I Will Formula Feed Out Of Spite, I Swear To Maude

[Contents: parent-shaming, gender essentialism]

So here is what is setting me off:



I saw a few people tweeting about this; I first saw it from @DrJaneChi. The image is of a brochure holder in a doctor's office. The headline is "Save a Life. Donate Milk...". The brochure has what appears to be a white premature baby on the cover, with the same "Save a Life, Donate Milk..." text. The text on the brochure holder is as follows; emphasis original:

"Make a difference in the life of a child by becoming a milk donor.

Babies in hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Units depend on this life saving nourishment to thrive when their own mother's milk is not available.

To learn about our non-profit organization or how to donate, visit: MilkBankColorado.org"

Then there's the logo for the milk bank and some pretty colored banding at the bottom.

Let me make one thing abundantly clear before we go on: I do not have a problem with breast milk banks or donation in and of themselves.

What I have a problem with here is the strong implication that breast milk and ONLY breast milk is what infants in the NICU can be fed, and ONLY breast milk can make sure that they don't die. Which is not only factually incorrect, but incredibly shaming and stigmatizing to people who choose formula, for whatever reason they choose it.

That is incredibly harmful.

It is incredibly harmful because there are a number of people who cannot breastfeed, and what you've just told them is that if, gods forbid, their kid winds up in the NICU, ONLY breast milk will allow them to survive and thrive, so they better hope and pray someone donates, because it's their only hope.

It is incredibly harmful because it's yet more parent-shaming heaped on women, almost exclusively women, about how their choices are actively harming their baby, when those choices are doing nothing of the sort. It's the same "YOU ARE A BAD MOTHER FOR NOT BREASTFEEDING" shit that is all over the fuck place. It's using the specter of dead babies to guilt trip people in to breastfeeding.

It's incredibly harmful because it implies that people who are breastfeeding but do not make enough breast milk to donate for whatever reason are less good people than those that DO donate, because only those that donate can save NICU baby lives.

It's incredibly harmful because as I have written about before, not every pregnant person is a woman, not every pregnant person is or becomes a mother or even wants to be.

It is incredibly harmful because it is just. plain. wrong.

And for those who are like WELL IT SAYS NOTHING OF THE SORT, well, no, sit down. Because the exact message I got out of this was "only breast milk will save NICU babies" and "ps breast is best you're bad if you don't do it and ps MAKE MORE SO YOU CAN DONATE AND BE AN EVEN BETTER PERSON." And it's not like I had to sit and think and read between the lines. I'm not sitting here looking for shit to get mad about, which is another popular accusation. The message is pretty damn clear.

This is the sort of shit I'm talking about when I say I am planning to breastfeed in spite of pro-breastfeeding rhetoric, not because of it. I mean, I'll admit, spite is a powerful motivator in my life, and I also plan on enjoying the spitefulness of breastfeeding in public and making all the assholes who are against it squirm. But the more pro-breastfeeding stuff I read, the less I want to breastfeed. And if there's more of this stuff, I swear to Maude, I will formula feed just to spite the people who think like this. (If you think I won't, you obviously have never met me.)

Formula does not kill babies, not even NICU babies. And if you can't make an argument for breastfeeding without either implying or directly stating that, your argument is shit. If you can't even make a pitch for breastmilk donation without relying on the specter of dead babies, your argument is really shit, and you should be ashamed of yourself for the harm you are perpetuating. Because make no mistake, you ARE causing harm. So long as their child is receiving sufficient, safe food, no parent should ever be shamed for how they choose to feed their child. EVER.