Such a great article. So nice to know there are women using they brains and hearts and don’t buy the BS. I own a company that makes outdoor clothing for women who are pregnant and nursing, and lo and behold, we have begun receiving comments from people about how they wish our styles weren’t so traditionally feminine or how maybe we could use words like chestfeeding or for non-nursing people...I mean...I created this offering because I didn’t want to get cold lifting my shirt up outside when nursing my babies. And literally for pregnancy..for women! And, I had someone tell me that our Facebook group (also our brand slogan Mothers In Naure) is not inclusive enough for those women who don’t identify as MOTHERS. Makes me scared to be a new and small business that is literally designed for women’s bodies..in the culture of today. It’s absurd!!
Oh my-just the utter stupidity of it all, honestly. Telling a mother who owns a company that caters to mothers that she shouldn’t use the word mother is both just completely inane and also so audacious and entitled. Not only the piece about words but the styles too, like if you are designing clothes for breastfeeding and pregnancy, who else would they be for but mothers? And why do we even have to ask this question? So ironic considering the type of people you are talking about need to get out in nature probably more than anyone, so they can remember what is real. I will have to check your company out!
Thank you for writing so eloquently about this extremely important topic. It’s hard to believe that this is going on. I loved that you touched on Emily Olster’s data-driven books/advice that are so popular. I first heard her on a podcast, and I remember instinctively recoiling at the idea of guiding parents through data, and not the amazing way we can parent largely through intuition and love. And then she mentioned how the almighty ‘data’ showed that there were no measurable benefits to breastfeeding after (I think she said) a few weeks... whaaat?!!?!?!
I think this way of living and parenting through data is directly related to the crazy things that are happening at this time, such as trying to erase/steal the experience of women. Of course data can be extremely useful, but to use it as the sole guiding principle....
OH my gosh the thing about the data on breastfeeding- I have seen this mentioned so many times and it is such drivel I can hardly stand it. The thing about data and research is that you can always find some to back up whatever your personal stance is, and there is a reason for this- it is almost always flawed in some way (whether obvious or not) and almost always biased no matter what they say. Numbers and data are just too objective to accurately depict the vast human experience. And also- some things we do not need data to prove, like the benefits of nursing our young as mammals- you know, the type of animal whose namesake is literally related to the fact that we nurse our young! Ahh sorry for the rant but that is a big one for me. Thank you for reading!
Science can only see what it chooses to look at, and it’s not science guiding the choice. It’s humans. Here’s a perspective I haven’t seen mentioned elsewhere:
- We know that the overconsumption of omega-6, primarily through the overconsumption of seed and vegetable oils, is bad for adults
- We are also increasingly aware that processed food is VERY BAD for us, so much so that these days the gold standard is to eat real, locally produced food that you have to process into a meal yourself. We are rightly suspicious of meals that you can pop into a microwave or oven, or just comes in a package. We know that’s not always possible. Hell, I’m eating a meal made with store bought pasta sauce right now. But no one is seriously arguing eating TV dinners everyday is just as good as cooking at home.
If all of these things are bad for adults, why not children? To anyone who’s ever read the ingredients for baby formula, the vast majority of them are made of the following:
1. Powdered skim milk
2. Vegetable and seed oils to make up the fat content
3. Vitamins
If you drink it, you might notice it tastes like powdered coffee creamer and NOT like cow’s milk, because coffee creamer are by and large MADE OF THE SAME THINGS. We conveniently forget the fact that baby formula is usually made of byproducts (you get skim milk if you take all the fat out, to make cream, maybe?) and cheap oils that we KNOW are bad for us. And what’s this “just add water and you have a ready made meal for babies” nonsense? Even knowing none of the above, shouldn’t that make you think twice? I was with my in laws once, and my father in law was trying to make a cereal for my toddler. He’s like: “Ok, do I put this on the stove now? Do I add boiling water?” And I told him, actually, you just add water, any temperature, and stir to the desired consistency. Even as I was explaining that to him, it struck me how wrong that sounded. He said: “Are you serious? Just like that? Don’t grown ups have to cook their oats? How is this possible?” And we just stared at each other. Something is very, very wrong with the baby food industry.
Yes, the nutrients might on paper look exactly like breastmilk. But seriously, it’s like, has anyone ever tried to isolate the effects of this much vegetable oils from the first day of life? Why is nobody talking about how backwards it is that kids foods are so much lower effort than adult food? Doesn’t something smell rotten?
This is fire. As a 50 year old mom of 8 and grandma to five so far, i had the same experience with the Womanly Art, and i find it insane how so many women willingly break down safety nets that held them and could have supported their little girls in time, too.
Oh this is such a apt point. Our DAUGHTERS. I often look around at the current state of things and ask myself what sort of childbearing-continuum heritage we are leaving for them. Some things just deserve protection, and true support from women of integrity who hold wisdom for this time in our lives is most certainly one of them. Thank you.
