When to nurse a grievance

Summer vacation season is looming, which means that we're about to enter the point in the yearly journalism cycle where someone, somewhere, becomes a "lactivist" because they were asked to cover up while nursing at an airport/on an airplane/at the pool/at the Starbucks/at Disney/at a local park/at a big-box store [1], and their outrage, it must be shared with all of us.

I don't doubt that these incidents still happen, even in 2014, even with the reliable spate of TV news coverage about nurse-ins, even with angry blog posts circulated among like-minded fellows on Facebook, even with hashtags on Twitter.

I don't doubt it's distressing when it happens to you. It is always distressing when some presumptuous stranger swoops into a situation sans context and presumes to say, "Parenting: You're doing it wrong!"

But I really can't get worked up about it. Why? Because breastfeeding in the U.S.A. is a privilege indicator, and I have yet to see anyone who is dealing with the "Please cover up" gaffe admit that, then springboard into saying, "I admit it's a privilege. Let's make it an uncontested right."

And yes, breastfeeding in the U.S.A. is a privilege.

Putting aside the financial investment in what lots of people call the low-cost way to feed your baby -- I'm talking about lactation consultants, breast pump rentals, breast pump purchases, the nursing bras and/or clothes you wear to accommodate nursing or pumping, the pads, the cream, etc. -- putting aside the lucrative breastfeeding customer, let's examine exactly what it takes to make nursing work.

It takes time.

More specifically, it takes having a measure of control over your time. In the U.S., being able to exert some autonomy over your schedule is a side effect of economic and/or professional privilege.

Support for nursing starts with the ability to take paid family leave. (One bit of data to support this: In California, the median duration of breastfeeding doubled once paid family leave was introduced as state policy.) Mothers who return to work before six weeks postpartum are three times more likely to stop breastfeeding. In the U.S., 70% of pregnant women are working, and half of them will be back on the job five weeks after they give birth.

On a national level, if you are in the bottom quartile (25%) of wage-earners, you have a 5% chance of having paid family leave and only a 30% of having paid sick leave. Your good news? You have a 78% chance of being allowed unpaid parental leave. Good luck saving up the cash to take it on your $378/week salary.

We live in one of THREE countries in the entire world without mandatory paid parental leave policy on a national level. We make it harder for lower-income mothers to feed their babies cheaply, i.e. on breastmilk, which is yet another staggering example of how freakin' expensive it is to be poor. Save The Children agrees: In 2012, the U.S. ranked last on the breastfeeding policy scorecard.

So if we're going to get worked up over nursing in America, get worked up over the fact that we've turned something that could benefit all children into a deeply privileged class signifier. Women who nurse for more than a few weeks do so because they can afford to and because they have social and professional capital. They aren't harassed at work when insisting that their employer comply with legal requirements for pumping.

THIS is what I would like to see covered in the news. This is what I want to see people who say they support nursing to get fired up about. Protest because employers are screwing over non-white-collar women who happen to know their rights. Protest to strike the "public indecency" that don't specifically exempt breastfeeding in public from enforcement. Protest because our national policymakers don't give a shit about giving working-class families the same strong start that professional ones enjoy [2].

But if it's mostly complaining at a company because one or more of their employees isn't up on company policy? Eh. Good for you for making companies accountable to their customers. Now let's work on making society accountable to the people who take care of its smallest, most vulnerable members.

[1] I nursed in public -- including on airplanes -- and I never, ever heard a peep out of anyone. To this day, I am surprised nobody gave me a hard time. I have the exact opposite of Resting Bitchface -- really, I'm the human equivalent of a dolphin -- and total strangers often confuse my normal expression for an open invitation to them reading, "Please, open your mouth and monologue at me without preamble or courtesy."

[2] If you're ready to fight for universal paid family leave in the U.S., Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) introduced the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act (FAMILY Act). It's not likely to pass in the current House and Senate, but it doesn't hurt to put pressure on your congressperson to vote for it -- or to explain to you why he or she won't. Also, feel free to support Family Values @ Work, which is hoping to fight for paid leave on a city-by-city and state-by-state basis, pending the day Congress gets its head out of its collective ass.

Comments

[Becky]

I agree that privilege and status are a huge factor in breastfeeding rates -- and in fact, I don't take seriously any push to increase breastfeeding rates that doesn't also talk about paid maternity leave. However, it's not just privilege. Hispanic women breastfeed at a higher rate than white women (per CDC), and there is probably a lot we can learn from that.

(Also, I nursed both my kids in public, without a cover, and never had so much as a weird look in my direction.)

[Lisa S.]

You're right -- I just googled for Hispanic/Latina stats and found this cite (http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6205a1.htm), and this one specifically calling out Mexican-American hispanic nursing trends (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db05.htm), because they're apparently outliers in an overall Hispanic trend?

I wonder what the x-factor is there? Are there a higher rate of Mexican-American women employed by relatives/in a family business where the kinship ties and overall culture allow for a more flexible environment conducive to pumping/nursing? Is is job-related at all?

I feel like this is a question the Freakonomics people would love.

[Becky]

Yeah, maternal age and type of employment are two factors that I'm curious about.

[LizScott]

"Breastfeeding is free!" Yeah right. Only if my time is worth nothing.

It was a really sad day for me when I realized that I badly wanted to nurse exclusively and that I would not get the chance, due to going back to work at 8 weeks. Breast may be best, but continued employment is a necessity.

And nursing bras are fucking expensive.

[Lisa S.]

Liz, I'm sorry. That sucks.

Did you read the Hanna Rosin piece against nursing? (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/04/the-case-against-breast-feeding/307311/?single_page=true)

It is one of the few to draw the line between breastfeeding and the subtle way it devalues women's money-making work.

[Ally]

I work in a male-dominated skilled labor trade and I am honestly pretty worried about breastfeeding once I go back to work. I am "protected" by a union, but it represents very few women, and when facing my upcoming 2-year job placement (a godsend in a freelance industry) I was so worried that I would face discrimination for being a new mother that I did not even tell my placement office that I was pregnant - I just told them that had a "medical procedure" coming up in July and that it would have a significant recovery time so I would need to defer placement until I was "recovered." I've opted to continue freelancing or to just be unemployed until then.

But once I go back to work after the baby comes, I am extremely likely to be the only woman on the crew, and even more likely still to be the only young woman (ie of childbearing age). I am not entirely sure, but I may be the only lactating mother in the history of the local, really. Obviously everyone at my job placement site will know I have a baby, and there's nothing I can do about that, it is what it is. I invested $300 in what seems to be the fastest, easiest pump I can find, so that I may even have a chance of pumping on coffee breaks (those old favorite targets of anti-union advocates) or lunch breaks. If I'm lucky, the women's restroom will be accessible and have a stall that is comfortable (I have been to business meetings at major television studios where the women's restroom is locked and someone must be sent from the meeting to track down a key on request - even at the executive level, the presumption is male - so the restroom in a given venue being inaccessible is a legitimate concern). If not, I honestly may find myself sneaking off to the boiler room and leaning against the door to stop anyone else from coming in. Then I will probably find myself begging an aging house carpenter to let me borrow some of his precious mini-fridge real estate, for months on end. A big favor to ask of a good-ol-boy who probably still believes women "don't belong here," since the house crew is almost always made up of men in their 60s, who began their careers represented by a union that had no women at all in it.

And that is a good job! It comes with full benefits, vacation pay, a solid and livable hourly wage, collective bargaining power. It requires a level of knowledge and skill that, true, does not require a college degree, but that necessitates some real natural ability as well as time spent learning.