disastermusings

I did another one of those link hopping things today. Followed a post from one place to another and finally ended up on the Atlantic Monthly’s page.

There is an article from the upcoming issue about breastfeeding.

It’s titled: The Case Against Breastfeeding

It made me want to throw a few things at my computer.

I decided that my computer was not to blame, and neither is the woman who wrote the article.

She actually makes several good points.

Women often face enormous amount of social pressure to do the right thing for their children, even when the ‘right’ thing can really be one of many things.

Women are often blamed for doing too little (Uh oh. Cold mother? Your child’s autism is a reaction), too much (Clingy mother? You’ve made your son gay!) or things that are just plain bad (A glass of wine? Shame on you! Your child’s delay is your fault!).

While I’m not advocating for being a non-responsive/overly-aggressive/drinker during pregnancy and childrearing, there’s a pretty good body of evidence that women cannot and should not be blamed for the complexity that is human growth and development.

Anyway, back to my rant about the breastfeeding article.

The author, Hanna Rosin, spends most of the first page talking about the difficulties of being shackled to her baby during its breastfeeding months.

She points out that women are ostracized if they choose to bottle feed, and that scare tactics are ...