An Impassioned Defense of the Status Quo

So, Hanna Rosin makes the incredibly bold suggestion in the Atlantic this month that breastfeeding is not all its cracked up to be! Did you know that it's difficult and inconvenient to breastfeed when you are trying to hold down a full-time job away from your baby? Did you know that it's awkward to breastfeed in public in a culture where acknowledging the function of women's breasts as a food source makes people nervous? Did you know that babies wake up often in the night and demand to eat and that their fathers can only provide them with liquid nourishment if it's in a bottle? Well, that's why we have groundbreaking publications like the Atlantic and insightful writers like Rosin to tell us what we couldn't possibly figure out for ourselves!

Rosin gathers together all her anti-breastfeeding insights and makes the logical leap to an incredible conclusion: if our society doesn't value breastfeeding, it is clearly breastfeeding that's the problem! And when only 1 out of 10 babies is exclusively breastfed until six months, the recommendation of WHO, AAP, and the US HHS, it is quite obvious that breastfeeding is becoming far too popular in the US, and someone needs to speak out against the Gathering Storm that is mothers feeding babies in the way that mammals have done for millions of years. Rosin then spends some late nights at her computer and concludes in contrast to decades of research and thousands of studies that the health benefits of breastfeeding for children are not as stupendous as she thought they would be (and she's a trained research scientist who understands statistical significance and what a preponderance of evidence in epidemiology and nutrition might look like! Oh, that's right, she's nothing of the sort).

So, there are plenty of avenues to criticize Rosin from, but I'll just focus on one. Here is a woman who is arguably in one of the most privileged demographic slices of the US in 2009. She's white, well-educated, a reporter for many of the nation's most influential publications (the Washington Post, the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Atlantic, the New Republic) married to an equally privileged husband (David Plotz, editor of Slate where Rosin has a blog.) And we can probably safely guess she's part of a household with an income far above the national median. She has three children, all of whom she has been able to breastfeed because she's had the economic and social resources needed to do it. She combined her career with breastfeeding, and whether that was because of a workplace that allowed her to pump or a flexible schedule or working from home or maternity leave or being supported by her spouse, who knows. Like many upper-middle class women, it worked out for her. But, it still wasn't particularly easy: Pumping at work is at best a pain. Waking up at night to feed a baby if you need to work in the morning can be exhausting and soul-sucking. Not all husbands take up the slack when you take on the admittedly major project of feeding another human from your body (and it sounds like Plotz wasn't quite up to the job.)

So, does Rosin, from her position of privilege think to herself: Even with all the advantages I have, breastfeeding is actually really taxing. How could I help women who don't have all these advantages and make it easier for them to exercise this basic physiological function that every human baby comes into the world expecting from its mother? What could I do as a reporter with access to some of most influential media outlets to improve the lives of mothers and babies in the US? How could I illuminate the many barriers that prevent American mothers from providing their babies with human milk --- lack of maternity leave paid or otherwise, lack of health care, lack of family-friendly work policies, lack of legal protection for breastfeeding (or pumping) mothers in public or the workplace?

Nope, luckily for everyone, Rosin decides to focus on the real problem in this country: upper middle class women like herself condemning other upper middle class women like herself to hours of mind-racking guilt about whether they managed to breastfeed their babies. Whew, close one there! Let's not lose sleep over the 1 in 5 children under the age of 6 living in poverty in this country many of whom could use a boost of five IQ points in order to overcome all the other disadvantages they start off life with. Let's worry about the tiny percentage of extremely privileged adult women in this country whose feelings are hurt when someone criticizes them (possibly unfairly) for not having breastfed. Hurt feelings are a wonderful basis on which to catalyze public health policy that would benefit the fewest and most powerful at the expense of the least powerful many. Once again, it looks like we can count on our media elite to spend their time and passion defending unjust privileges, i.e. defending the status quo for the wealthier members of society.

Rosin, of course, is not the first woman (or man) to do this. In fact, as we've seen certainly for the last couple decades (and probably longer), women and family issues only merit interest in the mainstream media as cat fights between upper middle class women at the playground aka the Mommy Wars? Read the New York Times style section lately? The Atlantic itself is notable for giving Caitlin Flanagan's ravings a platform. And who could forget "Dan Quayle was Right"?

When women and family issues are presented as being solely about whether individual moms feel guilty about their choices, there is no reason for them to be taken seriously by the people---still mostly men---who have the power to change the set of options women have to choose between. It also distracts the very women who have the resources to push for changes to laws and allocation of government resources (yep, we're still looking at you, Rosin!) away from addressing the real problems at hand (e.g. the lack of any mandatory paid maternity leave in the US). Instead, it encourages them to spend time worrying about something as absolutely unimportant as whether some women condemn other women's choices.

