Imagine for a moment that you were a men’s rights activist (MRA). You know the men I mean, the ones who are whining about Femi-Nazis and how white men such as themselves are victims of discrimination.

Imagine that you felt profoundly threatened by women who were smart, talented and powerful. How might you convince them to cede their power to you?

[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]What’s the difference between convincing women to compete over who has the whitest laundry and convincing women to compete over who has the most elaborate or the most outrageous breastfeeding photo shoot?[/pullquote]

I know! You could trick them into give up real power by replacing it with faux “empowerment” through childbirth and breastfeeding, the very things that left women powerless for all of human history. And you could call it “natural parenting.”

You don’t have to imagine it; that’s what’s been happening to women for the past few decades. Within the natural parenting movement the word empowerment is promiscuously applied to reproductive functions. Women claim to be empowered by unmedicated birth or by birth at home; women claim to be empowered by extended breastfeeding, tandem breastfeeding, breastfeeding photo shoots and breastfeeding stunts. I’ve been pondering for years how women can be empowered by bodily functions and then I realized that such “empowerment” is a way to convince women to stop reaching for real legal, political and economic empowerment.

The entire industry of natural parenting is dedicated to convincing women to relinquish real power in exchange for the faux “empowerment” of emulating their foremothers who were little more than chattel.

Betty Friedan wrote about the feminine mystique. A Wikipedia synopsis explains some of her central claims:

Friedan shows that advertisers tried to encourage housewives to think of themselves as professionals who needed many specialized products in order to do their jobs, while discouraging housewives from having actual careers, since that would mean they would not spend as much time and effort on housework and therefore would not buy as many household products, cutting into advertisers’ profits.

And:

Friedan interviews several full-time housewives, finding that although they are not fulfilled by their housework, they are all extremely busy with it. She postulates that these women unconsciously stretch their home duties to fill the time available, because the feminine mystique has taught women that this is their role, and if they ever complete their tasks they will become unneeded.

Friedan’s book, The Feminine Mystique launched the feminist movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s, which dramatically increased the power of women.

The philosophies of natural parenting — natural childbirth, breastfeeding and attachment parenting — have replaced the stifling feminine mystique with the equally stifling vaginal mystique and breast mystique. Now instead of competing with each other over who has the whitest laundry and thereby ceding the wider world to men, natural parenting has women competing with each other over who had the longest unmedicated labor and who breastfed the longest … thereby ceding the wider world to men.

It’s a brilliant sleight of hand when you think about it. Don’t try to steal power back from women; manipulate them so they’ll give up power voluntarily. It’s not an accident that women are being encouraged to find their empowerment in forgoing epidurals and breastfeeding three year olds. Women who feel empowered by using their reproductive organs aren’t likely to challenge anyone for real power.

If anything, the vaginal mystique and the breast mystique are even more restrictive than the feminine mystique of the 1950’s. At least back then, women owned their own bodies. The 1950’s emphasis was on the perfect home; the contemporary emphasis is on women enduring severe pain in childbirth, ceding their breasts to their children for years at a time, and ignoring their own needs for fulfillment outside of motherhood.

It’s a neat trick, but we don’t need to fall for it. As someone who had “natural” births, breastfed four children, and gave up medical practice to stay home with them, I know how fulfilling childbearing and childrearing can be for some women in some situations. But fulfillment and empowerment are two very different things. Women are not empowered by unmedicated birth and extended breastfeeding; they are disempowered … and that’s the point.

There once was a time when all babies were breastfed … and they died in droves.

That’s because the benefits of breastfeeding are very small. Breastfeeding can’t overcome poor sanitation; it can’t prevent or treat deadly childhood diseases; and many women don’t make enough breastmilk to fully nourish a child.

[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Breastfeeding is a natural process in exactly the same way that menstruation or pregnancy are natural processes and every woman knows how painful, inconvenient and disappointing those natural processes can be.[/pullquote]

So why are we fetishizing breastfeeding?

