, I think the day to day care of children is working in a “meaningful way” (and actually orders of magnitude harder than my job) and clearly women have figured out how to balance that and breastfeeding for eons.
Phooey. What an unhelpful article. I hope it at least made her feel better to write it.
“the honest truth is that the biology here works against classic, ‘anything you can do I can do better’ feminism”
to me, this gets down to the heart of the matter. Why are we competing against men? and why are we competing against other women? At this point in the history of Feminism, our goal, our ideal shouldn’t be to prove that we are BETTER than anyone else in order to be afforded EQUAL treatment. Rather, our goal should be to unequivocally uphold the belief that all humans, women and men, deserve the opportunity to contribute to society in whatever way they are uniquely qualified to do so. I know, this is where my teenage son says that mom’s gone off the rails again in her quest for Utopia. But seriously, I’ve BTDT… almost a decade ago I worked in Telecom with a bunch of good ol’ boys (I was the only female technician for my company in the *entire* state of Oregon for a year!), and had to prove myself over and over as capable and deserving of respect, so it’s not like I don’t know the struggle or I haven’t fought the fight. I did not consider it liberating to have all the stress of the world on my shoulders while trying to prove that I was just as good as the men around me! (and I was a single mom at the time)
My solution to this old school — and in my opinion outdated — version of feminism is that the fight needs to be for equality across the board. Men need to be held equally responsible in the homefront, and women need to accept responsibility for their part in that. Men need to have the same right to take parental leave as women do, and our society needs to get to a place where bosses do not scoff at this idea. Men/fathers need to stay home with their sick kids as often as [working] mothers do, and/or take a year or ten off from their careers in order to care for their family — and obviously this needs to be assumed as a choice for them, just as it is assumed to be a choice for a woman when she is pregnant. In my version of feminism, Rosin’s arguments undermine the cause of feminism by continuing to encourage that women vs women rivalry, and that resentment of men/fathers who aren’t doing as much of the hard work of parenting (whose fault is that? I hold my husband to a very high standard). Worst of all, making statements like “It is a serious time commitment that pretty much guarantees that you will not work in any meaningful way” that can be applied to ALL of parenthood, and not just breastfeeding, serve to discourage men from becoming full participants in such an unworthy time waster, and serve to discourage employers from shifting their views about employees who also happen to be mothers. d’oh!!!
I’m sorry if this comment is all over the place but whenever this old trope comes up — is it about every 18 months? — I just feel so frustrated, we should have moved on from this already!!! There are a million things I want to yell out… I agreed with a lot of what Emily wrote in her blog response, on a personal level. I also wholeheartedly agree with caramama when she says : “my biggest issue is that, in our culture, we are not starting from the natural starting point. The natural starting point is that it is normal to nurse for the first few years of your child’s life. It’s normal to have to change your life around to meet the needs of your child, and that included breastfeeding on demand. It is natural and normal for your life to change in every way (as you say), and that breastfeeding should be what you do–unless there is some reason you truly can’t/shouldn’t.” But I wanted my comment to address specifically the argument of breastfeeding and certain aspects of motherhood “undermining” femininsm.
Finally, (ha! as if) what is probably equally frustrating to me is how much, so much, of this discussion belongs to a certain educated and privileged class. There are thousands of women in this country, and millions the world over, who have no choice but to work menial jobs in order to support their families, who struggle to find adequate childcare solutions, who struggle to FEED their children daily and keep them safe and healthy. Two years ago I was on a mission trip and felt very humbled by the ready acceptance of a group of local women who were mothers & grandmothers as we discussed motherhood. They lived in shanties without running water, and worked in the fields for 12 hours a day picking fruits & vegetables destined for the US market… one of these women was a mother of three who spoke about how hard it was for her to take an unpaid day off work to go to the doctor (that she has to pay because she has no insurance) and how she was still breastfeeding her 9-month old baby, in spite of the difficulties of maintaining her supply under such harsh conditions. I did the best I could to encourage her, all the while holding back tears and thinking of women like Rosin (and Amy Sohn, and another one whose name I’ve blocked out for now) who talk about how hard it is to balance their [self] needs, as well as work and motherhood. Suffice it to say, I know many women who only *wish* they had it as hard as Ms Rosin does and would gladly trade places. So yeah, please *spare* me. And use all that education and resentment to advocate for things that will actually make a difference to families across socioeconomic lines, like parental leave policies that greatly improve upon FMLA, affordable health care, affordable childcare, etc. I think REAL feminism should entail working harder to improve the condition of ALL women in this country and abroad.
