Jed Clampett

wow, with all that is going on in national affairs these days TD finds it amusing or somehow interesting to focus on breastfeeding. Does it somehow link to the executives of major corporations hanging on the teat of the public purse?

So many words, so little substance, what I read of this was mainly a waste of time. If you can be convinced that what comes out of a corporate plan is better than what nature provides us with, then please, keep feeding your babies fake milk, it seems to be doing your society well.
Growing up in a Latin American country we learned at a young age that a woman breastfeeding in public was no big deal, and that anyone finding it provocative or sexually arousing to see a woman feed her baby needs to spend some time in psychological counseling for their deviant mentality.

This is what happens when as a society you reduce sex education to ’sex bad, condom good, abstinence better’

I think you both missed her point entirely. This was not about breastfeeding being bad or about women being embarrassed or people finding breastfeeding in public sexually provocative. This was about the pressure on already stressed mothers to conform to yet another trend using scare tactics. I took her bottom line to be that mothers need to do what is right for them. Sometimes that means exclusively breastfeeding, but sometimes it means supplementing or replacing feedings with formula depending on a mother’s situation. As a new mother who struggled with breastfeeding (although I eventually did find my groove) I had a lot of the questions she poses. Is it better to breastfeed even if it is so painful and stressful that the first thing my child will know of me is the sad and tortured feelings I had at every feeding for the first month? And while I have the luxury of being able to dedicate the 8 hours or more a day to breastfeeding my baby, isn’t it a bit elitist to think that all mothers can do that? It is an incredibly time-consuming, sometimes extremely difficult commitment we are asked to make.

Her point is that, sure, it seems like it is marginally better to breastfeed a baby than use formula. But there are so many things that fall into that category. Should we all move to a warm climate because it is healthier? Wouldn’t we all be healthier if we just quit our jobs so that we could avoid the stress and spend more time exercising and taking care of ourselves? It’s not always realistic, depending on a woman’s circumstances, and the choices we make are very personal. What makes the breastfeeding issue unique? Why is that women are judged on their decision about how they feed their babies, while it’s rarely asked whether a father’s business trip and the subsequent absence hurts the child?

I appreciated the article because in addition to offering some statistics (or lack thereof) I hadn’t seen before, it also pointed out the double standard that still exists in parenting. I still breastfeed but it’s liberating to know that if I decide to or need to stop, I’m not relegating my child to a life of failure.

Jed Clampett

Diana, not trying to be antagonistic, just hoping to clarify…

“isn’t it a bit elitist to think that all mothers can do that?(dedicate the time and hardship to feeding the baby)”
Shouldn’t you ask that of mother nature, she imposed the breast feeding on all mammal females, why would she do that if it wasn’t the best way to feed the child.

“Is it better to breastfeed even if it is so painful and stressful that the first thing my child will know of me is the sad and tortured feelings I had at every feeding for the first month?”
After the anguish of having another life the size of a water melon inside you, sending your hormones into disarray, taking part of your nutrition, your moods over the edge, the pain and stress of delivery; you are concerned because your baby is forceful in his feeding? Don’t worry about what it will know of you, it only cares about survival and a little learning at this point and it’s memories of babyhood will be out of reach by the time of it’s second birthday, if not before.

I can understand your quandary, but it seems a bit self centered. The examples you cite are extreme, people should take time to exercise but no one is going to give up a salary to to take care of their health. Who really knows if a warmer climate is healthier? Seems to me our global problem is that a warmer climate is not healthier.

The reason this particular issue takes the limelight is because the ‘conservatives’, who think a ‘moralistic’ agenda is a good political stance, have chosen to make it an issue and have put their PR money and media outlets on the job of making it a distraction from real political matters, like how the laws that were on the books to protect the public from unscrupulous businessmen were eroded or degraded to the point of being ineffective. No one except the easily misguided or fools judge a mother for feeding her baby in the best way she deems appropriate with the correct advice of her doctor, the trouble is that there is so much conflicting information that not even doctors know what is right anymore.

Congrats on your baby, wish you patience and strength to deal with the burden that is motherhood. Hope you are well off enough to keep dedicating your time to raising your child instead of having to go to work and hand your child off to a stranger to raise for you.