Yes, fetishizing. There are a number of definitions of the word “fetish” and two have particular relevance:

1. Something worshipped for its supposed magical powers.

2. Something regarded with irrational reverence and devotion.

Our fetishizing of breastfeeding begins with those purported magical powers. To hear lactivists tell it, exclusive breastfeeding could save hundreds of thousands of infant lives around the world each year.

How?

It didn’t prevent an astronomical infant death rate prior to the advent of sanitation, vaccinations and antibiotics. Why would it suddenly start saving lives it couldn’t save for nearly all of human history? It wouldn’t.

It doesn’t prevent astronomical infant death rates in poor countries today. Indeed, the countries with the highest infant mortality rates have the HIGHEST breastfeeding rates (essentially 100%). If millions of infants in poor countries die each year in spite of exclusive breastfeeding, how exactly is it going to prevent the much rarer deaths of infants in wealthy countries? It isn’t.

Breastfeeding is a natural process in exactly the same way that menstruation or pregnancy are natural processes and every woman knows how painful, inconvenient and disappointing those natural processes can be.

Breastfeeding shares many similarities with menstruation. It can be painful; it can be inconvenient; and it is subject to complications. In the case of menstruation those complications can be severe pain, heavy bleeding, irregular periods or polycystic ovarian syndrome. In the case of breastfeeding those complications include severe pain, poor latch and inadequate breastmilk.

Just like menstrual pain, heavy bleeding and irregular periods are COMMON, painful breastfeeding, difficulty emptying the breast and inadequate breastmilk are also COMMON.

Similarly, established pregnancies have a miscarriage rate of 20%. In other words, one out of five pregnancies that have implanted in the uterus DIES. If a process as critical to human survival as pregnancy has such a hideous death rate, why would we ever believe that breastfeeding doesn’t have a death rate, too?

Breastfeeding does not have magical properties no matter how much the breastfeeding industry pretends that it does.

Why all the pretending? Precisely because breastfeeding IS an industry, complete with trade unions, lobbying groups and public relations campaigns. The moralization of breastfeeding — the claim that breastfeeding makes infants healthier, smarter and less subject to the diseases of wealthy societies — parallels the monetization of breastfeeding.

I don’t mean that the breastfeeding industry is cynical. They actually believe their own propaganda, but it is propaganda nonetheless.

The fetishization of breastfeeding extends beyond imagining magical powers to irrational reverence and devotion.

Consider the myriad brelfies (breastfeeding selfies) of women dressed up in ludicrous outfits, nursing in ridiculous photo shoots, and gathering for mass breastfeeding photos while dressed in uniform or not dressed at all. The ostensible reason for these breastfeeding stunts is to “normalize” breastfeeding. But why should breastfeeding need to be normalized? Its benefits in first world countries are trivial. It would make far more sense for naked nurses to administer vaccinations in an effort to normalize vaccines since they really do save lives. It would make far more sense for naked mothers to pose with infants properly buckled into car seats to normalize proper car seat use.

Why don’t we see that? Because brelfies and breastfeeding stunts aren’t about normalizing breastfeeding; they’re about blasting the supposed superiority of breastfeeding mothers into everyone else’s faces.

Breastfeeding has been fetishized because it allows some mothers to feel superior to other mothers.

Remember the mean girls in middle school who would imperiously declare who could and could not sit at their table in the cafeteria. Those mean girls have grown up and they are now patrolling the playgrounds and mommy and me groups to enforce submission to their whims.

Or worse. Some, like chiropractor Heather Reed Wolfson, are now representing themselves as healthcare providers and using their positions of authority to bully women who don’t mirror their own choices back to them.