Now, someone please get Ms. Rosin a sling/baby carrier and teach her how to breastfeed in it!
Micaela, hooray! Two thumbs up!
And Rachel, I was talking about the wage gap. The NYT recently had an interactive graph.
So in most fields women are not keeping up anyway.
There are just more creative solutions: job sharing, telecommuting, more flexibility for DADS to be the ones to fetch sick kids from school, to go on class trips, etc. Of course this totally letting my white collar / upper middle class roots show. Factory workers, migrants, etc. have no such options.
I don’t know, I think we’d have to poll some Canadian/European moms who take 6+ months of maternity leave and see how they feel about it.
***cheers on micaela!!!!!***Woo! Indeed!
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Ok, I am chiming in late with a contrary view [ducks in advance]:
Rosin’s piece really spoke to me. BFing was tough for me – preemie, NICU, plus PT work starting at 12 weeks – and my quest was made much more difficult by my extreme sense of guilt about even thinking about quitting nursing early. I ended up nursing for about 13 months, but quitting pumping at 10 or 11. By doing so I regained a significant amount of sanity — which was FAR more important for my daughter than any antibodies I may have been passing on.
And I do think Rosin is right about the way in which BFing helps establish a pattern in which the BFing parent is the Anointed One who knows everything about the kid’s needs. It’s a really hard trap to escape — or at least it has been in my marriage. Sure, that tendency existed already… but BFing certainly exacerbated it.
I absolutely agree with everything y’all have said about maternity leave, the wage gap, etc. — and I work in support of those issues as much as I can. But I don’t agree that Rosin’s piece undermines those efforts
Finally, @Emily Jones: “Why would someone even want to have babies if they aren’t “into” all the baby-type stuff: late nights, nursing, etc?”
I had a baby because I wanted a child–not because I fare well with little (adorable) demanding lumps of neediness. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh–but it’s true. I didn’t want a baby. I wanted a toddler who could talk and dance and pick out her own shirt. I loved that infant with all my heart and tried my best to not wish away her infancy, but I am SO thrilled to live with an almost three-year-old now. I haven’t yet read your post on the science stuff, but I have to say that I’d appreciate a factual response much more than one that denigrates women who don’t happen to feel exactly the same way you do about downy soft baby noggins.
@ Michaela, totally valid points. I’ve said in posts here before that delivering full term babies was a huge help in my favor, as well as having labor/breastfeeding support that overcame whatever roadblocks the C-sections could have thrown up.
Before I had babies I was completely terrified of their needs. I wanted a 5 year old. (Because I remember my brother as a 5 year old, and he was smart and funny. Of course I did not remember his crazy dawdling, because I was his older sister, not his mom; I didn’t have to get him out the door to school!)
Once I had the babies and realized it was the same half dozen needs over and over again, it didn’t seem so bad, once I got over the fact that I would never sleep and had to rearrange every other aspect of Myself. (Ha!) Like I said in the post, it’s a work in progress.
The toddler/preschool years require a lot of mental energy. Part of me misses the ease of the time when nursing or being in a sling, close to me, was the solution for like 85% of whatever was ailing my child.
But you’ll notice I’m not in a huge rush to start all over again. If ever.
I’m totally on board with what micaela and cloud posted. I believe that women and men of all socio-economic statuses should be equal and have the same rights and priveledged, especially when it comes to producing and raising the next generation of men and women. I’m not sure exactly how that can be achieved in our society, but I absolutely agree when cloud said “IF motherhood is part of the reason why women aren’t breaking through the glass ceiling, the problem is with the ceiling, not with motherhood.” I think this is also true of many other areas than the “glass ceiling.”
