>
>
>Sounds familiarly like LLLI has been telling us for years: For eons, women
>have succeeded at breastfeeding because they have watched and assimilated it
>into their fantasies of womanhood daily as children and are surrounded by
>experienced women when they have their children.
>
>
>Perhaps if there is to be another childbirth revolution, we must plant it
>early, in the sunlight of our value system, and water and fertilize it
>carefully in the fantasy life of our young children.
>

I'd be happy to contribute to that revolution, because I think it is 
incompatible with the one I dream of: empowering women by valuing 
mothering, restructuring society so we all put family first, and 
providing real emotional and spiritual support as well as practical 
assistance for breastfeeding and for family life. It would involve huge 
policy and attitudinal changes.

Why in the world does it sound so reactionary to talk about "women and 
children first"? And why did the childbirth revolution seem rooted in 
the women's movement -- having power over one's own body -- when 
breastfeeding didn't seem to get more than a nipple in the door of that 
discourse? Ouch!

This is one of the reasons I take issue with some of the discourse on 
lactation. I don't know that it has really helped us to suggest that 
there is no other choice, or of normalizing breastfeeding (which can 
lead to "forced consensus" at the expense of "informed choice".) It's 
OK, I've been flamed before, and although I'm feeling much more 
vulnerable now, I'm also breaking my own rules and speaking out more. I 
am a crone, I can do that.

I'm vulnerable because I'm surrounded by women who are intelligent, 
feminist, empowered and ethical and who do not share my views on 
breastfeeding. Some of these women are in other community groups, some 
of them are mothers with school-age children, some of them are in 
academe. Most work outside the home. Many of these women tell me that 
the juggling act is so difficult, that parents don't have any other 
choice than to have both partners work, and that as a result they have 
chosen not to have (more) children. When they do have children, they 
pride themselves on not taking time off before the birth of their baby 
and on returning to work outside the home. Canadian legislation allows 
up to 12 months maternity leave, but not at full salary, and certainly 
not for all workers. Full-year leaves suit the middle range of the 
employed very well, but not either extreme. Meanwhile, the debate on 
national child care has made the choice to stay home (and possibly 
receive money for it) another extreme reactionary choice.

Is this related to breastfeeding? Apparently. Many of the women I meet 
breastfeed. Almost none of them breastfeed for 6 months or more. Those 
who do tend to be out of the work force longer -- not because 
breastfeeding doesn't work when mothers work, but, I think, because 
their kind of mothering doesn't work as well when they are juggling, 
answering to a boss, worried about illness, fatigued, etc. But that 
makes working and breastfeeding sound a bit negative. I think the 
reality is that many women don't seem to know they have the choice of 
another kind of life in which their body, their breasts, their minds and 
their hearts are not only fully occupied with life but are fully in 
their control -- theirs to give, theirs given by choice.

I am still struggling with the idea that women are more fulfilled when 
they work for other people who couldn't care less about their deepest 
desires or their real needs than when they "stay home". However, this is 
what I hear from many of the women I talk to, who often talk about being 
sucked dry (either from being at home or from juggling home and family) 
but rarely about how they have been sucked into a system that requires 
them to make personal choices based on economic necessities. 

Nonetheless, somehow, having to "explain" my choice to have a rich 
family life, a thriving intellectual / creative life, strong community 
involvement and, admittedly, a poor economic situation is making me 
wonder if I am on another planet. Being told that it is a luxury only 
middle-class women can afford is one of the worst insults I cope with. 
All this makes me feel incredibly disempowered as a woman.

Thank goodness I have always had some vision of what I'm doing as the 
most feminist and revolutionary choice possible. And that there are 
people on my planet who love each other overwhelmingly.

Jo-Anne

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