Emily, you have so brightened my day with your inspirational writing. Mothers are irreplaceable and those women who are making a choice to not "identify as" women or mothers are damaged and delusional. https://lucyleader.substack.com/p/what-is-a-mother
LLL is also stating that the choice to drop "womanly" from the title was Leader preference, but this is not true. This lot appears to think that their support role is to educate "lactating parents" about inclusivity, not helping them with breastfeeding https://lucyleader.substack.com/p/la-leche-league-eliminates-mothers
Indeed, "Breastfeeding doesn’t care about ideology".
Thank you for reading! I think yours was the first newsletter I subscribed to on here and I just find your writing fascinating and so relevant and important. Also rare in this world right now. Sharing your comment in hopes more people will find your work!
I think the founding mothers of La Leche League must be spinning in their graves and guess the one still alive must have been silenced. I was in 2016 as an LLL editor for speaking out against experimental surgery on babies with tongue-'tie'. I have written to the board of directors and the council of directors in the UK to inquire about their view on the dangers of breastbinding but have been completely ignored. It's a shame that this once credible charitable organisation has been captured by the handmaidens of this misogynistic cult to the extent that they can gloss over the very real damage being done to potential future mothers by trans ideology.
NOOOO! I did not know LLL was heading in this direction. That book helped me so much too, and whenever I see a tattered copy of it in a bookstore or a Little Free Library or wherever I grab it. Amazing post. Have you read Irreversible Damage?
I do the same with the older copies! It truly is an invaluable resource and it is incredibly disheartening to see this organization bend to the will of something so inherently insidious and anti-woman and baby. I have not yet read Irreversible Damage but it most definitely holds a spot on my to-read list!
I love your poetic, thoughtful, lovely way of writing non such an infuriating topic. I wish you would record one of your essays so we can hear it in your voice!
Oh thank you! Walking that line between righteous anger and mindful temperance is what I aim for so that is a great compliment. I hadn’t thought of recording my writing but I will most definitely consider it now!
Wow! My heart melted knowing of this new kind of 'policy' inside LLL. In Cuba they've been present for 5 years now, and their support groups, specially their leaders, have been so Key in my positive experience as a new mother. In here, we are still doing the mother to mother support. There is no inclusive language, no men in oue spaces, just women in sisterhood. Hoping that BS doesn't ever get here.
Well I hope that LLL continues to hold strong to the original intention and vision in Cuba! So happy to hear how the sisterhood provided there has helped you ♥️
Thank you for writing this! It's ridiculous how many professional women in the world of pregnancy and breastfeeding are buying into this craziness. I was researching lactation consultants in my area prior to having my first baby and I was able to eliminate half the options due to their use of "breast/chestfeeding" on their websites. At least they were upfront about it and I didn't have to waste my time or money there, but I was shocked at how many there were!
Thank you for writing this! It's ridiculous how many professional women in the world of pregnancy and breastfeeding are buying into this craziness. I was researching lactation consultants in my area prior to having my first baby and I was able to eliminate half the options due to their use of "breast/chestfeeding" on their websites. At least they were upfront about it and I didn't have to waste my time or money there, but I was shocked at how many there were!
I particularly liked your point about medical and research resources being diverted to things like making mice babies out of male mice sperm, etc. In medicine and health as in everything else there's an 80/20 rule - 80% of the benefits (or problems) will come from 20% of the things you can do (or not do), the money you spend and so on.
Whatever we think about the other issues you mentioned (and I mostly agree with you), when you think of the vast sums of money expended on this which would benefit fewer than 1% of the world's people, and compare it with what even one-tenth the same money could do if spent on things like maternal healthcare nurses and so on.
For example, we were fortunate and able to conceive naturally, but had we not been, we would have done IVF. Here in Australia, this costs around $11k from initial consult to a single embryo transfer, with a 50% chance of this leading to a live birth nine months later if the woman is in her 20s (down to 7% past 43yo). Around half is publicly-funded. By the way, about 5% of births in Australia are from IVF.
By contrast, to set up a maternal healthcare nurse in an office somewhere costs about $120k annually, and she can help literally hundreds of women, however they've conceived.
Having conceived naturally it wouldn't be fair for us to judge people who've used IVF - it's like a person born well-off who judges a born poor person for getting welfare. However, I can make the observation that we can spend a little bit to help a lot of people a lot, or spend a huge amount to help a few people a little. We seem keen on the second, for some reason.