I know that I am very lucky to work at the company I do, with it’s paid paternal leave for men and women (although of course the extended leave is really for women), it’s nursing rooms with internet access and it’s different leave/work-hour policies that can be used by men or women. I know I’m lucky to have a personality that is open, up-front and nonchalant about things such as lack of sleep and needing to pump. I work in a mostly male-dominated field, and my team is almost all young men how aren’t even married or just married but have no kids. I joined this team when I came back from maternity leave (which, like cloud, I really needed to do after 3 months for my sanity), but I came in right away with when I’d need to pump, how long it would take me, and how I would be able to continue to work in the mother’s room. I was matter of fact and didn’t let myself or them be embarrassed by the fact that I needed to do certain things since I was a parent. I worked to normalize what I needed in order to help create an environment for other women in which it wouldn’t be awkward or interfer with their work and careers.
@michaela – I am the same in that babyhood isn’t my favorite time period. I did not ever simply want to be pregnant or have a baby. I wanted a child (children), and I’m much more comfortable with the toddler and older stage. Nevertheless, I knew what I’d have to go through to get there, and I realized that in the overall scheme of things, babyhood is a small time period in our lives.
However, I’m sad to hear that you felt that bfing made you the Anointed One who knew all about the baby. As other people had done, I would put that instead on the shoulders of the historical stereotying of being a mother. I found that my doing the research in books and online could create that artificial boundry with my husband (which I dispelled as quickly as possibly by sharing the information I learned and respecting his opinions), and I know many women who enforced that boundry with insisting on their way of doing things and not letting their husbands try to find their own way. I had never even considered it in terms of breastfeeding, other than my husband asking me if I thought the baby was hungry. I really believe that it’s an artificial boundry that both parent allow the creation and enforcement of. I think that it’s only about the bfing if you or your partner make it about the bfing.
@caramama, I definitely don’t think BFing is the only thing that made me the Anointed One (yikes, wish I’d chosen a better phrase for that) re: all things baby. As I said, there are other dynamics in my own personality as well as in my marriage that create that tendency already. And you’re totally right re: the motherhood stereotype’s role in all of this — it’s a huge one. What I meant was that, for me, BFing couldn’t help but strengthen those existing tendencies & stereotypes.
~Melissa
http://www.nursingbirth.com
Rosin’s article and her appearance on the Today show deeply saddened me. The only thing I agree with Rosin about is that mothers need to stop judging each other and support each other. But the agreement stops there. Rosin’s research is shoddy, incomplete, outdated, and inaccurate. If it was complete she would have written about a meta analysis published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (AHRQ) in 2007 entitled “Breastfeeding and Maternal and Infant Health Outcomes in Developed Countries,” which reviewed over 9,000 abstracts, 43 preliminary studies, 43 primary studies on maternal health outcomes, and 29 systematic reviews or meta-analyses that covered approximately 400 individual studies on breastfeeding and concluded with the following:
“A history of breastfeeding was associated with a reduction in the risk of acute otitis media, non-specific gastroenteritis, severe lower respiratory tract infections, atopic dermatitis, asthma (young children), obesity, type 1 and 2 diabetes, childhood leukemia, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and necrotizing enterocolitis [for the child]. For maternal outcomes, a history of lactation was associated with a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, breast, and ovarian cancer…Early cessation of breastfeeding or not breastfeeding was associated with an increased risk of maternal postpartum depression.”
If you are a woman who decides breastfeeding is not a choice you want to make, then fine. Even pro-breastfeeding health care providers and educators will agree that there are plenty of reasons why a mother might have to feed her baby pumped milk or formula via bottle. But for Rosin to go on national television and say that “the scientific literature regarding the benefits of breastfeeding is thin” is just WRONG. She thinks this article is an “I’ve got your back” to all the mothers who choose not to or can’t breastfeed. But in reality it is just going to hurt the breastfeeding community by spreading a doctrine that tells women, their families, their bosses, and their legislature that “it’s unnecessary to support the rights of breastfeeding mothers.” Healthy living takes a time commitment. Being a parent takes time and sacrifice. If you are a mother who doesn’t want to make the sacrifices necessary to breastfeed OR if situations beyond your control prevent you or your baby from breastfeeding OR if you just bond better with you baby by not breastfeeding , that’s your choice and you’re right, you shouldn’t be “judged” for it. But to call breastfeeding an “instrument of misery that mostly just keeps women down” is sickening.