Wolfson had this to say to a woman who chose to feed her child pumped breastmilk:

It was NOT your choice to not breastfeed and instead pump. Did you ask your newborn if they minded being fed out of an artificial nipple and plastic bottle that was probably heated up in a microwave?? Missing out on the natural skin to skin bond and immune boosting behavior when you were perfectly capable of nursing the way natural intended?! Did you I know that the mother’s milk changes every time the baby puts his/her mouth (saliva) over her nipple depending on the babies needs? If they are sick the mother’s body will produce antibodies to their babies illness. I would imagine that you don’t know any of this because you are an incredibly arrogant and ignorant mother who thinks she knows it all and has the right to pass nature because of her own screwed up reasons!

This is NOT in your face breast feeding mentality. You are pathetic for even commenting on this article. You need to get your head checked for even saying such crazy comments. Maybe if you nursed your babies the way they deserved to be nursed, you would understand these pictures.

I know mothers who have adopted and spent months prior trying to make milk by pumping and even taking hormones for milk production despite not giving birth! Some still use their breast as a pacifier even if they were never able to develop milk because they know the importance of this behavior.

You have to live with yourself which is why you find it necessary to put other women down who do the right thing. Makes you feel better about yourself and your pathetic “choices” in life.

It is Wolfson who is incredibly arrogant in her ignorance.

Apparently she doesn’t have a clue that antibodies for most childhood diseases (immunoglobulin G or IgG) CAN’T be passed through breastmilk; it is secretory IgA that can be passed through breastmilk and that is effective only against colds and diarrheal illnesses.

There is NO evidence that breastmilk is customized to a particular baby nor any realistic mechanism by which it might be customized. The theory of spit back-wash invoked by Wolfsohn is pure speculation unmoored from actual scientific evidence.

Wolfson is a mean girl spewing a vicious mean girl rant because someone refused to fetishize breastfeeding as Wolfsohn has done.

Wolfson is a particularly ugly example of our breastfeeding fetish, but that merely emphasizes the true purpose of fetishizing breastfeeding. It has nothing to do with what is good for babies and everything to do with some mothers desperately trying to feel superior to other mothers … and sadly revealing their arrogant ignorance of science in the process.

A political analyst once defined a gaffe as a politician accidentally telling the truth. The lactivism industry has just committed a gaffe.

As Pediatrics Professor Steven Abrams writes, Guidelines for Breastfeeding and Early Childhood Nutrition Have Value But Go Too Far:

[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]In a society where women can no longer be forced to stay home, advocates have to manipulate women into forcing themselves to stay home.[/pullquote]

As written, [the proposed guidelines] would block the marketing of whole milk for toddlers who are 1 to 3 years old. They also would strongly support the feeding of solid (weaning) foods that are homemade, as opposed to those that can be purchased at stores…

But in the United States, relatively few — less than 5 percent — of mothers breastfeed after their children reach 12 months of age, and the use of whole milk or similar products for toddlers 12 months old and older is nearly universal.

The Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program and many others provide milk for toddlers, and the recent Dietary Guidelines for America support the use of milk in the population covered by these guidelines, 24 months and above. It’s reasonable to allow the marketing of these products for small children, if only to provide alternatives to soda and other inappropriate beverages…

There is no reason to automatically assume that homemade food — no matter its source or preparation — is superior to commercial products, no matter where they come from or how they’re prepared. There simply is not a reason to forbid reasonable marketing of these foods.

In other words, the lactivist lobby, the same people who moralized infant feeding are now attempting to moralize the feeding of toddlers and small children. Why? For the same reason they moralized breastfeeding: to force women back into the home.

They have grossly exaggerated the benefits of breastfeeding far beyond anything supported by the depth and breadth of the scientific literature. In the case of opposition to cow’s milk and prepared infant foods, they’ve become unmoored from the scientific evidence altogether.

Let’s be clear: there is NO scientific evidence — none, zip, zero, nada — to support any restriction on cow’s milk for toddlers. There is NO scientific evidence — none, zip, zero, nada — that homemade infant foods are better than commercially prepared infant foods.