Such a great article. So nice to know there are women using they brains and hearts and don’t buy the BS. I own a company that makes outdoor clothing for women who are pregnant and nursing, and lo and behold, we have begun receiving comments from people about how they wish our styles weren’t so traditionally feminine or how maybe we could use words like chestfeeding or for non-nursing people...I mean...I created this offering because I didn’t want to get cold lifting my shirt up outside when nursing my babies. And literally for pregnancy..for women! And, I had someone tell me that our Facebook group (also our brand slogan Mothers In Naure) is not inclusive enough for those women who don’t identify as MOTHERS. Makes me scared to be a new and small business that is literally designed for women’s bodies..in the culture of today. It’s absurd!!
Oh my-just the utter stupidity of it all, honestly. Telling a mother who owns a company that caters to mothers that she shouldn’t use the word mother is both just completely inane and also so audacious and entitled. Not only the piece about words but the styles too, like if you are designing clothes for breastfeeding and pregnancy, who else would they be for but mothers? And why do we even have to ask this question? So ironic considering the type of people you are talking about need to get out in nature probably more than anyone, so they can remember what is real. I will have to check your company out!
Thank you for writing so eloquently about this extremely important topic. It’s hard to believe that this is going on. I loved that you touched on Emily Olster’s data-driven books/advice that are so popular. I first heard her on a podcast, and I remember instinctively recoiling at the idea of guiding parents through data, and not the amazing way we can parent largely through intuition and love. And then she mentioned how the almighty ‘data’ showed that there were no measurable benefits to breastfeeding after (I think she said) a few weeks... whaaat?!!?!?!
I think this way of living and parenting through data is directly related to the crazy things that are happening at this time, such as trying to erase/steal the experience of women. Of course data can be extremely useful, but to use it as the sole guiding principle....
OH my gosh the thing about the data on breastfeeding- I have seen this mentioned so many times and it is such drivel I can hardly stand it. The thing about data and research is that you can always find some to back up whatever your personal stance is, and there is a reason for this- it is almost always flawed in some way (whether obvious or not) and almost always biased no matter what they say. Numbers and data are just too objective to accurately depict the vast human experience. And also- some things we do not need data to prove, like the benefits of nursing our young as mammals- you know, the type of animal whose namesake is literally related to the fact that we nurse our young! Ahh sorry for the rant but that is a big one for me. Thank you for reading!
An emphatic yes to all of this! You know we’ve lost it in mainstream culture when this type of nonsense is taken seriously.
Science can only see what it chooses to look at, and it’s not science guiding the choice. It’s humans. Here’s a perspective I haven’t seen mentioned elsewhere:
- We know that the overconsumption of omega-6, primarily through the overconsumption of seed and vegetable oils, is bad for adults
- We are also increasingly aware that processed food is VERY BAD for us, so much so that these days the gold standard is to eat real, locally produced food that you have to process into a meal yourself. We are rightly suspicious of meals that you can pop into a microwave or oven, or just comes in a package. We know that’s not always possible. Hell, I’m eating a meal made with store bought pasta sauce right now. But no one is seriously arguing eating TV dinners everyday is just as good as cooking at home.
If all of these things are bad for adults, why not children? To anyone who’s ever read the ingredients for baby formula, the vast majority of them are made of the following:
1. Powdered skim milk
2. Vegetable and seed oils to make up the fat content
3. Vitamins
If you drink it, you might notice it tastes like powdered coffee creamer and NOT like cow’s milk, because coffee creamer are by and large MADE OF THE SAME THINGS. We conveniently forget the fact that baby formula is usually made of byproducts (you get skim milk if you take all the fat out, to make cream, maybe?) and cheap oils that we KNOW are bad for us. And what’s this “just add water and you have a ready made meal for babies” nonsense? Even knowing none of the above, shouldn’t that make you think twice? I was with my in laws once, and my father in law was trying to make a cereal for my toddler. He’s like: “Ok, do I put this on the stove now? Do I add boiling water?” And I told him, actually, you just add water, any temperature, and stir to the desired consistency. Even as I was explaining that to him, it struck me how wrong that sounded. He said: “Are you serious? Just like that? Don’t grown ups have to cook their oats? How is this possible?” And we just stared at each other. Something is very, very wrong with the baby food industry.
Yes, the nutrients might on paper look exactly like breastmilk. But seriously, it’s like, has anyone ever tried to isolate the effects of this much vegetable oils from the first day of life? Why is nobody talking about how backwards it is that kids foods are so much lower effort than adult food? Doesn’t something smell rotten?
This is fire. As a 50 year old mom of 8 and grandma to five so far, i had the same experience with the Womanly Art, and i find it insane how so many women willingly break down safety nets that held them and could have supported their little girls in time, too.
Oh this is such a apt point. Our DAUGHTERS. I often look around at the current state of things and ask myself what sort of childbearing-continuum heritage we are leaving for them. Some things just deserve protection, and true support from women of integrity who hold wisdom for this time in our lives is most certainly one of them. Thank you.