~Melissa
http://www.nursingbirth.com
@michaela – I gotcha. Thanks for clarifying. That’s really too bad, and I’m sorry you got in that scenario. However, I LOVE the term Anointed One and plan to refer to myself as such to my husband from here on out! 😉 If he doubts that I am, I will remind him of the patriarchal nature of our society and the stereotyping of mothers. Until he can change that (and he certainly wishes he could), I will be known as Mother: The Anointed One!
(I am seriously hoping you get my sense of humor and don’t think I’m making fun of your use of the term. PLEASE know I am not trying to mean in any way.)
@Melissa- I agree that one of the saddest thing about the article is the damage it might do to the effort to get ALL mothers who work outside the home the accommodations they need to continue breastfeeding. Rosin briefly mentions working class mothers and seems to blithely assume that their jobs necessarily prevent them from pumping. Really? Why? All that is needed is a private room and the break time. These are things most employers could provide to most employees if the will was there.
Like One Tired Ema, some of the women I most admired in the breastfeeding support group I went to were the women whose job situations weren’t nearly as easy to fit to a pumping schedule as mine, but who were just as determined to pump at work and keep nursing.
I’m really not in to judging any other mother as long as what she’s doing doesn’t constitute abuse. What do I know about her family or her life? But Rosin’s article doesn’t just ask me not to judge her- it tells my boss and my colleagues that it is not important to give me the time and support I need to keep breastfeeding once I’m back at work. To me, that is an anti-feminist stance.
@Micaela- my husband and I have essentially identical family leave options. The only difference is the 6 weeks of disability pay I get due to giving birth. We both qualify for the CA FMLA, which provides partial pay. We both took leave the first time around, and we both plan to take leave this time. Neither employer seems to have a problem with that- both of our bosses are working to be accommodating. I tell this story to tell you- it IS getting better. Just not as fast and as uniformly as we would like.
I wish I could be as eloquent as what you wrote, but I just wanted to chime in and say that I had a similar experience to yours with my first daughter. The second one, who is almost 17 months and still nursing like crazy, has been a little more difficult, because she’s very sensitive digestively speaking, but I can’t imagine not breastfeeding because it wasn’t convenient for me when I feel so strongly that it’s the best thing for her.
I also wanted to wholeheartedly echo your statement that each baby changes everything. I worked from home part time for 18 months after my first, then went in three afternoons each week until I had the second. I can’t imagine trying to go back on even a limited part time schedule with my younger daughter. Her personality is such that she would be incredibly unhappy if I left her for hours at a time, and then, everyone else would be too, even though we have an ideal childcare situation.
At any rate, thanks.
[…] was absolutely tickled when Kate over at One Tired Ema asked me to bring my posse of lactating Canucks into the conversation about an article in this […]
Loved this, Kate. Fascinating discussion. I blogged hugely about it back at my place, but thought I’d cut-and-paste the bit specifically about our generous Cnd mat leave policies and how they’ve made my life so very much better:
I’ve had three years of maternity leave in the past seven years. Because I’m blessed with a job that gives me a full top-up to my original salary from the base that employment insurance provides, we’ve taken no financial ‘hit’ because of my years off. (*says a silent prayer of gratitude*) I returned from my first maternity leave into a new job with my old employer. It was a job I’d been working toward for almost a decade, and I was thrilled to finally achieve it — and then I was back on mat leave within the year. Within six months of returning from my second mat leave, I won a promotion. When I was pregnant with Lucas in 2007, I was identified as a potential “high-flyer” in our agency, someone to be groomed for an eventual management position. I was actually supposed to come back from maternity leave last month into full-time French training so I could start down that road, but as you know I pulled myself off that path by taking a different position and dropping down to four days per week. I’m still with the same employer, just doing a slightly different job.
My maternity leaves don’t seem to have affected my employers’ (writ large) opinion of my capabilities and potential, and I’ve been moving progressively up the ladder. I make just about as much now at four days a week than I was making when I was pregnant with Tristan and working full time. I love my job most days and I work hard, but I’ve made no secret of the fact that my family comes first. I’ve pulled myself off the fast-track in search of balance, and it was one of the smarter decisions I’ve made where working and mothering intersect.