But this was never about science in the first place. In a society where women can no longer be forced to stay home, advocates have to manipulate women into forcing themselves to stay home. Natural parenting is the perfect stealth vehicle. While ostensibly promoting the wellbeing of infants and small children, it’s really about weighing down mothering with so much work and so much moralizing that a “good mother” can’t possibly do anything but mother.

One of the greatest occurrences of the 20th Century was the emancipation of women. Finally some women in some cultures achieved political and economic rights. Finally some women in some cultures were judged for their intellects, talents and character instead of how they used their uteri, vaginas and breasts.

Seismic shifts like women’s emancipation are inevitably met with backlash. Regrettably part of that backlash has been the rise of natural parenting — natural childbirth, lactivism and attachment parenting — a not so subtle effort to use women’s love for their children to restrain them.

For most of human history, children were considered property of the father. A woman who wanted to leave an abusive relationship had to weigh her freedom and perhaps her very life against the threat that she would never again see her children, the very people she loved most.

With the emancipation of women that overt threat could no longer be used to manipulate women so a new, equally vicious threat had to be contrived. Opponents of women’s emancipation, this time sadly including many women themselves, fell back on the traditional methods for measuring women: the function of their reproductive organs. Since they were no longer able to mandate that women be judged by reproductive functions, they moralized those functions in the natural parenting movements.

Indeed, as I explain in PUSH BACK: Guilt in the Age of Natural Parenting, La Leche League, which dominates the breastfeeding industry, was started explicitly to force women back into the home. In the book La Leche League: At the Crossroads of Medicine, Feminism, and Religion, Jule DeJager Ward explains that the La Leche League was founded in 1956:

… by a group of Catholic mothers who sought to mediate in a comprehensive way between the family and the world of modern technological medicine. . . . [A] central characteristic of La Leche League’s ideology is that it was born of Catholic moral discourse on family life. . . . The League has very strong convictions about the needs of families. The League’s presentations and literature carry a strong suggestion that breast feeding is obligatory. Their message is simple: Nature intended mothers to nurse their babies; therefore, mothers ought to nurse.

Once again, according to natural parenting advocates, women’s needs are irrelevant; women must be judged — valued or excoriated — by how they use their uteri, vaginas and breasts. There must ALWAYS be more work for mother. And that’s precisely what is intended by the proposed guidelines. They are meant to force women to breastfeed for 2 or more years (just like our utterly disenfranchised foremothers). No conveniences like prepared baby food for them! The good mother spends her time preparing special meals for her toddler.

Maybe the next step will be to insist that she grow her own food, too. After all, she’s forced to stay home and her needs are irrelevant; she might as well farm as she breastfeeds.

PUSH BACK: Guilt in the Age of Natural Parenting was published on Tuesday and there’s been quite a bit of media surrounding it.

Here’s a recap:

A Reddit AMA: more than 3000 up votes and over 2000 comments. I was typing for 6 hours straight!

Apparently it was such a great AMA that both Salon,“There is No Recipe to Create the Perfect Child”, and New York Magazine wrote about it, Is Attachment Parenting a Plot to Force Women Back into the Home?

I was interviewed by Elissa Strauss for Slate, Birth Is Not Performance Art.

I wrote:

For WBUR, Adele is Right — the Pressure to Breastfeed is Fu–ing Ridiculous.

For MindBodyGreen, Why You Shouldn’t Feel Guilty About Getting an Epidural: An OB-GYN explains.

For Cosmo, These Parenting Philosophies are Deeply Anti-Feminist.

For Health.com, 4 Things New Moms Don’t Have to Feel Guilty About.

I was interviewed by:

The Austin Statesman, Stop feeling guilty about what happens during birth, infancy.

The Canadian National Post, Feel free to opt for the epidural sans guilt.

SteadyHealth.com, Feeling Crippled By the Natural Parenting Philosophy? It’s time to Push Back.

So far on Amazon there have been nine 5-star views and one 1-star hate review!

