Perspective: The baby formula shortage is a reminder of why being a mom — even when it’s a choice — is hard in ways some powerful people don’t seem to get
The most recent submissions to Ugh! came via online commenters who had the bright idea that, because of the nationwide baby formula shortage — supply is down 40 percent from normal inventory levels across the country — women should just “embrace your womanhood and nurture your children” via nursing, as insisted one such random guy.
A more patient columnist might respond to each reader in turn, explaining that breasts are not spigots that can be turned on and off. If you’re not currently breastfeeding, you can’t wake up tomorrow and suddenly produce enough milk. Building up your supply could take weeks or months or infinity.
I find it hard to believe that they dislike babies, but I find it easy to believe that many of them are not particularly curious or thoughtful about what it means to be a mother of one. The House of Representatives is 73 percent male with a median age of 58; in the Senate, it’s 76 percent and 64 years old. I wonder how long it’s been since any of them sat bleary-eyed at 3 a.m. trying to get an infant to latch or knew exactly which aisle sold baby formula at Target.
With particularly dystopian flair, the formula shortage came to a head around the same time that a draft opinion leaked from the Supreme Court that would overturn. On one hand, women would be forced to birth children. But on the other hand, once those children arrive, there might not be food to feed them.
A footnote from Samuel Alito’s draft opinion that gained some traction this week was about adoption. The footnote quoted a 2008 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which had noted that the “domestic supply of infants relinquished at birth or within the first month of life and available to be adopted has become virtually nonexistent.
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