So, the answer is of course having children and taking time to raise them and having them be the primary focus in my life has affected my career path. If our time spent, in Kate’s gorgeous phrase, “tooling around in the Badlands of Infertility” had come out differently, I would very likely be in a very different job, likely more senior, and I’d definitely more focused on my ‘career.’
And there would be a big aching void in my life, because being a mother is all I ever wanted out of life. I’m proud that I’m successful, and that I’m seen as someone with potential and worth investing in. But I’m also proud that Kate sees me as a mother whose opinion in this debate is valuable. And I don’t have to tell you how proud I am to be a mother.
In five or six years, Lucas will be in school full time and I’ll be able to refocus on this whole career thing again. If I were a more ambitious sort of person, maybe I would be resentful and see my role as a mother in terms of sacrifices I’ve made instead of joys I’ve earned. Certainly, that seems to be where Rosin’s head is at.
Do we have equality in our home? Hell, no. But we have balance, and I think that’s better. Some things are heavier on Beloved’s shoulders and some on mine, but we share those burdens. That’s why our relationship works, I think — we’re perfectly compliementary, but that doesn’t mean we’re perfectly equal. It works for us.
So, Kate, the short answer is yes, it seems quite likely that Canada’s generous maternity leave policies affected my ability to continue to nurse my babies for as long as I did in a positive way. And no, I don’t think the one-year leave of absence has had a detrimental effect on my career path. I’ve dialed it down myself, but that’s a choice with which I am not only satisfied, but delighted. And just wading my way through all this reminds me again that I am coming from such a place of priviledge, and even many of my Canadian sisters have not been nearly so blessed as me.
Have I told you lately that I love you?
I was 20 when I had Teen L and I chose to breastfeed her despite my age and lack of familial support. No one in my family breastfed their babies so what II was doing was some alien concept. My mom was great with my decision but she always asked for a bottle so that she could feed her.
Each baby was different and I breastfed each a different length of time. NSBH was beyond difficult and I gave up after a couple of months because it was too much for me emotionally. (I had support with her but just couldn’t bear it) I have never regretted this decision because I know it was the best one for me and that made for a better mommy for her.
I will never formula bash because I do feel it is a personal decision but I HATE when people act like breastfeeding for more than a nanosecond of your child’s life is abnormal.
Interesting discussion, esp. the Nazi reference. You’re right–that was very uncool.
Thanks to ianqui for linking to the Today show. Nancy Snyder’s response was pathetic. She bent over backward to make formula sound as good as breastfeeding. What was the point of her presence? She obviously knows little about breastfeeding or the science behind it.
Well, and did you notice that after all that, Rosin is still breastfeeding? I mean, what’s the point to her article, then? “The science isn’t that compelling and I believe — on the basis of no studies even though I’m selling this article as a science-based critique — that breastfeeding creates an unequal parental dynamic and is, moreover, a pain in the ass after a few years and three kids, so go ahead and use formula if you want. Which, by the way, I don’t. I’m still nursing.”
I confess that I’m also really tired of the fact that there are six women who get parenthood stories published in the major magazines.
You might want to check out this very cogent rebuttal:
http://www.babble.com/The-Backlash-to-Breast-is-Best-Why-exactly-is-breastfeeding-under-attack/index.aspx
Thank you for your post. Finally, a mother coming forward and saying – I breastfeed and I love it! Everything about Rosin’s article made me inarticulately angry, from start to finish. I’m sure that there are women out there who were made to feel guilty for not breastfeeding by judgmental friends/ strangers or the odd LC. But the reality of the US is that the majority of women do not breastfeed, certainly not past 6-8 weeks. (Hasn’t anybody watched “A baby story”, where practically every episode is about how the mom can’t breastfeed and by the end 95% of the time has stopped?) In addition there is actually a lot of cultural hostility to breastfeeding, as many women who tried to breastfeed their child in pubic have discovered (since the majority of people seem to find it obscene). Add to this that many (if not most) pediatricians and OBGYNs don’t know much about breastfeeding and are constantly giving breastfeeding mothers bad information/ advice, like recommending supplementing to a new mom at the drop of a hat. When I was pregnant, every thing I ever heard about breastfeeding was negative – leaving me with the impression that it was almost impossible to do it successfully. It really undermined my confidence before I’d even had my son. There is a reason why BF advocates can be radical – they feel like they’re fighting this enormous uphill battle. And yes, it does make some of their language and attitudes counterproductive/ judgmental.
