Chained to their breast pumps? Your intentions are good, but good grief.

I'm pretty sure that this mother pumped for her child because she wanted to, not because of pressure from her husband or anyone else. Give us a little credit. Most new moms are way too busy with their increased responsibilities and wonderful new darling to care a bit what others think of their feeding decisions which are made, don't forget, after 9 months of careful consideration.

Now, a confession. The first time I saw the recommendation that babies be breastfed for a full year was at my first ob appointment, where I broke down in the bathroom (the site of the odious poster) and cried. It was bad enough to have to give up margaritas for 9 months - but 21? However, no one - not my doctor, not my husband, no one - talked me into nursing my daughter for 18 months. But every time I shut my office door (after returning to work in 8 short weeks) and switched on the pump, I though of her, and no one else, for 12 glorious minutes. That was worth all the inconvenience of being 'chained to my pump.'

If you want to talk about doing something to liberate working mothers, let's bring up better maternity leave policies that would allow moms time to enjoy more than a few weeks with their new babies. Hopefully that's a topic everyone here can agree on.