Posted on 09/01/2006 11:41:24 AM PDT by mathprof
When a new mother returns to Starbucks’ corporate headquarters in Seattle after maternity leave, she learns what is behind the doors mysteriously marked “Lactation Room.”
Whenever she likes, she can slip away from her desk and behind those doors, sit in a plush recliner and behind curtains, and leaf through InStyle magazine as she holds a company-supplied pump to her chest, depositing her breast milk in bottles to be toted home later.
But if the mothers who staff the chain’s counters want to do the same, they must barricade themselves in small restrooms intended for customers, counting the minutes left in their breaks.
“Breast milk is supposed to be the best milk, I read it constantly when I was pregnant,” said Brittany Moore, who works at a Starbucks in Manhattan and feeds her 9-month old daughter formula. “I felt bad, I want the best for my child,” she said. “None of the moms here that I know actually breast-feed.”
Doctors firmly believe that breast milk is something of a magic elixir for babies, sharply reducing the rate of infection, and quite possibly reducing the risk of allergies, obesity, and chronic disease later in life.
But as pressure to breast-feed increases, a two-class system is emerging for working mothers. For those with autonomy in their jobs — generally, well-paid professionals — breast-feeding, and the pumping it requires, is a matter of choice. It is usually an inconvenience, and it may be an embarrassing comedy of manners, involving leaky bottles tucked into briefcases and brown paper bags in the office refrigerator. But for lower-income mothers — including many who work in restaurants, factories, call centers and the military — pumping at work is close to impossible, causing many women to decline to breast-feed at all, and others to quit after a short-time.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
And I'm a failure as a mom because I didn't breast feed.
Women and babies hardest-hit.
Cut taxes so mothers have the option to stay home.
}:-)4
moral - better to work at HQ than at one of thousands of franchisee locations with limited space available.
would that a reporter just once ask someone like this, "then why aren't you home with your child?"
I'm sure that government action is the answer, right NYT? Brilliant idea, there. Make it so that hiring women costs even more, thereby discouraging firms from hiring them. Hooray government.
I thought my wife was going to clobber Leche League nags a couple of times. Based on her health issues, she thought it best to feed our son formula. The way the nags went on, you would have thought we were trying to poison him.
Oh goodness, I smell another crisis coming. U.S. Department of Lactation can't be far behind.
Wouldn't even cross their mind.
How do mothers in the marines handle this?
That's terrible! Breastfeeding isn't for everyone. It's very personal and LL had no business affronting her like that! >:o(
This is just one of the many benefits of working with ones mind instead of ones hands..... When you simply work for someone else for a rate per hour, and nothing more, then your time is not and never will be your own.
She would have to have a baby daddy that went to work then, so she could stay home, time to call Maury!!
Privacy for breast-feeding
Legislator wants employers to have rooms for mothers
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1570449/posts
Here's one I posted back in February of this year.
Leleche League folks take it to the ungodly extreme... had one of em advocating breast feeding until the kid was 5 or some crap... sorry, but when the kid can walk up and ask for its past time to ween.
Good to know I wasn't the only one. I called them the Nursing Nazis. I have no problem with anyone breastfeeding if they can and want to, but the hospital lactation folks (who I think should have a better clue) were terrible. I also was having health problems when my son was born and he wouldn't latch on. So I hooked myself up to a stupid pump for 3 weeks. Felt like some milk cow in Wisconsin. We were all (whole family) happier when we switched to formula. Next kid went straight to formula after that horrible experience.
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