Motherhood

On CBS, the story generated hundreds of comments in just a day, neatly divided between those who observe, “No one would say that it is inappropriate for little girls to bottle feed a doll. Then why is breastfeeding the doll inappropriate?” and those who decry the “Neanderthal breastfeeding pinheads.”

But the most absurd comment so far surely comes from — surprise! — a Fox commentator. On “Fox and Friends” Tuesday, regular contributor Dr. Keith Ablow called the doll “beyond ridiculous, it’s destructive. This is another way of turning little girls into adults,” he explained. “It contributes to the sexualization of children and it makes them targets of assailants.” And when challenged by “mommy blogger” Jessica Gottlieb on his creepy viewpoint, he elaborated, “I assure you I’m not a pedophile.” At which point Fox deployed its 10-foot pole and the subject was quickly changed.

I’m as pro-breast-feeding as it gets, but I’ll admit the fact that someone invented a “fashionable” halter with nipples on it for little girls sounds a tad unorthodox even to my ears. Yet children play at adult roles all the time. They play at being soldiers and cops and fashion models and moms. Pretending to nurture a baby isn’t inherently any more sexual than any of those acts. The real shocker about Bebe Gloton is that she sells for $89 online. Considering that one of the great delights of breast-feeding is that it’s a low-overhead endeavor, why not model that as well? A Whoopsie Doo Baby Alive who pees and poops herself is only $15. If you want to normalize breast-feeding for your kid, just give her a regular baby doll and demonstrate how you fed her when she was a baby herself.

But lest Fox News and CBS commenters give you the impression that breast-feeding outrage has run amok, there’s also encouraging news out of, of all places, the world of chain restaurants. When a couple at a Maryland Ruby Tuesday’s complained to the waitstaff about a mother nursing her child nearby recently, the staff allegedly put pressure on the woman to hustle out. Predictably, the La Leche League got involved, and a nurse-in was scheduled for Tuesday.

What’s heartening is how Ruby Tuesday enthusiastically embraced the opportunity. The branch office representative told the league that “Their policy is to offer to reseat any guest that complains about the nursing mama and her family, but never to disrupt the family’s meal.” Moreover, he told them “they are looking forward to having our group” drop in and get its milk on.

It’s taken decades of cultural conditioning to normalize breast-feeding, and we are not all the way to the Promised Land yet. And, because breasts are erotic as well as utilitarian, our collective hang-ups about them may never go away entirely. But somewhere along the way, a whole lot of people began agreeing that a little girl can play at nursing a baby, and a mom can enjoy a plate of wings with her little lamprey hooked on, and civilization will not fall apart. And fortunately those who disagree are a rapidly diminishing population of boobs.

It seems fair enough to create a boundary on a social media site. And it doesn’t take much searching – likely in your own friend feed – to see plenty of mothers who have profile photos or family albums that depict them proudly nursing their children.

The problem, however, is Facebook’s capriciousness enforcement terms, and how maddeningly punitive and arbitrary they can be. Some women skate by with nary an eyelash batted at their pictures. But a person whose photo is deemed by Facebook to have an unacceptable degree of nipple will not just find the picture removed, but often her account temporarily deleted on a vague “breach of terms of use” charge. Treating women like petty criminals for posting what are obviously not sexually explicit images is just stupid business.

So on Monday, mothers took to Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., and offices all over the world to do their lactating in person. As childbirth educator Emma Kwasnica, who attended a nurse-in in Houston this week, told the local CBS affiliate, “There’s no other way to look at it. We’re being treated as pornographers.”

Judge for yourself — though be prepared that the occasional nipple may qualify the images as NSFW — the “Topfree Equal Rights Association” has a neat compilation of photos that Facebook users say have been removed over the years. Some of them dare to show a contentiously exposed, not-in-use breast along with a baby contentedly latched on the other one.

