At first glance, I was outraged by this ruling on the front page of today's Globe and Mail: A judge has ordered a mother to pump breastmilk for her child so the father can have more access to the child.
However, reading the article, the child in question is over two years old, and the mother has claimed that, since she was still nursing, the father could not claim joint custody of the child. (It's an interesting case; the parents only had a brief relationship, and the father is trying to be positively involved in the child's life). The judge rules that the child will benefit more from developing a relationship with her father, which will compensate for any loss in having to drink pumped breast milk.
I'm rather inclined to agree (due to the age of the child and the reasonableness of the arrangement outlined in the article), but I was interested in hearing what the community here thinks. Do you agree or disagree with the judge's ruling in this situation? If the mother's view is breast is best, should she be able to set the schedule for weaning, regardless of the father? Or should there be some set time for reasonable weaning to allow for joint custody arrangements?
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I agree with the ruling. It's important for BOTH (competent, caring, etc.) parents to have a relationship with their child.
I think that in this case the ruling is ok, mainly because the child is plenty old enough for solid food.
However, if it was an infant only a few weeks old, my first thought is that I would say its unfair to tell the woman that she has to pump instead of breast feeding.
Just to clarify...pumping breast milk so that someone else can feed the child while you're away doesn't amount to weaning. At the age of 2 the child has assumably eaten other food, and probably drinks juice and water out of a sippy cup or bottle. So this would simply amount to giving him/her breastmilk in a cup or bottle while s/he's with the father, and maintaining the regular schedule of nursing on days when s/he's with the mother.
I think you've mischaracterized the case a little bit...perhaps unintentionally (in case not all read the actual article).
What the case is about is that the father wants to be very involved in the child's life and has been previously granted joint custody of the child.
The mother was using the excuse of having to breastfeed the child as a reason to DENY the father access. So he was getting his visitations, etc. cancelled because she would use the excuse that she needs to breastfeed. A slight clarification from your explanation.
The judge ruled that this is not a valid reason to deny access to the father, especially given the child is 29 months old (over 2.5 years old) there is no reason she can't pre-pump breast milk if she wants to ensure that this is what the child eats.
This way the father can get the time he is entitled to with her child. It seems upon reviewing this article and others that the mother was out to exclude the father from her child's life, not clear why this is so, and was using this as an excuse.
I think the decision was excellent and very sound. (And feminist).
I was going to say I personally have known 2 women in the past year who planned to breastfeed exclusively for the reason of having sole custody of their child and thus getting more support from the father of the child.
The thing is, custody decisions almost never hinge on breastfeeding, and I'm not sure where this mythology comes from. I have a male friend who's in the process of a divorce, and his daughter is 4 months old. At this point she's still exclusively breastfed, and her mom tried to use that in court. The judge simply ordered her to provide frozen breastmilk for the weekend while the baby's with her dad. I've had a lot of friends who breastfed, and we all had a big freezer supply of milk, so it's a strange idea that breastfeeding would result in the father losing custody.
This is a really interesting issue!
How would people's thought about it change if the baby was 6 months old?
This is tough because I'm a big proponent of breast feeding, yet I can't help but feel how unfair it is to the father, and how manipulative and passive-aggressive it is (sometimes) to use this as a way to deny the father access. If the situation was reversed, I really don't think feminists would support a man doing something like this.
I personally don't have any kids (yet), so I'm curious, even at 6 months can't you pump the milk into a bottle for the father to use for feeding later?
Even in the absolute worst case the father should still get the see the child but with the mother present so she can feed. Though that isn't really fair to him since alone time with the child would be much more valuable.
You can pump and feed from a bottle from day one. I did, and most of the moms I know who breastfed pumped from the beginning. That way dad can do some of the feeding, and you can get a few hours to yourself if you want. Also, if you have a good backup supply in the freezer you can have a couple drinks with your friends without worrying about it...
I think this is one area in which feminists fail themselves and fail mothers if they don't support the efforts of fathers to be active and engaged parents. We can't complain about carrying a disproportionate load of the parenting responsibilities if we're unwilling to give complete and unabashed support to fathers who want to be full-fledged parents.
I would be amazed to find that this mom doesn't already pump. It's highly unlikely that she's never been away from the child for more than 2 hours before. Does she work? Has she ever left the child with a relative, friend, or babysitter? Then she pumps. So it's kind of a non-issue.
Incidentally, one of the ways you get your milk to come in faster and build up your supply is by pumping, in the hospital, fairly soon after birth. So no matter how young the child is you can pump and feed with a bottle (with the appropriately shaped nipple for a nursing baby). And with a child of this age, you'd only be nursing 2-3 times per day, as the majority of their calories should come from solid food. Usually after the first birthday if you continue breastfeeding you go to nursing at naptime, bedtime, and in the morning, and then they drink dairy milk or soymilk or juice or water or whatever with their meals.
I think the ruling is total bullshit. At two years old, there's no reason why he has to bring HER body into the equation. Just mandate some time for the child to be with his father, and let her decide what she's going to do with her body. I agree that its healthy for a child to have a relationship with both of their parents, but seriously, that's taking it way too far. If that's what really happened, that article is so poorly written it's hard to tell, but regardless I'm really speaking to the people who think it's okay that a judge dictated what a women does with her body.
But my impression was that she brought her body into the equation, by claiming that the child couldn't spend any time with the father due to her breastfeeding. I doubt that he was ordering her to pump, and would take any steps to enforce her pumping, but was rather saying that she had to pump or make some similar arrangement so that the child can see her father. In the case of my friend (mentioned above) who was going through a divorce, his ex said she refused to allow the baby (4 mos) to be fed formula. So the judge said if that's the case, then it's your responsibility to provide frozen breastmilk for the father's time during the weekend. So it wasn't a "you must pump or else" kind of deal, but a "given that this is your choice, you must pump." And it's not that kind of dilemma with this child, who's old enough to have dairy milk or soy milk or rice milk or whatever.