Jean O’Malley Halley is a sociology professor at Wagner College in New York City. Her book about touching children, breastfeeding, children’s sleep and contemporary childrearing advice, Boundaries of Touch: Parenting and Adult-Child Intimacy, was published in 2007 by the University of Illinois Press.
Mothers are caught in a no-win situation. We are told that we must breastfeed, and we are often told we must never breastfeed—in public. Indeed, in 2006 a popular toy store in midtown Manhattan tried to get Chelsi Meyerson, who was breastfeeding her seven-month-old infant, to leave the store. They claimed that her breastfeeding was inappropriate because there were “children around.”
Like the toy store staff, many people see breastfeeding in sexual terms. Breastfeeding—because it involves breasts—is something to hide. Most of us who have spent any time breastfeeding are aware of the intense pressure to do it in private, and to stop it when our infant begins to toddle about or, worse yet, point at mommy’s breasts and say “I want num-nums.”
Nonetheless, women are also repeatedly told, “Breast is best.” A recent government public health campaign strongly encouraged new mothers to breastfeed for at least six months. One of the campaign’s advertisements said, “You would not take risks before your baby’s born. Why start after?” Interestingly, this campaign was actually “toned down” after pressure from the powerful formula industry, which worried that an effective breastfeeding campaign meant reduced profits.
It’s frustrating that the lived reality of women and children was of no interest to either the profit-hungry formula industry or the government. For example, the campaign took no notice of women who work. In the United States, 60 percent of mothers of very young children work. How are mothers supposed to breastfeed, much less do it privately? Federal law requires that large companies provide only twelve weeks of unpaid maternity leave. Lactation leave is unheard of, and only one third of large companies provide a private area to express milk during the workday. Only seven percent of large companies provide child care. As one might expect, the breastfeeding campaign seemed to have no effect on United States breastfeeding rates.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) just released a report on breastfeeding in which they note that “black, teen-age, rural, less-educated, lower-income and unmarried mothers” are less likely to breastfeed. Big surprise. When, where, and how would these women, struggling to survive, manage to breastfeed? The CDC’s response? They hope to prompt doctors to persuade these mothers to breastfeed. Good grief. These women do not need persuasion. They need social support. And by this I mean health care, financial support, paid maternity leave. The list of things we do not offer women in our wealthy industrialized nation, is astonishing, particularly when compared to social supports offered parents and children in many Western European countries.
If they have a working spouse or partner, the vast majority of United States mothers can expect their spouse to make a wage too small to support them staying home with the children.
Thus most mothers will have to work. And at work they can expect not to have a place to breastfeed, a place to have their children cared for nearby, or a private place to pump milk. Women do most of the nation’s child care, and pay for it in money, time, and endless anxiety. Yet instead of agitating, resisting, and demanding pay and recognition for their labor, many women spend a lot of time and energy worrying over childrearing advice—to breastfeed or not, where to breastfeed, how long to breastfeed.
We must demand social support for mothers and children. Businesses must provide a welcoming place for customers to feed their infants whether by bottle or by breast. Employers must provide a private place for employees to breastfeed and to pump milk. The laws should be changed so that paid maternity leave is an option for all women (and paternity leave for all men). And affordable, quality, state-funded child care should be available to everyone.
