Breastfeeding Dogma Used to Promote Paid Maternity Leave

I received another e-mail from Momsrising.org. I’m not sure how I got on their list.

This message was calling for paid maternity leave based on the argument that it supports breastfeeding. For followers of the breastfeeding dogma, nothing in life is more important than breastfeeding.

My friend was dedicated to breastfeeding exclusively for the 6 months recommended by doctors, but she shared with me that, "If I hadn't had time off work, I probably would have given up."
[snip]
Breastfeeding expert Dr. Jerry Calnen argues, "If we are serious about improving our breastfeeding rates, a national paid maternity leave policy will be absolutely necessary."

There is some scientific evidence to suggest breastfeeding is better than formula feeding, but scientists have not been able to prove causality. If more affluent parents tend to breastfeed, we can’t be sure there’s not something else associated with affluence besides breastfeeding responsible for improved infant health. The preponderance of evidence, though, is that there is at least some minute benefit to breast milk over formula milk. Breastfeeding dogmatists turn this fact into a 21st century version of “a woman’s place is in the home”.

Setting aside the breastfeeding argument, I have mixed thoughts on paid leave. It has worked well for other countries. I don’t understand, though, who pays for it. If employers need to eat the cost and just need to understand that when hiring a women, you’re likely not to get as much work per year, we should expect employers to pay women less. That’s equal pay for equal work, expect for women who don’t use the benefit.

I don’t have a good program in mind to help the poor deal with the costs in time and money of having a baby, although I see the potential benefits to society of having one.

The reason I am writing this post, however, is so much modern advice on parenting indirectly calls for women to focus on child-related things. The advice doesn’t say where the money comes from while the woman is focused on breastfeeding.

The issue of how much parent time will be dedicated to caring for infants is a huge question. The most obvious choices are a) one parent quits work and focuses on the baby or b) the baby spends most of his waking hours with someone else caring for him while his parent(s) work. Breastfeeding dogma and proposed policies that would pay women not to work push us toward option A with the "one parent" being the woman.

We should be cautious of any policy that pushes us back toward the restrictive gender roles of the past.