None of them seem especially incendiary — and none of them look that different from other photos that  survived just fine on Facebook. The idea that the biggest difference between the photos that stay and those that are deleted is “users who complain” is insulting. It tells women to be prepared to be punished, largely on the basis of whether someone else decides they ought to be. And in the same week that a jackass like Staples co-founder Tom Stemberg whined that the Affordable Care Act, which grants a “reasonable break time” and space for working mothers to express milk, will turn America’s workplaces into sinisterly futuristic-sounding “lactation chambers,” Facebook’s ongoing boneheadedness speaks to a larger issue. It illuminates the depressing reality that breast-feeding, after all this time, is still deemed inappropriate, unproductive and just plain icky. And that a nipple, even one with a hungry baby nearby, is just darn scandalous.

Why does it matter? And why would a woman choose to post a photo of her baby at her breast, anyway? Well, for starters, if you’ve got a baby, chances are high that you’re in a near-constant state of having somebody clamped on you. If somebody wants to take a picture, odds are good that’s what it’s going to be. It’s often sweet, tender and special, and photos encourage other people to accept it and maybe even give it a go themselves. A photo, after all, is a defining statement. And it’s one any mother, especially a new one, should be free to make.

Cross began in vitro fertilization treatments “a week after” getting married in 2006 and, unlike plenty of would-be moms her age, conceived easily. But the pregnancy itself proved a tougher ride, as she found herself on bed rest in the midst of her shooting schedule, developed preeclampsia, and delivered daughters Eden and Savannah four weeks early via emergency C-section. So when asked about how it feels to be a beacon of hope to other aspiring 40-something parents, it’s no wonder that Cross says, “Are you kidding? It’s a miracle I have these two daughters.”

We live in a world where marriage and children simply don’t always drop into a lady’s lap at a conveniently fecund juncture. We also, for the lucky, healthy and well-insured, now have ever improving odds-boosters in the realms of fertility treatments and prenatal care. Is it any surprise that the number of women having children in their 40s has  increased a whopping eight-fold in the last four decades? The technological options are seemingly endless. Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance are the parents of twins they had via a surrogate when Bassett was 45. Annie Leibovitz gave birth to her eldest child when she was 51, and had twins via a surrogate four years later.

But just because you might be able to have a baby while your peers are having hot flashes, does that mean it’s a great idea? In a provocative cover story last fall, New York magazine pondered whether reproductive science has gone too far, granting motherhood to women far beyond the natural span of their childbearing years. The response to the story – and the tales of couples enduring multiple rounds of IVF, of the risks to mother and child, and the implied rich-chick privilege of outfoxing the clock – was so strong that commenters are still hashing it out four months later. And just this past Friday, Dr. Oz devoted an entire show to the question “How Old Is Too Old to Have Kids?” Doctors debated the issue, pointing out both the ever improving possibilities for safe, healthy pregnancies for older women while also laying out the stark realities of the physical and financial toll of later age motherhood. For every Marcia Cross, who makes it through a bumpy pregnancy and can now say, “It worked out and I love being a mother,” there are women like the reproductively prolific 45-year-old Michelle Duggar, whose last child, Josie, was born premature at only 1 lb. 6 oz. Last month, Duggar lost another child five months into her pregnancy.

Motherhood isn’t something that a whole lot of women capriciously decided to give a go at 45, like they’re taking up Zumba classes. Deferred parenthood often comes as the result of life circumstance and the caprices of fertility. Yet the cold, hard truth is that the dream of parenthood doesn’t always come true for everybody. And that the possibilities for pain, loss and heartbreak tend to rise as the number of eggs decline. Biology can only be defied just so much. The odds get slimmer every month, and the world gets less kind about your choices and efforts.

But a few days ago, an over-40 pair of friends finally welcomed a long-hoped-for baby. Looking at photographs of the weary, elated face of the mom and the proud, awed new father holding, at last, his beautiful son, I remembered how much they’d endured to bring him into the world. I doubt they’d want to be anybody’s poster children, either. But I know they’d say it was all worth it.