(As an aside, why is breastfeeding lumped in with the other choices that the moms in Rosin's demographic niche spend a fair amount of time worrying about anyway---cloth vs. disposable diapers, cosleeping vs. cry-it-out, montessori vs. waldorf preschool, etc. etc.? Characterizing the normal physiological process that baby humans start life with as a "choice" makes me wonder when we’re all going to be hooked up to dialysis machines and IVs at work to make us more efficient employees. We’ve got the choice to pee and eat but not everyone wants to exercise it because they value their career goals more!)

Ultimately, this trivialization is the real harm of Rosin's article. If you can dismiss breast-feeding and infant care as something that does not really need to be done by mothers---a silly optional whim with limited benefits in which the lucky few can indulge---then why should we as a society ever make it a priority to provide the maternity leave necessary to making breastfeeding a realistic option for the majority of mothers? Why should we have any laws mandating accommodation of breast-feeding mothers and their babies? Why should we make it easy for parents to continue to pursue their career goals after or while taking time out to care for small children?

And so, Rosin's perversely myopic perspective from inside her socioeconomic cocoon ends up simply reinforcing the depressing truth behind the status quo in the US mentioned above which is that only 10% of babies are lucky enough to be exclusively breast-fed until six months old. It is beyond me why the Atlantic would think it necessary to publish Rosin's case against breast-feeding when, quite obviously, for the majority of moms and babies, the case against it is being made convincingly every day.

Go Go Geoghegan: Why care about IL-5

Early voting for the March 3rd primary in the 5th district to replace Rahm Emmanuel continues until Feb 26th. Do you live in the 5th district? (check this map or put your zipcode in here!)

Here's a good discussion of the dynamics of the race. Geoghegan just got the endorsement of Democracy for America, so that should mean a lot of valuable ground game help. Nate Silver thinks Sara Feigenholtz is the favorite but thinks Geoghegan does have a chance.

Here's some good endorsements for Geoghegan from more reliable sources than me:

• James Fallows
  
• Thomas Frank
  
• Hendrik Hertzberg (New Yorker)
  
• Michael Tomasky (Guardian)
  
• Katha Pollitt
  

He's also been endorsed by The Nation and Progressive Democrats of America.

Kathy Geier has had some of the best discussions of why Tom would be such a great congressman:

Because really -- what Tom has to give is exactly what this country is starving for. I think he has the potential to become a Paul Wellstone-type figure -- a political leader who is so inspiring, and such a fearless and eloquent champion of underdogs, great causes, and the public good, that you marvel at the fact that they somehow slipped by and got elected to anything. Yet every once in a while, a bloody miracle occurs, and one of these people finds their way to elected office. And we are truly blessed to have them around.

Does someone who is such an awesomely balls-out progressive -- let alone someone who is so genuinely nice -- have a prayer of succeeding in the dirty, brutal, and fairly reactionary world of American politics? In all honesty, I don't know. But damn me if I'm not excited as hell to have the opportunity to find out.

So why do I, someone who doesn't even live in the 5th district, care so much about this election? Voting or volunteering for the Geoghegan campaign is a rare chance to help build a broader progressive coalition in Congress! Electing someone like Tom Geoghegan would probably do more towards the goal of reaffirming and increasing a social safety net in the US than any individual efforts we make as private citizens. (For example, if health care were universally available in this country, it would be an amazing step towards economic justice---more people declare bankruptcy because of medical-related costs than for any other reason.)

If the 2008 presidential election has shown us anything, it's that getting people into office that share your views is the fastest way to change how things work. Barack Obama has been president for less than a month, and just in that time we have the Lily Ledbetter act; health care for 4 million more children; executive orders to close Guantanamo, end torture, and reverse the idiocy of the Bush policy on funds for international family planning and abortion; and a stimulus bill that is far from perfect but includes things like almost twice as much money ($100 billion) for education as was in the budget for the Dept of Education---something that never would have happened under a Republican administration.

To get reasonably liberal policies, like comprehensive health care reform, to pass requires strong, intelligent voices further to the left in Congress:

"...the way your ideas get to carry the day is when there’s about as much political clout to the left of your ideas as there is to the right of them. If you succeed in muting all your critics to the left, all you do is create a situation where your program is defined in the press and the congress and the public imagination as the most-leftwing-possible proposal. And the furthest-left proposal can’t possibly win. It’s never helpful to have fratricidal warfare and battles to the death, but it’s necessary for there to be meaningful pressure to do more than is popular or possible or even necessary in order to lay the groundwork for accomplishing anything."

I really think Tom Geoghegan is uniquely suited to be one of those voices that could apply that 'meaningful pressure'.

So, please go vote if you live in the 5th district! Here's his webpage. Here's the Facebook page. And here's his declaration of candidacy on a progressive Illinois politics blog. In addition, it's really easy to volunteer here. (Join me for phone banking this coming weekend and on election day! Woo-hoo)

And for you still undecideds, here's the Chicago Reader's guide and Chicagoist's guide to the special election candidates. Progress Illinois (blog of SEIU IL who've endorsed Sara Feigenholtz in this race.) also has a policy comparison of the top five candidates.