About 10 years ago, when the first of my four sons was born, I struggled with breastfeeding.
My baby wouldn't latch on to my nipple. From the moment I got home from the hospital, I succumbed to a common fate: constant pumping to reap the supposed benefits of breast milk. So I joined the ranks of breastfeeding warriors, those mothers who persevere against the odds and ignore the opportunity cost for the sake of their “liquid gold.”
Remember all the ridiculously ill-advised measures taken to combat the coronavirus? You know what this kind of pseudoscientific conspiracy from the left looks like. But unlike masks and school closures, the slogan “breast milk is best” boasts adherents on the right, too.
My tenure with this noble company was short-lived.
I hated lugging a breast pump around on the train to work in the humid heat of a Philadelphia summer, but like many mothers, I didn't have time off. I had good health insurance for my family through my university employer, and I hadn't worked there long enough to qualify for maternity leave.
I hated not being able to sleep more than 60 minutes for weeks at a time. But pumping exclusively with a newborn would take 12 hours a day: 30 minutes of bottle-feeding and 30 minutes of pumping every two hours, not to mention washing the bottles and pump parts. I hated missing out on little pleasures like fresh coffee, uninterrupted conversation with friends, and a cute baby, as well as everyday tasks (like unloading dishes from the dishwasher). But I was tied to the pump.
As my milk supply decreased despite my diligent pumping, I began supplementing with increased formula. I researched the ostensible benefits of breastfeeding to understand how formula-feeding might be negatively impacting my son's long-term health and intelligence.
It's superstition, not science
The surprising answer? Not at allI learned that “breast milk is best” is a myth disguised as science.
Economist Emily Oster wrote in her 2018 book “Cheat Sheet“There is a vast scientific literature detailing that, once you control for other variables related to breastfeeding, there are no measurable differences in outcomes between breastfed and formula-fed babies. In other words, all of the commonly touted 'benefits' of breastfeeding are actually benefits of the higher maternal income and education levels associated with breastfeeding.”
For example, breastfeeding does not raise IQ; it's the mother's (and father's) IQ that does. Higher intelligence is correlated with income and education, so more intelligent mothers are more likely to breastfeed their babies.
Once I understood this reality, I freed myself from my breast pump and put it away, and I suspect other mothers struggling with breastfeeding will feel the same relief once they realize the futility of their struggle.
Don't get me wrong: If breastfeeding was easy for me, I would have done it, and my children would have been well-nourished. But it wasn't, so I didn't, and the fact is, my children are just as well-nourished on formula.
So why is the myth that “breast milk is best” still so widely accepted and believed?
The “good mom” sign
Despite generally rejecting pseudo-medical dogma, as a mother who has been caught up in it myself, I can make an informed guess: Unlike most other sacrosanct beliefs today, this myth about the benefits of breastfeeding has influential supporters across the ideological spectrum, not just on the left or the right. Thus, it appears to be non-ideological.
But in reality, breastfeeding myths are misleadingly ideological, ensnaring advocates on both sides, albeit for different reasons.
On the left, mainstream feminism, which despises the traditional family, must devise ways to graft “feminist” values onto motherhood, since some of its adherents still want to have children. When life is not an end in itself, it must be justified by the identity posture and in-group virtue signaling of those who choose it. In that framework, many left-leaning mothers who see parenthood as a morally neutral lifestyle choice also choose to breastfeed so that their children will be healthier and smarter.
From their perspective, many apolitical, conservative mothers who see motherhood not as an intensive boutique hobby but as a near-universal calling for adult women may or may not breastfeed because they don't really understand what's good for their children — and if they did, the condescending thinking is, none of them would vote Republican.
Given the already difficult problem of motherhood in feminist self-conception, elite “good mothers” will actively avoid any scientific information that contradicts their ability to separate themselves from non-elite “ordinary mothers.” The myth of the nutritional superiority of breast milk is so convenient as a vehicle for left-wing identity posturing about motherhood that for some adherents it doesn't matter whether it's true.
“Wear a mask!” Again
Remember all the ridiculously ill-advised measures taken to combat the coronavirus? You know what this kind of pseudoscientific conspiracy from the left looks like. But unlike masks and school closures, the slogan “breast milk is best” boasts adherents on the right, too.
For some conservatives, anything that even remotely resembles downplaying or denying the differences between men and women is seemingly forbidden. Formula feeding gives fathers equal ability to breastfeed their babies. An idealized image of nurturing, self-sacrificing motherhood is sacrosanct, especially among the religious right. Any argument that might result in further alienation of traditional motherhood from our broader cultural conception of a woman's full life is unacceptable, even if the argument is factually correct, such as that formula is equivalent to breast milk in nourishing a baby.
Now that many argue that there are in fact men who both breastfeed and menstruate, I share conservatives' desire to return to a world where the answer to the question “What is a woman?” is self-evident. But such a world would not be one in which every mother stays home and lovingly raises her own children with her own body. Such a world is a figment of anti-feminist fantasy. It has never existed. In other words, the so-called “traditional wife” is anything but traditional.
In the agricultural societies that constituted all of human history until very recently, all but the wealthiest women worked on farms or in the homes of wealthy women, including mothers. But there were always women who couldn't or didn't want to breastfeed, and they often had to get others to breastfeed their babies, or their babies often starved to death due to lack of nutrition.
The blessings of formula
If I was lucky enough to live in the 1700s, my sister or friend would have nursed my baby while I helped her with her farm work and looked after her toddler. Or, if I was very lucky and wealthy, I would have hired a wet nurse. If I was unlucky (as many women were), my child would have died in infancy.
May God bless powdered milk, which has reduced the number of unspeakably unfortunate people to almost zero.
It is illogical, uncharitable, and counterproductive to curse such an obvious good because, unfortunately, it coincides with (and may indeed encourage) feminist trends that urge women to shun motherhood more generally. But the myth that breastfeeding is synonymous with true femininity is so convenient as a vehicle for conservative identity postures regarding motherhood that for some adherents it doesn't matter whether it's true or not.
If conservatives' goal is for more women to have more children, they should advocate for the use of formula. If feminists' goal is to further free women from the disproportionately high costs of raising children, they should do the same.
“Breast milk is best” isn't best for everyone.
