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I've been waiting for your breast-feeding article, Hanna, so thanks for the alert that it's now out in the Atlantic, Emily. The piece is great, and persuades me that nursing isn't the secret to thinner, smarter, healthier babies—certainly not among the well-off set that swears by the practice. It also reminded me of the many reasons nursing isn't exactly the secret to well-rested, maritally contented, productively employed mothers, either. Which leaves me with a question: Why is it that the pro-breast-feeding brigade has had such success peddling its message at precisely the moment when you would think women would be least receptive to it?
Clearly the audience is complicit here: At the turn of the 20th century, the newly scientific experts peddled their intricate formula recipes not because they were better or safer (back then, when cow milk supplies were dicey, they were anything but). They peddled them because they were well-aware that middle-class "modern" mothers were eager not to be tied down all day the way their mothers had been. So how do you read the peculiar eagerness among mothers recently, as they stream into the workforce, to, well, swallow the opposite, highly inconvenient expertise? In the video accompanying your piece, you and your friends touched on this, confirming my sense that nursing isn't about helping our kids to ace their SATs. Isn't it more about helping to reassure ourselves that we mothers really are indispensable?
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XX Factor's Hanna Rosin has a fascinating piece in the latest Atlantic on the breast-feeding myth. She writes that after nursing her first two children for a year each, she finds herself longing to free her breast early from the mouth of baby No. 3. Hanna looks at the studies we've been spoon-fed over the years about the incalculable superiority of breast-feeding and finds that when you actually examine the numbers, most fade to statistical insignificance. She is not making a case against breast-feeding (despite the fact that's the title of the piece!): She acknowledges its many benefits, and she is saying there is a rational choice to be made to not breast-feed and those mothers shouldn't be treated as if formula is laced with anthrax. As Hanna points out, a miserable breast-feeding mother is not an optimum mother. I know we all should support whatever good choice women make for themselves (I happily breast fed for a year), but her piece made me think of the alternate phenomenon. I confess something bothers me about when I see mothers who won't stop breast-feeding. These are the women whose 4-year-olds walk up to them and demand a slurp. I always wonder if these mothers are going to be waiting in the wings, nursing bra at the ready, when their kids need a boost during the SATs.
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