Supporting your family or breastfeeding ... what is more important?

Trixiebell

For example, if a mother is the only breadwinner in the family and needs to go back to work as soon as possible because she doesn't get paid for maternity leave. She may not have time to properly establish breastfeeding before having to go back to work and start pumping, and she doesn't want to deal with pumping at work because it's a distraction and causes friction with her coworkers and boss when she has to take the time out to do it possibly missing important meetings or losing valuable time on projects. Should she lose money by missing more days of work to get breastfeeding going, plus risk losing out on opportunities that could lead to better pay, or should she and the father who stays home just go with formula from the start to make things a lot easier?
Since I know someone will ask this ... she knows pumping at work will cause friction because she has seen it happen with other employees in the past, including one breastfeeding mother who lost out on a promotion.
They have to allow it but they don't have to make it nice for you. They don't have to hold up meetings and they are allowed to give your projects away to other employees. They don't have to give you a nice relaxing room to do it in and your co-workers can be disgusted by your bottles of breastmilk in the office fridge. For many employees it's just not a great thing. I've seen it.
Women never win lawsuits for these things ... it's impossible to prove. They get passed over because they miss something that someone else doesn't so someone else gets it not them. One particular case I saw at my old job, the woman was in line for a promotion but she missed a couple of long meetings - the meeting was in another office where she would have had to pump in a dirty bathroom and had nowhere to store the milk so she opted out. Another employee who was there the whole time took the promotion instead.

Answer
Any breastfeeding is better than no breastfeeding. Even if it's impossible to pump at work (and federal law requires that workplaces provide time and space for mothers to pump [I'm at a loss as to how pumping could cause a woman to miss out on a promotion ... don't you get lunch hours? breaks?]) breastfeeding for a few weeks or a month is better than not breastfeeding at all.

And nobody but the mother herself (and her husband) can decide if the health of her baby is more important than a potential 'future job opportunity.' A year is a VERY small part of womans' work life ... but a very important part of a baby's life.

EDIT: Of course you can't control the feelings of your co-workers. But if they make a big deal about the bottles in the fridge, that would be sexual harrassment. (Or you do have the option to not put the bottles in the fridge -- an insulated bag will work just fine.)

And while of course they don't have to provide 'a nice relaxing room' -- they do have a provide a room that is NOT a bathroom, and that has an electrical outlet. Or, of course, if you have an office, you can pump there.

EDIT: What Mrs. D said. Women who are committed to breastfeeding will do what they have to do to make it work -- and they'll stand up to difficult employers. Women who aren't committed will find/make excuses to explain why they 'couldn't' breastfeed.

You are clearly not committed or motivated to breastfeed. It's your life, your choice, your breasts and your baby. You don't need our consent to do what you want to do and you don't need to come up with excuses. "I understand the risks, but I don't want to," is sufficient.

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Title Post: Supporting your family or breastfeeding ... what is more important?
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