Up next:

An excerpt of PUSH BACK on Refinery29.com.

A piece for WebMD.

An interview with The Cut at New York Magazine.

An interview with Glamor Magazine.

I’ve done a dozen interviews this week for PUSH BACK: Guilt in the Age of Natural Parenting and I’ve repeatedly been told, “I wish I had this book when my children were small; I thought I was alone.”

It’s very gratifying to hear this, but it’s also distressing. So many new mothers feel battered down and guilt ridden by the philosophies of natural parenting, yet they don’t realize that others are out there who can support them and whom they can support.

How can we help new mothers realize that they don’t have to battle the pressure alone? How can we help them connect with other like-minded women for mutual support? One possible way it to share personal stories, so today I’m opening up the blog to you, my wonderful readers, to offer support to struggling new mothers.

How did you PUSH BACK against the expectations of the natural childbirth industry?

How did you PUSH BACK against the intense pressure to breastfeed exclusively when your instincts were telling you that exclusive breastfeeding was not working for your baby and for you?

How did you PUSH BACK against the philosophy of attachment parenting — which renders women’s emotional, physical and intellectual needs irrelevant — and return to work or carve out alone time or both?

Mothering is hard enough without the pressures of these philosophies. Help me help new mothers PUSH BACK.

Over the weekend Jessica Martucci, medical ethicist and feminist historian, reached out to me on Twitter to ask how I deal with hate mail. Recently she’s been getting a lot of it, death threats included, in response to a paper she and colleague Anne Barnhill wrote in the journal Pediatrics.

Death threats about breastfeeding? Naturally!

[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Martucci and Barnhill didn’t merely step into a hornets nest, they were perceived by the hornets as stomping on it.[/pullquote]

In Unintended Consequences of Invoking the “Natural” in Breastfeeding Promotion, Martucci and Barnhill write:

…[W]e are concerned about breastfeeding promotion that praises breastfeeding as the “natural” way to feed infants. This messaging plays into a powerful perspective that “natural” approaches to health are better … Promoting breastfeeding as “natural” may be ethically problematic, and, even more troublingly, it may bolster this belief that “natural” approaches are presumptively healthier. This may ultimately challenge public health’s aims in other contexts, particularly childhood vaccination.

I found the title of the paper a bit clumsy, but their identification of the problem — the reflexive glorification of the “natural” — is spot-on.

In the world of healthcare, there is nothing intrinsically better about “natural.”

Approximately 30% of Americans are “naturally” nearsighted; correcting their eyesight with “interventions” like glasses and contact lenses dramatically improves their quality of life.

Approximately 20% of diagnosed pregnancies “naturally” end in miscarriage. We can’t currently prevent those miscarriages but if interventions are discovered that preserve these pregnancies, a great deal of pain and anguish could be eliminated.

It is deeply problematic to promote breastfeeding as superior because it natural, as Martucci and Barnhill point out, when it results in the belief that natural methods are better than technological innovations like vaccination.

Martucci and Barnhill didn’t realize that they weren’t merely stepping into a hornets nest, they were perceived by the hornets as stomping on it. Why? Because natural parenting (natural childbirth, breastfeeding, attachment parenting) isn’t about children, it’s an expressions of maternal identity. In the view of lactivists, the naturalness of breastfeeding marks them as superior to other mothers and Martucci and Barnhill were obliquely (and inadvertently) calling the superiority of these “Sanctimommies” into question.

Given the important of breastfeeding to some women’s self-esteem, the vicious response was entirely natural:

… “This reads like an Onion article. I can’t believe this is not satire,” opined one woman on Facebook, while another said, “Extremely upsetting. And simply ridiculous. I mean let’s call a fucking spade a spade. It IS by all definitions of the word the natural way to feed your baby. How is calling it what it is potentially unethical?”

“You and Anne Barnhill both need to be Killed the Natural way the sooner you two are Killed the better off women will be,” wrote a Twitter account with an egg for an avatar… [M]any of the comments on Facebook and on the news stories were from mothers who seemed to have a very emotional attachment to the concept of mother as breast-feeder.