There is no rationale reason that the Atlantic would publish such a poorly done medical article — unless it was promoted by someone/some organization.
Creating hoopla for hoopla’s sake is irresponsible public health practice

Your argument about going for a run instead of quitting a job to exercise goes to my point. Breastfeeding is more comparable to a full time job than an exercise session. By choosing to breastfeed, I am giving at least 8 hours a day – the amount of time most jobs require to be full time – to feeding my baby.

And mother nature didn’t invent grocery stores or restaurants. You could grow your own vegetables and fruit – raise your own cattle – but you don’t. Why? Because in modern society we have invented ways to maximize our productivity and time because we have other demands for what we need to do.

But, I digress. We can keep going back and forth with examples all day long. And you can call me self-centered, and maybe I am. I prefer to think of it as self-protective – I believe that happy parents are better parents. But, also remember that I am still breastfeeding. And in addition to struggling with breastfeeding to begin with, I am trying to figure out how I am going to take the best care of my child when I have to go back to work shortly. Does mother nature have anything to say about the fact that most companies accept just three months of maternity leave even though it is recommended women breast feed for at least six months and recommend a year? And for people like me who are freelance and should return to work even sooner, what is the “natural” thing for me to do?

And what about the generations of us who were not breast fed and have gone on to be perfectly healthy, high achieving members of society? Why must child bearing and child rearing be so dogmatic?

Jed Clampett

Don’t take me wrong, I admire and respect the troubles women have to go through in order to support the advance of our species. And lord knows I am very interested in healthy breasts and babies. If nature had given men the ability to breastfeed as well, I imagine out population growth would not be so out of control.

“mother nature didn’t invent grocery stores or restaurants. You could grow your own vegetables and fruit – raise your own cattle – but you don’t. Why? Because in modern society we have invented ways to maximize our productivity and time” I’ll try to avoid the obviously absurd comment of mother nature’s inventions, but I think if you analyze it carefully, her plan is best. In modern society businessmen have invented ways to maximize profit for a few at the expense of the many. By mixing in a bunch of chemicals with bits of food, they have made it so that we have more time to work to make THEM wealthier, rather than ourselves more independent.

I don’t believe you are self-centered, concerned perhaps and unable to express yourself differently because of the way modern education and media is structured. We not only need to be happy parents, but happy citizens, it really does ‘take a village’, you know, not something our screwed up system has been set up to do. I think the US should be more like Europe and other industrialized nations and give parents way more time to raise their children… or if you can’t devote the time necessary because of the modern world’s demands, don’t have children and save the Earth from this crazy overpopulation we are experiencing.

Mommy, I wish you the best of luck, it is for you to decide what is best for you and your family. Merely recognize it is not as dire a situation as you expressed in your first post. Given the recent problem in China with baby formula, I’d trust my breasts more than a bunch of chemicals. Best of luck and take good care of all three bundles of joy.

Why did this author have all these kids if they are such an annoyance to her?

I’m not an MD but I don’t find this article to be irresponsible. If it makes one woman feel better about her decision not to breastfeed, I think it’s done it’s job. We shouldn’t feel like we are killing our children because we choose not to breastfeed.

i agree w/diana. jed you tend to run on too much. my mother had 8 kids and NONE of us were breast fed. we are all sane and healthy. i don’t think breast feeding is the answer to a healthy, well adjusted child. but, mothers who feel the need, go for it. just not at the ballgame, the restraunt, etc. i realize it is a natural process, but so is throwing up, and i choose not to watch that either.

i agree w/diana. jed you tend to run on too much. my mother had 8 kids and NONE of us were breast fed. we are all sane and healthy. i don’t think breast feeding is the answer to a healthy, well adjusted child. but, mothers who feel the need, go for it. just not at the ballgame, the restraunt, etc. i realize it is a natural process, but so is throwing up, and i choose not to watch that either.

What I found most offensive about this article had nothing to do with breastfeeding. I am really tired of hearing women devalue the very important job of raising children. If you don’t want to do the job, that’s one thing. But when a woman who clearly has the choice, and chooses to raise kids full (or mostly full) time, keeps putting down at-home parenting like it’s the lowliest job in the world, it makes me wonder how far we’ve really come. Do we have to keep measuring ourselves against the old standard: how much money do I make? how much attention do I get for my work? Or can it just be enough that we make valuable contributions to society by raising stable, happy children, breastfed or not?