Ok, so I readily admit that my post on Wet Nursing was a bit of a rant and that there were some pretty stereotypical statements in there. Some of this was done intentionally to make a point that in many ways we make choices about our lifestyles. Not everyone out there is living in a fancy house, with implants and two cars and a high power career and treating their child like an accessory. I realize that I was playing on a stereotype and addressing a single social class. (However, you can bet that those women out there who are returning to work before their baby is 12 weeks old simply because they have to to survive, are not the ones hiring wet nurses anyway). Regardless of the life we live, there are certain ways we all do things because we think we have to when it really comes down to a matter of choice.
I’m probably going to get some feminists mad at me by saying this but it seems to me that by trying to be equal in a “man’s world” and have all the things men had, we have decided that all the things women had were lesser things and we have devalued the amazing work that historically women have done in the home: the nurturing, the feeding, the home making (i.e, the making a house into a home). True feminism would have said “we are equal because what we do is equally important” rather than “let us out of the house so we can be equal by doing all the important things you do.”
This is not to say that I think all women belong in the home and that all men belong out hunting and gathering (a.k.a. working). I actually think that it’s really great if both men and women contribute to the task of nurturing the family and the home. And I believe that women have brought a great deal of positive change to business, politics, and other careers.
However, feminism has handed us women a crumby deal in that we now believe that we can have it all. We can have the family, the house AND the career. And the media has told us that we can have it and still look beautiful well into our 40s. We stand in line at the grocery store and see that the latest celebrity accessory is a baby. The celebrities are beautiful and they lead full and exciting lives going to parties and premieres. They have fulfilling careers AND cute clean children. We are lead to believe that if we just work hard enough, we can all have that.
But the truth is life isn’t like that. The truth is: Americans only get 12 weeks UNPAID maternity leave. The truth is: the cost of living often means BOTH parents have to work, whether they want to or not. The truth is: sometimes there is only one parent.
So, the answer is what? Hiring a wet nurse like in some Victorian novel? Or the alternative, formula feeding?
Honestly, we need sweeping change in our society, starting at the top, with government and the media. We need longer maternity leaves. We need employers who support working mothers. We need to stop devaluing the job of caring for one’s family. We need to encourage more families to make good choices that honour their families. We need to stop running in the rat race, stop over-achieving, stop believing we can have it all. Maybe then we—by this I mean men and women—would feel supported in our decisions to choose family over work. Maybe then breastfeeding rates would rise and divorce rates would fall.
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