cancun:

You're right. If a mother dies, there's formula. There are also breast milk banks available to assist. wouldn't that be preferable to technology? Is an IV better that a bowl of chicken soup?

concientious care and feeding of babies is more than just an aesthetic, as you put it. you're just tryng to marginalize motherwork and childrearing by calling it that. How about putting some of this passion into truting harder to do whats right by breastfeeding instead of being relived of them at the ripe old age of three or first tooth or whatever?

1. So that's your standard? As long as the mother is alive, she should breastfeed? We have threads full of women with medical problems that make breastfeeding impossible or difficult. We know that many mothers need to go back to work. We know that many mothers are under stress and feel they may go crazy if they don't find distractions. We know that mothers get post-partum depression. We know that many mothers feel they are being ordered around in all directions.

You are essentializing your own experience as a mother. Every mother-- and indeed, every parent and every couple and every family-- needs to figure out how to best strike the balance between the demands of having an infant child and the other aspects of their lives. For some women, breastfeeding will be easily integrated into their lives. For others, it won't, but they will be willing to make the sacrifices to do it. For still others, they will make the determination that they can't breastfeed. That is, fundamentally, their business, not yours. It may mean that their babies get a few more infections. It also may not mean that. But given the hundreds of millions of formula fed babies who have grown up fine, we must not overstate the consequences of the decision.

At any event, it is a parent's right to run reasonable risks with his or her child's safety, even if it is just for the convenience of the parent. As I said, taking the kid to the market in the car runs a risk as compared to simply calling a delivery service. Choosing to enroll in a cheaper pre-school might run a risk as against a pre-school the parents may have more difficulty paying for. Parents put their children at risk every day, and they aren't even conscious of doing so. And that's pefectly reasonable. You really can't live your life in a modern society without throwing some risks onto your kid.

2. It is entirely possible to conscientiously care for and feed a baby with a bottle. You are implying that bottle-feeding mothers don't love their children as much. This is very dangerous thinking and is very presumptuous. There are millions of parents who are doing the best they can for their kids, often in very difficult circumstances. They sacrifice for their kids in all sorts of ways. But because they don't make this particular sacrifice, you think they are not conscientiously caring for and feeding their babies.

This illustrates what I mean about this really being an aesthetic argument. You emphasized in your last post how "natural" breastfeeding is. Now you imply that it is implicit in the definition of the conscientious care and feeding of children. But in the scheme of things, breast vs. bottle is such a minor issue-- bottle-fed babies, for the most part, turn out fine, just like breastfed infants do. The difference is totally on the margins. But what is different is the aesthetics-- devoting one's life to one's baby vs. balancing with other things, natural vs. artificial, etc. Breastfeeding has all the right symbolism for you, so you make the issue sound more important than it is.

3. I am not marginalizing "motherwork and childrearing". Being a custodial or primary parent is hard work. Good parents are incredibly dedicated people. What I am doing is recognizing reality. That reality is that mothers have a bunch of pressures on them coming from all directions, and are trying to do a difficult job. And they also have other legitimate aspects to their lives-- things that they need to be able to keep in balance if they are going to be able to keep the sanity necessary to raise their kids.

Choosing to bottle-feed is an entirely rational choice for many women, because it allows them to strike those balances and keep their sanity and be better parents, better examples and more attentive to the needs of their children.

Parenting is the combination of a bunch of tasks-- if making one task easier allows parents to do other tasks well, I don't see how anyone else should criticize that.