Posts Tagged ‘not good enough’

April 8th, 2010

Just Good Enough Society

When it comes to parents, and choices for the future of our children, I am starting to notice a disturbing trend among many American parents. Instead of doing what is best for our children, or  making choices that would be considered best for our children, we are making choices that are just good enough. And this is becoming widely acceptable by our society as a whole.

Because of this acceptance, it is becoming more wide spread, as well as encouraged among parents.

One example of this is a great post that The Feminist Breeder broke the internet with (literally it had so many hits her server suspended her account because of how much bandwidth it was using)  She discusses in detail a new breastfeeding study that shows in detail that breastfeeding does save lives. It got so much feedback because women today simply do not care what kind of repercussions making the choice to formula feed can have on not only them, but their child. And when I use the word choice I truly mean the active decision to not breastfeed, not women who cannot breastfeed for real medical reasons, or medical reasons in your child like I experienced with my youngest child. But because the choice to formula feed is so socially acceptable even though we know breast is best women make the choice like they are choosing a shampoo for their hair.

But it doesn’t stop at breastfeeding. It extends into almost every part of parenting from feeding our children fastfood, children not seeing pediatricians for simple check ups, car seat safety, cloth diapers vs. disposable diapers, and the hot topic of circumcision.

As a mother, I simply cannot wrap my head around those who actively make choices for their children that are substandard, or simply not good enough knowing there are better, healthier, and more important choices out there.

But back to breastfeeding vs. formula feeding and the new study that came out. It showed that 911 babies will die as the result of formula feeding annually. As that is not bad enough, it costs the United States a record $13 Billion dollars a year, ONE year in medical costs as the result of formula feeding. Choice or not, those are huge numbers, and we should be striving to raise our breastfeeding rates.

Recomendations laid out by WHO (World Health Organization) ACOG (American Congress of Obstetricians & Gynecologists) AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) AAFP (American Academy of Family Physicians) and the CDC (Center for Disease Control) all recommend at least 6 months of exclusive breastfeeding.  But studies in the United States shows that only 14% of women who breastfeed will still be breastfeeding by the time their babies are 6 months old.

In my opinion, there are too many factors in our society today that make women unable to achieve simple breastfeeding goals, but these are all major issues for our mothers and babies.

• Our maternity leave situation combined with our economy is forcing mothers back to work before they really should be going back.
• The formula companies are everywhere. I suspect they were behind the crash of The Feminist Breeder’s breastfeeding post, as well as some others.
• The WIC program in the United States does not give adequate breastfeeding support, instead they are so quick to give mothers free formula killing a breastfeeding relationship.
• Lack of education on breast pumps, introduction steps, and how to introduce a bottle to baby.

I could go on for hours, and years about all of this. But it is not going to get any of us anywhere. Back to the point I was trying to make.

Society needs to stop supporting substandard choices because they are the easiest option. We shouldn’t be allowing our children to live on fast food because it is the easiest option, but it is easiest for us, so why do we stand back and support women who right off the bat choose formula for no valid reason other than they think it is easiest?

Just some food for thought today.