Oh they SO have if the latest UK campaign is anything to go by.

http://themamatao.blogspot.com/2011/03/uk-goes-hard-core-natural.html

She ended up doing a combo of pumping then using a bottle, plus formula (he was a big and hungry baby). Today, he’s a happy, healthy toddler.

Women need to ease up on each other.

I think the reason why a lot of people who were formula fed, have formula fed their kids and are currently formula feeding their kids go on the “I/my kids are fine” anecdotal tangent is because it’s such a personal issue that we can’t help but take it personally. Speaking for myself, I take it especially personally because who are those people to tell me that seeing people who are fine is invalid and in need of addressing?

I know this is not everyone’s experience, but I got the same level of scare tactics against formula feeding that I got scare tactics against abortion. I turned out mostly fine (I’m fat, but it’s pretty much my own fault), my brother is fine, my sister-in-laws are fine (one of my sister-in-laws breastfed and her kid still ended up with allergies, and she’s not even two, so obviously other variables are in play), my kids are fine, my friends’ kids are fine, etc etc.

The point is that kind of judgement and scare tactic is uncalled for, and so is erasing the experiences of formula fed people who ARE fine.

“Breastfeeding worked for me for a lot of reasons, many of which are due to my white upper-middle-class lifestyle. It takes a HUGE amount of privilege to dedicate the time and energy to exclusive breastfeeding, as well as a personal decision that it is important to your parenting experience.”

AND

“Marie Anelle – the privilege re bottle feeding is interesting because definitely one of the reasons I breast fed initially was cost, I’m on a pretty tight budget and formula is very expensive.”

Make me think about how class issues vis a vis childcare choices are rarely clear-cut. Here we have two examples of how breastfeeding can be seen as a “privileged” choice AND a choice made because someone was in an economically marginal position. Same choice, different reasons meaning radically different things in relation to class.

I think the idea of social privilege is a really useful one for analyzing how oppression and marginalization works, but I have grown wary of throwing the idea of “privilege” around about specific activities (i.e. “breastfeeding is a social privilege,” or “bottle-feeding is a privileged choice.”) Sometimes, it totally can be. And I think it’s worth looking at childcare practices through the lens of social criticism, with an awareness of privilege and inequality.

BUT. I think it’s wrong to say that any one activity, irrespective of the context, is a “privileged” choice. I think the focus for feminist activists might more fruitfully be to challenge society to ensure that all forms of childcare are available to parents, regardless of family form, economic circumstances, race and ethnic background, disabilities, etc. Neither breastfeeding NOR bottle-feeding should be decision so over-determined by social inequalities (money, flexible work schedules, etc.)

That said I think in the UK (although I don’t know for sure as I had my kids in the US) you are entitled to free formula for a period of time, which is one of the reasons many lower income families, particularly single mothers who are working, choose to formula feed.

I will say that with my first child the paeditrician in New York did actually give me some free formula which came in useful on dark cry-filled nights.

I had my first son in the Northwest and my second son in the Mid-Atlantic. There was a huge cultural change between those two locations. When the lactation consultant called three weeks after my second son’s birth to check if I needed any additional support, she was extremely happy to find out I was still breastfeeding because out of the 10 or 15 calls she had made that day, I was the only mother who still was. Within my larger group of friends there was much more support for weaning at around six months than there was for extended nursing.

I think the problem with lactivists is that they are concentrated in more liberal areas where there is already a higher percentage of breastfeeding mothers so it sort of becomes like preaching to the choir. We need to be fighting the pressures that tell women that their breasts and bodies are either for complete sacrifice to their children or for the sexual gratification of men and that those two goals are diametrically opposed to each other (on top of completely erasing the actual woman’s desires and goals from the equation).

I don’t understand how anyone could think parenting is about anything other than making the choices that are easiest for your family. Don’t we all just do what works for us? I never thought I’d co-sleep, but our first night home from the hospital, we realized the boy slept 45 minutes at a time in the bassinet and three hours at a time in bed with me. We never looked back.

Maybe I’m just a passive parent – it’s not like I researched and said “I will breastfeed for years.” It just happened. I was at a hospital with great support and had a free lactation consultant through my OB. And once I got started ok, it was easy for me. So I didn’t quit until I wanted to be away from my son for a long weekend – two years later. And I really feel like that’s how it’s all been – we’ve just stumbled on to all our decisions. And that being the case, how could we judge anyone else? Assuming they didn’t have the exact same random set of circumstances that led to our decisions, how could they have the same set of decisions?

That said, the Northwest where I live definitely tends toward terrible self righteousness on the pro-breastfeeding side.