and decided locally, and a single federal standard is neither workable nor desirable.
It is useful to remember, too, that not long ago a group of parents had to fight tooth and nail to change the laws so that they could raise their own kids as they saw fit: what started as a trickle became a tidal wave of reform for homeschool education. As described by Dana Mack in her book The Assault on Parenthood, the Captain Mommies of the 1970s and ’80s were “home schooling families . . . [who] often ran afoul of compulsory school attendance laws, their children labeled ‘truants.’ Many of them were forced to battle criminal charges in court, and there were even cases of children being carted off to foster homes by welfare workers.”44
Why did parents in practically every state in the union have to fight local authorities and ordinances to be allowed to keep their kids home to learn? Mack quotes homeschooling advocate Stephen Arons for the answer. According to Arons, homeschooling “threatened the educational establishment by implicitly attacking its claims to professional status” (that you needed to have a teaching certificate in order to educate kids) “and by challenging the indispensability of school services to families and children.”45
Mack argues that the homeschooling fights were part of a bigger problem. She says the larger issue is “a contest over what have become two distinct political cultures in our nation: the political culture promoted by extra familial child-rearing institutions versus the political culture promoted by families.”46 It seems that, a generation after the homeschooling fights of the 1970s and ’80s, the new battleground between parental authority and the official authority is childhood independence.
Advocating for breastfeeding isn’t enough—it has to be the law
“YOU ARE TALKING about my body as if it is state property,” Captain Mommy Suzanne Barston complained when we spoke by phone. Which part of the body is the activist blogger and author talking about? Barston was referring to all the government regulations, policies, and requirements when it comes to women’s breasts, or more specifically how a woman’s choice whether or not to breastfeed is a matter of national interest.
Barston is an advocate for what she calls “feeding freedom,” and in her book Bottled Up1 and blog Fearless Formula Feeder,2 she chronicles the personal experiences of those who feel pressured to breastfeed and the coverage of scientific studies that promote breastfeeding as the best—really, only morally good—way to feed a baby. She writes that breastfeeding should be “an empowering personal choice rather than a government-mandated, fear-induced act.” Surely she must exaggerate when she says the government sees her boobs as state property? As we shall see, however, she’s not exaggerating. Instead, Barston has her work cut out for her, in part because cities, states, and most of all the federal government are pulling multiple levers to promote this particular behavior.
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG may be the former mayor of New York City, but he’ll always be emperor of Nannyville, USA. And he’s certainly among those who Barston argues see a mother’s breasts as national treasures requiring government protection. During his time as mayor, Bloomberg enacted bans on smoking in public places and trans-fats, and he tried to ban large-sized sodas. But his biggest triumph has got to be the breastfeeding mandate of 2012, which—similar to Iranian law3—essentially makes infant formula a controlled substance.
According to recommendations of the Latch On NYC initiative, city hospitals must not only remove the free formula goodie bag that used to be available to mothers in the hospital, but they must also keep formula under lock and key. If a mother requests it, hospital staff administers formula as if it were prescription medication or a narcotic. Moreover, before the mother can get a bottle to feed her kid, she’s got to sign a waiver stating that she understands she’s making the “less healthy” choice for her baby.4
When New York says it wants to “support” breastfeeding, the underlying argument is that only human breast milk is safe for babies. After all, in announcing the program, Thomas Farley, then-commissioner of public health for New York City, claimed that “formula feeding markedly increases serious health risks for infants” and that lower breastfeeding rates “result in excess health care costs and preventable infant illness and death.” The millions of mothers who have chosen not to breastfeed would not recognize the characterization of formula as virtually a poison.
Peggy O’Mara, founder of Mothering magazine, has certainly internalized the formula-is-poison message. “It is naïve to believe that the formula industry’s distribution of formula to you is an innocent gift,” she wrote in her magazine about the free diaper swag for new mothers.5 “A ‘gift’ of formula is like a ‘gift’ of a pack of cigarettes when you’re trying to quit smoking; it will undermine your resolve,” O’Mara wrote.
When the New York City program was announced, it was proudly deemed necessary for public health reasons. “Human breast milk is best for babies and mothers,” Latch On claims.6 The program has four basic elements.
1. Enforce the [New York State] hospital regulation to not supplement breastfeeding infants with formula feeding unless medically indicated and documented on the infant’s medical chart;
2. Restrict access to infant formula by hospital staff, tracking infant formula distribution and sharing data on formula distribution with the Health Department;
3. Discontinue the distribution of promotional or free infant formula; and
4. Prohibit the display and distribution of infant formula promotional materials in any hospital location.7
“When babies receive supplementary formula in the hospital or mothers receive promotional baby formula on hospital discharge it can impede the establishment of an adequate milk supply and can undermine women’s confidence in breastfeeding,” Latch On promotional materials declare.
This extreme sort of language about the “need” to breastfeed and the “risk” of formula didn’t come as too much of a shock to my sister-in-law, who described how pervasive the lactation dogma was even before the new mandate took effect. When my niece was born in 2010 in New York City, she was delivered early by C-section, and in the 24 hours after her birth, her weight and other measurements had landed her in the NICU. My sister-in-law was understandably eager to do anything she could to help her child, but it took 24 hours before one nurse quietly suggested that my niece’s weight and other “numbers” would go up if my sister-in-law would agree to give the child a bottle of formula. “They’d let her out of here if she gains a little,” the commonsense staffer advised.
When my sister-in-law described this scene more than two years later, it was obvious she was still angry, and justifiably so. “Why didn’t they just tell me in the first place that formula would help,” she fumed. “I was pumping anyways, so what did it matter if I just stored all that milk and they gave the baby a bottle?”
The Latch On mandate did surprise some others, however. Gayle Tzemach Lemmon reacted in The Atlantic. “Women who have . . . decided—for whatever personal reason—to feed their newborns formula, will now have to justify their reasoning before they are given access to it. When, exactly, exercising a personal right about what to do for your child (and with your own body) became a public statement,