It seems me the problem that Rosin was highlighting in the beginning is that women judge each other for their parenting choices – I agree that’s wrong and we should stop doing that. Like you, I know lots of women who either chose not to breastfeed or couldn’t for a variety of reasons, either personal or medical, and I know this choice does not make them better or worse parents (like co-sleeping vs crib, CIO vs AP, etc. etc.). It does not make their children better or worse kids (health-wise or emotionally). Of course, the real problem IMO – judging each other – doesn’t have anything to do with breastfeeding per se. And it makes me crazy that rather than advocating for mothers’ rights (maternity leave that’s not laughable, support for new mothers, spaces not a filthy bathroom where mothers can nurse, that mothers support each other instead of judging, etc), Rosin has chosen to attack breastfeeding itself. And while turning her back on important political advocacy for women’s rights and women’s health she dares accuse BF moms of setting back the feminist movement! I am feminist, always have been, always will be. To me, feminism is about empowering women and their choices. There is nothing empowering about demeaning breastfeeding or breastfeeding mothers, just as there isn’t anything empowering about demeaning mothers who formula-feed.
And the most outrageous thing of all is that Rosin argues that BF isn’t worth it, the benefits don’t outweigh the hassles, in a way that seems to say that the health care industry should stop talking about the benefits of BF. Even if the benefits aren’t dramatic, women have a right to *basic healthcare information so they can make the most informed decisions for themselves and their families*. Especially since the majority of mother who do not BF are NOT from the same socio-economic background as the obviously white, professional, privileged author of the article. Health care information is a basic human right, and all women do not have uniform access to it. Saying “breastfeeding has benefits that formula does not” is not inherently oppressive. It’s information. (Just like we all know we should eat 5 fruits and veggies a day an no junk food, but almost none of us do it.) Mothers – and parents – should do with this information what they will. They might decide – unlike Rosin, I’d like to emphasize – that BF is not for them and their families. More power to them. Others might say, hey I’d like to try that! That’s great, too.
Breastfeeding has been the most amazing part of motherhood for me. It gives me this heightening feeling of peace and calm, no matter how trying the day has been. My son loves it and it soothes him in ways nothing else does. We are totally present for each other nursing in a way that isn’t the same with bottle feeding (he gets more bottles than boobs these days, since I work, and I also think this is a potential side-benefit to BF for working moms, because sometimes being away from baby all day can be hard, and you want a few quiet moments to reconnect in the evening). While I totally get that not all women feel that way, moms-to-be deserve to know that the experience can be really amazing & fulfilling.
Wow. Sorry to run on. I’ve been stewing about this for a while.
PS As to power dynamics in marriage and parenting – a few stats from my family. I stayed home full time with DS for his first eight and a half months. Now I work – my husband actually has a job in another state, so I’m on my own for stretches. And I’m BF. That said, DH could not be more of an equal partner. I have never felt like I ‘owned’ the baby because I BF him and DH has never felt excluded. We gave DS a bottle at night very early on and so DH husband always came home from work and put the baby to bed – their special time together. DH does dishes, housework, laundry, everything, even when I was a SAHM. He is one of the most involved dads I’ve seen. We divvy up the work, but he always does 50% at least, with DS and the house. But then, he’s Canadian!
Check this out:
On Slate: Breastfeed more, earn less. http://bit.ly/Ku2Ih
I hate to tell you this but this article made the Hebrew papers in Israel this Shabbat :(.
A whole slew of people I know had babies all around the same time and I am the only one still breastfeeding at 7 months. I pump in my car at work 3x a day and I get lots of pressure from various parties to stop breastfeeding. I know even those who are supportive expect me to stop when Amelia is 1…
Anyway, I loved this post.
[…] am out of juice to respond to this. I feel like I’ve made my arguments, in response to Hanna Rosin, in response to Judith […]
[…] ago, almost five years into my parenting – and breastfeeding – career, I produced a ranty-though-cogent screed about breastfeeding that still attracts more than 10 readers a […]