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The Forum > Article Comments > Capitalising babies > Comments

Capitalising babies : Comments

By Helen Lobato, published 24/11/2008

All the 'mother wars' regarding paid work and stay at home mothers avoid discussing the new capitalism.

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So if women choose to stay at home to raise children and keep house, they are exploited and abused by an evil, male-dominated capitalist system.

On the other hand, if they choose to work and use some of their income to pay for child support... then they are exploited and abused by an evil, male-dominated capitalist system.

Another wonderful broadside from the Marxist side in the ongoing Mummy Wars.

I just love the final sentence: "The penetration of the values and assumptions of the market place seeps inexorably into every port of every relationship, however intimate." Such a marvelous mixed metaphor, and oooh, its got "penetration"!

Cheers,

Rhys.
Posted by Rhys Probert, Monday, 24 November 2008 11:45:09 AM
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I think this article epitomises the confusion and conflicting goals of feminism today. Breastfeeding as a policy has been aggressively adopted by many (if not most) in the nursing and midwifery fields. No mention of that.

Of course, then there was the push for more women in the workforce, and now we have the concommitant complaint of exploitation arising from the fact that it's difficult to breastfeed babies and decent childcare facilities most workplaces. These are real issues, and most women (and the men that are in mature relationships with them) deal with them on a regular basis.

As for exploitation by capitalism, it runs both ways. Capitalism supplies us with what we need and it gives us a choice in how that supply should be met. One can argue that capitalism need restraint, and I would agree that everything needs oversight, checks and balances. No solution to the supply/demand/choice equation is ideal, but the the alternatives to capitalism have been demonstrated to be less so.
Posted by Bugsy, Monday, 24 November 2008 12:09:48 PM
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I'm also going to get panned for this comment too!
I've got a new son, he's 3 months old now. My wife, like so many other mothers galantly tried to breastfeed... with extreme pain and suffering for both her and our baby.

Looking at the science, the supposed health benefits of breastfeeding are small... A slight (and doubtfull) reduction in the risk of asthma and alergies later in life, and reduced infections while being breastfed...

Presumably these infections are just delayed, until after then child is weaned... rather than prevented... simply delayed.

Yet the pain, suffering and sexism caused by the well-funded breastfeeding lobby is clear.

The suffering is more real than the 'benefits'...
Babies under fed (as many mothers don't produce enough), babies suffering due to sucking and feeding problems. Sleepless nights... and a reduction in the birthrate due to parents reducing the number of children they had planned in their families...

It is also very sexist. By giving breastfeeding priority, you are excluding the father parent from being a carer. Once a mother has had many months/years off work, and the dad has already had to shoulder the extra burden of paying for everything, and he has reluctantly accepted the overtime... these roles are very likely to be rusted-on.

After the breastfedding, too many dads remain locked out of the home, locked out of enjoyable part-time work and the wonderful work-life balance. Dads remain relegated to beome the parent who "pays" for the kids, while the mother is at home "playing" with them.

Parttimeparent@pobox.com
Posted by partTimeParent, Monday, 24 November 2008 12:36:17 PM
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Mass child care also has enourmous utility in socialism. The capitalist model has much manipulative political value in the hands of apparent socialists, such as communist china. Consumerism, aspiration, ambition and self-interest can be manipulated to control social classes, like family. It can create, maintain and expand classes of dependency, such as women and children (and men too), by tethering them to centralised social support mechanisms like caring facilities, whether privately and/or publicly funded.

The funding impetus is less important than the politicisation. Family is a pretty basic social unit that is easily manipulated. So it makes sense to start at the beginning and pepper away at all levels of familial social interaction in order to set people up for the political game of divide and conquer.

l think that socialism/marxism and capitalism/individualism have been sort of merged in the socio-political sphere and they only really differ in apparent method and intent. It helps politicians to have people believe in a distinction and it helps to have people competing around that contrivance. There's a sort of blurred, muddled middle-way in action now. Though the spin varies and the personal investment people make in the propaganda models differ, we're all plugged into the various tentacles of state control. Look at the family unit. Its replete with all manner of direction and influence by a host of do's and dont's. How people manage to have kids and raise them in the mess of contradiction and counter-intuitive parodies that is politically correct society is beyond me. That they mostly succeed in the face of so much nonsense is very telling.
Posted by trade215, Monday, 24 November 2008 2:53:45 PM
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The author is on the right track in making the all-too-rare attempt to place gender-specific issues like breastfeeding and childcare within the context of the economic system in which women and men have to function.

It is usually assumed that women themselves – led by feminist trailblazers – drove the massive increase in female workforce participation rates from about 1960 onwards. In fact, the real catalyst was that good old capitalist sacred cow – economic growth. Runaway Western overproduction post-WWII desperately needed women to fill the dual purpose of providing an ongoing pool of cheap labour and a new consumer market.

It’s taken a while for it to sink into our somewhat thick-headed capitalist mentality that society was obliged to give something back to women in return – an obligation that our free-market rhetoric continues to avoid because such a prospect reeks too much of socialism.

While we continue to treat our workplace as a marketplace with an only-for-profit mentality, we will continue to lurch from social crisis to social crisis, personal dilemma to personal dilemma and (as with recent events in China) tragedy to tragedy.

partTimeParent

Would it be at all presumptuous to suggest that if men don’t like being deprived of having a ‘wonderful work-life balance’, then they could pro-actively lobby to change the workplace culture to allow more men to stay at home (as you put it) ‘playing’ with the kids.

I suspect the reason they are failing to do so in droves is because too many men know all too well what being at home ‘playing’ with the kids really entails. Oh … and the prospect of having their earnings and career prospects plummet as they ‘play’ might be a teensy bit of a motivator too!

Trade215

‘How people manage to have kids and raise them in the mess of contradiction and counter-intuitive parodies that is politically correct society is beyond me.’

True. However, as a parent I have found the mass-consumption messages of the marketplace far more riddled with ‘contradiction and counter-intuitive parodies’ than political correctness.
Posted by SJF, Monday, 24 November 2008 3:17:09 PM
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Thanks Helen for your article.

Despite what the comments above say, my experience and that of many women I know is that there is a lack of public support and resourcing for helping women to breastfeed, particularly for the two years recommended by World Health Organisation and other health research. Midwives in post-natal wards and the ABA are committed to encouraging breastfeeding due to the evidence of benefits to mothers and babies, but I don't think that there is enough support for the kind of ongoing one on one help that is often needed.

I had a lot of trouble breastfeeding - difficulty with latching, milk supply, cracking, etc. - and it wasn't until I saw a trained lactation consultant (who came to my home, paid for privately) that it all became much easier and less painful. Without that specialist advice I would no doubt have given up very early on, and it was advice I couldn't have accessed without living in a big city, having the resources to find out about her, and being able to afford to pay her. My daughter is now two and I am still breastfeeding her once or twice a day.

partTime Parent, breastfeeding my daughter has in no way excluded my husband from being a very involved and hands on dad. We both work part time and care for our daughter equally. Your venom at breastfeeding as causing dads to be locked out of the caring role is misdirected. It's a lack of support from governments, from employers and from our society generally for flexible work/caring arrangements for both parents.

My point is not to say that what I've done is the best/only way to approach things, but that we need to support both mothers and fathers to be able to make genuine choices about how they want to parent - including to breastfeed and to be able to stay at home with their kids when they're small.
Posted by ruthm, Monday, 24 November 2008 3:38:19 PM
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