Emily, you have so brightened my day with your inspirational writing. Mothers are irreplaceable and those women who are making a choice to not "identify as" women or mothers are damaged and delusional. https://lucyleader.substack.com/p/what-is-a-mother
Babies are born looking for the body they have just emerged from, and they are not making a "gender neutral" choice! https://lucyleader.substack.com/p/donald-woods-winnicott
LLL is also stating that the choice to drop "womanly" from the title was Leader preference, but this is not true. This lot appears to think that their support role is to educate "lactating parents" about inclusivity, not helping them with breastfeeding https://lucyleader.substack.com/p/la-leche-league-eliminates-mothers
Indeed, "Breastfeeding doesn’t care about ideology".
Thank you for reading! I think yours was the first newsletter I subscribed to on here and I just find your writing fascinating and so relevant and important. Also rare in this world right now. Sharing your comment in hopes more people will find your work!
Thank you so much for your endorsement! Sometimes it can feel like shouting into the wind.
I think the founding mothers of La Leche League must be spinning in their graves and guess the one still alive must have been silenced. I was in 2016 as an LLL editor for speaking out against experimental surgery on babies with tongue-'tie'. I have written to the board of directors and the council of directors in the UK to inquire about their view on the dangers of breastbinding but have been completely ignored. It's a shame that this once credible charitable organisation has been captured by the handmaidens of this misogynistic cult to the extent that they can gloss over the very real damage being done to potential future mothers by trans ideology.
NOOOO! I did not know LLL was heading in this direction. That book helped me so much too, and whenever I see a tattered copy of it in a bookstore or a Little Free Library or wherever I grab it. Amazing post. Have you read Irreversible Damage?
I do the same with the older copies! It truly is an invaluable resource and it is incredibly disheartening to see this organization bend to the will of something so inherently insidious and anti-woman and baby. I have not yet read Irreversible Damage but it most definitely holds a spot on my to-read list!
I love your poetic, thoughtful, lovely way of writing non such an infuriating topic. I wish you would record one of your essays so we can hear it in your voice!
Oh thank you! Walking that line between righteous anger and mindful temperance is what I aim for so that is a great compliment. I hadn’t thought of recording my writing but I will most definitely consider it now!
Wow! My heart melted knowing of this new kind of 'policy' inside LLL. In Cuba they've been present for 5 years now, and their support groups, specially their leaders, have been so Key in my positive experience as a new mother. In here, we are still doing the mother to mother support. There is no inclusive language, no men in oue spaces, just women in sisterhood. Hoping that BS doesn't ever get here.
Well I hope that LLL continues to hold strong to the original intention and vision in Cuba! So happy to hear how the sisterhood provided there has helped you ♥️
Thank you for writing this! It's ridiculous how many professional women in the world of pregnancy and breastfeeding are buying into this craziness. I was researching lactation consultants in my area prior to having my first baby and I was able to eliminate half the options due to their use of "breast/chestfeeding" on their websites. At least they were upfront about it and I didn't have to waste my time or money there, but I was shocked at how many there were!
Thank you for writing this! It's ridiculous how many professional women in the world of pregnancy and breastfeeding are buying into this craziness. I was researching lactation consultants in my area prior to having my first baby and I was able to eliminate half the options due to their use of "breast/chestfeeding" on their websites. At least they were upfront about it and I didn't have to waste my time or money there, but I was shocked at how many there were!
Another glorious article Emily. Always so poignant, well written, and just so bloody true.
Thank you for your woman’s work!
I particularly liked your point about medical and research resources being diverted to things like making mice babies out of male mice sperm, etc. In medicine and health as in everything else there's an 80/20 rule - 80% of the benefits (or problems) will come from 20% of the things you can do (or not do), the money you spend and so on.
Whatever we think about the other issues you mentioned (and I mostly agree with you), when you think of the vast sums of money expended on this which would benefit fewer than 1% of the world's people, and compare it with what even one-tenth the same money could do if spent on things like maternal healthcare nurses and so on.
For example, we were fortunate and able to conceive naturally, but had we not been, we would have done IVF. Here in Australia, this costs around $11k from initial consult to a single embryo transfer, with a 50% chance of this leading to a live birth nine months later if the woman is in her 20s (down to 7% past 43yo). Around half is publicly-funded. By the way, about 5% of births in Australia are from IVF.
By contrast, to set up a maternal healthcare nurse in an office somewhere costs about $120k annually, and she can help literally hundreds of women, however they've conceived.
Having conceived naturally it wouldn't be fair for us to judge people who've used IVF - it's like a person born well-off who judges a born poor person for getting welfare. However, I can make the observation that we can spend a little bit to help a lot of people a lot, or spend a huge amount to help a few people a little. We seem keen on the second, for some reason.