“For the most part, the email response has been very cruel and personal,” says Martucci …

Earth to Sanctimommies:

Go back and read the paper again. The authors did not say that breastfeeding isn’t natural. They questioned the idea that natural equals superior, because it doesn’t. When public health advocates imply that something is better because it is natural they inadvertently diminish the value of public health interventions that are technological like vaccination.

Let’s be honest, vaccination saves far more lives than breastfeeding does. In fact, the countries in the world with the highest rates of infant mortality have the HIGHEST rates of breastfeeding.

In countries with access to clean water, the benefits of breastfeeding are trivial, limited to a few less colds and episodes of diarrheal illness across the entire population of infants each year. Breastfeeding maybe have advantages but NOT because it is natural.

This episode ought to inspire the breastfeeding industry to take a long, hard look at itself. What does it mean when lactivists send death threats to anyone who questions anything about breastfeeding? It means that breastfeeding has gone from one of two excellent methods to feed a baby to a way for breastfeeding mothers to torment anyone who doesn’t agree with their assessment of themselves as innately superior mothers. It has gone from a child rearing choice to an opportunity to bully women who don’t mirror lactivists’ choices back to them.

Remember the girls in the middle school cafeteria who wouldn’t let the unpopular girls sit with them at lunch? Hopefully, as adults we recognize that such behavior is a pathetic attempt to boost their fragile self-esteem by victimizing others.

Those girls have grown up and now hang out at the playground where they are still pathetically attempting to boost their fragile self-esteem, this time by victimizing women who don’t breastfeed. If you question their superiority, they send you death threats on social media.

The medical profession ought to take a long, hard look at itself, too. Doctors and hospital administrators have allowed this to happen by giving in to the breastfeeding industry lobby and promoting breastfeeding far, far beyond it’s actual benefits.

The American Academy of Pediatrics did not cover itself with glory in this incident, either:

The AAP Section on Breastfeeding Leadership read with interest the Perspectives in Pediatrics article, “Unintended Consequences of Invoking the ‘Natural’ in Breastfeeding Promotion” by Martucci and Barnhill. While we agree that the words we choose to encourage healthy behaviors certainly matter, equating breastfeeding as “natural” with the supposed “natural” of the anti-vaccine movement is neither logical, nor appropriate. Furthermore, this direct link is not substantiated in the literature.

Martucci and Barnhill were entirely logical and totally appropriate in questioning the strategy of framing breastfeeding as superior because it is natural. They are absolutely correct to caution that such framing strategies have had deadly unintended consequences by implying that natural is always better.

Let’s get a grip here, people. Breastfeeding simply isn’t that important. It’s time that the AAP disengages itself from the breastfeeding lobby and returns to promoting the interests of babies and mothers instead of the interests of lactivist. In fact it’s long past time to return to a more nuanced, science based policy than the one they currently promote.

I did six radio interviews yesterday to promote my new book, PUSH BACK: Guilt in the Age of Natural Parenting.

Most of them were for drive time radio so it was very important that I condense my message to as short a time as possible. I had my spiel prepared:

[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]There’s no “right way” to raise a child just like there is no “right way” to have sex. It depends completely on the two people involved.[/pullquote]

1. Natural childbirth, lactivism and attachment parenting aren’t based on science.
2. All three are promoted by industries that want to sell you goods and services.
3. All three are profoundly anti-feminist because they aim to force women back into the home.

But as I gave the interviews, I found that I could condense my message into one sentence:

I had four vaginal births, two with epidurals and two without, breastfed all four and enjoyed it, and practiced attachment parenting … BUT that doesn’t make me a better mother than you!

Why can my message be shortened so drastically?

Because at its heart that’s what the “mommy wars” are about: who is entitled to bragging rights?

