Hmmmmm

Unsurprisingly, the U.S. ranks dead last on breastfeeding support policies. We're also the only developed country with no maternity leave policy.

So, let's see. We put out magazine covers with provocative breastfeeding images with captions asking us if we're mom enough. We create commercials terrorizing women into thinking that formula feeding is akin to riding a mechanical bull while pregnant. We have the slogan "breast is best", and we have La Leche League. And we also have no paid parental leave policy and no paid nursing breaks for new mothers.

So as far as I can figure, we're making it extremely difficult for most working mothers to breastfeed (and in many jobs, it's impossible) while simultaneously creating a culture in which you are definitely a second-class mother if you don't breastfeed. Now I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I just have to wonder about this cultural obsession with breastfeeding. It just happens to be the one thing you can't do easily while working many jobs. Seems to me that if policy makers really cared about breastfeeding, they'd enact policies to actually support mothers' abilities to do so. Instead we've got this strong pressure to breastfeed without the supports in place to help mothers do it...unless, of course, they quit their jobs. Then it becomes a lot easier.

It makes a person wonder.

When I was pregnant and trying to figure out how I'd ever manage to breastfeed twins, I discovered that there was a LLL multiples meeting. I was encouraged to attend before I delivered, so that I could make some connections, get some help and advice, etc. So I called up the leader to find out when and where the meetings were. Well, they met once a week. At 10:00 a.m. On a Tuesday.

I was like, "Uh, I teach then. Do you have any evening or weekend meetings that I could attend?" No. They did not. So who gets the benefit of these supports? Not working women.

I personally had it lucky. It's much easier to keep breastfeeding when you have a super flexible job, a private office for pumping, and enough saved sick leave to use the FMLA to at least stay home for a couple of months after delivery. But my job is not the norm. How exactly are women who work less flexible or hourly jobs supposed to do it? I don't think we really care, as a nation, about the health and well being of babies and kids. If we cared, we'd change our policies. I think we're more interested in profit margins and the economy.