Has Forty Years Of Feminist Culture Had an Epiphany? - Granite Grok

Has Forty Years Of Feminist Culture Had an Epiphany?

New York City ‘Officials,’ which I take to mean ‘experts’ have gotten this crazy idea in their heads.  Feeding babies breast milk may actually be better for them.  The babies not the officials.  Although, maybe….no.  Not going there.

The NPR headline reads New York City Officials: Breast Milk May Be Best ‘Formula.’  You think?

I wonder what clued them in?  I’m certain it was not the 70,000 years of human existence that preceded their benevolent if not entirely unobservant genius, during which women fed their babies breast milk.  That would be far too obvious for such advanced thinkers as ‘officials’ and ‘experts.’

So now that breast feeding is better again, the experts are running a campaign to promote it, something that could only be necessary in a society that had manged, in just a sliver of human history, to create a culture educated out of what should otherwise be obvious.   I hope it works.

To their credit, most baby-doctors and their cadre of lactation nurses, will tell you that breast feeding has always been the best way to go, but that the changing priorities in the culture have forced them to accept the alternatives for moms who can’t or wont give up a job for longer than a few weeks to invest the time into breast-feeding for more than the first few weeks.  Admittedly, many don’t breast feed at all, and in rare cases some just can’t.  But this program is clearly directed at getting babies on the breast, whenever possible, at least for the first few weeks before mom ‘has’ to go back to work.

Note: I worked two jobs for the better part of a decade so my wife could stay home until all my kids were in school.  This afforded her the opportunity to breast feed all three of them for several months each.  I accept that this option might not be available to far too many moms, even the ones with fathers/husbands living with them.  You have to be willing to dramatically change your lifestyle–and not just to accommodate children; that may be a bigger failing of our so-called ‘modern’ culture than needing to educate moms about the benefits of breast feeding

I also can’t help thinking that, at another level, convincing the city’s welfare moms to breast feed is a quiet campaign to save a few dimes on taxpayer funded formula, in a Democrat city and state that has always been willing to stretch the welfare budget to its limits. I do not disapprove.  It is a self-evident win-win for everyone.

Oh, and that NPR headline is just the best.

Here’s the campaign poster.

NYC Baby - Breast Milk Better

 

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