It’s not about parenting, and it’s certainly not about babies and what is good for them. There’s no simple answer to what’s good for each family or even what’s good for each baby within a particular family. That’s because each baby is a person with his or her own distinct personality and individual needs. There’s no “right way” to raise a child just like there is no “right way” to have sex. It depends completely on the two people involved.

How did I figure that out? It wasn’t rocket science even though it stems in part from my ability to read the scientific literature.

I figured it out because one of my dearest friends is an adoptive mother and she loves her children every bit as fiercely as I love mine … and I love mine pretty fiercely.

I figured it out because another close friend didn’t breastfeed her children and it hasn’t made one bit of difference. Both are spectacularly accomplished adults.

I figured it out because I’ve spent nearly 30 years as a mother and even more years as a doctor and I learned that individual parenting methods and philosophies might differ but one factor seemed most important regardless of culture, ethnicity or natural origin: all children thrive on parental love. The details of childbirth, infant feeding and parenting during the toddler years don’t seem to matter much at all.

Yes, my reading of the scientific literature confirms that natural childbirth, breastfeeding and attachment parenting don’t produce more successful children or even children who are more attached. Yes, my investigations into the origins of these movements reveal that they were started by people who wanted to force women back into the home. Yes, these movements are profoundly anti-feminist, always recommending more suffering and more work for mothers, and not much of anything for fathers. But that’s not how I figured out that I’m not a better mother than you.

On Monday I did a Reddit AMA (ask me anything) and ultimately got nearly 2000 questions and comments. One question appeared over and over again: what method do you recommend for raising children? I answered the question over and over again: There is no method that is right for every family or even every child within the same family. There is no recipe for raising a successful child.

I realize that for some that is a deeply unsatisfying answer. They want a foolproof recipe not merely because they are anxious to raise successful children, though that is deeply motivating. They want a recipe so that can be sure they are doing it right, and in the case of many mothers, they want a recipe so they can be sure that they are better mothers than all the rest.

That’s not how it works. As a freshman in college I took a course from the sociologist and future Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He said something that has stayed with me ever since: “There is no theory of human causation.” By that he meant that there is no theory that can reliably tell us that specific inputs can create specific outputs in an individual or even in a group. What might motivate one person to do A could motivate another person to do B. We can make some educated guesses, but even educated guesses are often wide of the mark. That’s why the very idea that natural childbirth, breastfeeding and attachment parenting create better, more accomplished, more successful children and adults is ludicrous on its face.

I had natural childbirth with half of my children, and I don’t see a discernible difference between those two groups of two.

I breastfed all four children and I don’t see a discernible difference between them and their college classmates, friends and fellow professionals.

I practiced attachment parenting and when presented with a classroom of children I can’t distinguish those raised with attachment parenting and those raised without.

I did those things because they worked for me and for my family. That doesn’t make me a better mother than you.

“We’re both doing our best even when we do things differently” is not a sexy slogan. It doesn’t get hearts pumping and emotions engaged like “I’m a better mother than you.” But unlike the natural parenting industry, I’m not trying to sell goods and services. And unlike the Sanctimommies I’m not trying to boost my self esteem.

My goal is to offer comfort to women who are struggling to meet demands that ignore their own needs and don’t even reliably meet the needs of their babies.

I did all the things that are supposed to make you a superior mother and it doesn’t make me a better mother than you.

You don’t need to feel guilty about childbirth choices, infant feeding choices or parenting philosophy.

That’s not to say that you aren’t going to end up feeling guilty, but it shouldn’t be about those things.

What should you feel guilty about?

As the mother of four former teenagers, I can assure you that in the years ahead your children will endlessly complain about your many faults and parenting mistakes. Save your strength for those battles and enjoy your babies now.

PUSH BACK: Guilt in the Age of Natural Parenting is here!

It’s now available on Amazon and everywhere else.

I wanted to share two things from the book with my readers, many of whom have become my virtual friends.

First is the dedication page:

For my husband, Michael. Thirty-five years after our wedding, I still do!

Second is an excerpt from the acknowledgements:

… A special thank-you to the commenters on my blog, the smartest, wittiest, most articulate commenters on the Internet. I continue to learn from you each and every day and I cannot begin to express how much I value our virtual friendship.

Finally, I want to offer my deepest gratitude to the many women who, through private correspondence, have shared their anguish and guilt about childbirth, breastfeeding, and parenting travails. Some have given me permission to tell their stories in this volume, but there are many more whose stories could not be included for reasons of space. I am conscious of the honor that you have done me by confiding in me and I hope this book rewards your confidence in my ability to bear witness and to ease your pain.

Sorry I’ve been AWOL this morning, but I’ve spent 6 hours furiously typing answers to hundreds of questions on a Reddit Ask Me Anything.

You can read it here:

Dr. Amy’s Reddit AMA

Also, Elissa Strauss of Slate interviewed me for this piece that was just posted:

Birth Is Not Performance Art

I suppose if you’re going to be a hypocrite, you might as well jump in with both feet.

I’ve been arguing about breastfeeding on Twitter with anti-vax hero Dr. Jay Gordon.

We started with this:

Dr. Jay decided to take a whack at me after I questioned his claim that not breastfeeding is a “major risk factor” for ear infections. Since high quality research shows that breastfeeding reduced the incidence of ear infections by only 8%, formula feeding couldn’t possibly be a major risk factor.

[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Here’s a crazy idea: let’s ask women themselves why they choose formula![/pullquote]

Dr. Jay refused to answer a direct question, a move he made over and over again in our conversation.

Instead he offered a personal attack. But how could I be anti-breastfeeding when I breastfed 4 children? Dr. Jay couldn’t answer that one, either.

Then Dr. Gordon offered the standard trope of the breastfeeding industry:

Most of the time that breastfeeding did not succeed it was because we docs did not offer enough support and/or find a good IBCLC

Dr. Gordon is an IBCLC.

Lactivists claim over and over again that women stop breastfeeding because of lack of support.

Here’s a crazy idea: let’s ask women themselves instead of having lactivists speculate that what was needed was more support from the breastfeeding industry!

Dr. Jay apparently thinks he knows better than formula feeders.

Practicing pediatricians know the consequences of moms NOT breastfeeding. Everything from increased SIDS to GI problems. This creates a very strong desire to give maximum support and encouragement to breastfeeding mothers.

Holy Hypocrisy, Dr. Jay! Aren’t you the same guy who offers personal belief exemptions for vaccine refusal?

Didn’t you say this to CBS?

If somebody with measles walked into Dr. Gordon’s office, 90 percent of the unvaccinated people who come in contact with them would get measles.

I asked Dr. Gordon to explain how that type of contagion isn’t a risk.

“You just said it, they’d get measles,” Dr. Gordon replied. “Not meningitis, not the plague, not Ebola, they’d get measles. Measles is almost an always a benign childhood illness.”

So it’s okay for kids to get measles from being unvaccinated, but you think ear infections are a major public health problem requiring you to hector women into breastfeeding?

I, of course, followed up with the obvious question:

Can you please compare for us the death rate for term babies aren’t breastfed vs. those who aren’t vaccinated?

He did not respond.

The incident highlights the hypocrisy of the anti-vax movement, but it also highlights a very serious deficiency of the lactivist movement, the refusal to listen to women who choose formula feeding.

The breastfeeding industry would rather substitute it’s own self-serving views of why women formula feed (they didn’t hire a lactation consultant and pay for support) than to acknowledge that breastfeeding can be difficult, painful and fail to produce enough milk to nourish a baby.

Perhaps Dr. Jay might change his mind about formula feeding if he could find a way to profit from that, too. I humbly suggest personal belief exemptions for formula feeding. Maybe then Dr. Gordon would respect women who formula feed as much as he respects women who don’t vaccinate.