Why we cannot talk about breastfeeding

Motherhood is riven with insults and fear; it takes place in a solitary room and an amphitheatre where people shout curses or praise. How to do it? Each way has its traducers and heartaches. This week the Royal College of Midwives acknowledged that late motherhood, which often walks with achievement in other places, can be life-threatening and expensive; while Oxford University's Million Women Study suggested that fewer children, and also bottle-feeding, can lead to breast cancer. Childbirth is primeval, and so is the dialogue.

Consider the following positions, towards which most glibly segue. "Full-time" motherhood is considered easy, the parenting equivalent of eating a Twix while prostrate, while "part-time" motherhood is read as a narcissist's game – the victims are the children, until they grow up.Take breastfeeding: a simple mode of feeding a child – cheaper than a bottle, if less convenient, because the breastfeeding woman cannot chop off a body part and delegate. When did the arguments become so violent that my colleague Zoe Williams was threatened with a demonstration for pointing out that some of the claims for breastfeeding are questionable? The dull truth is that breastfeeding is sometimes of benefit and sometimes not, depending entirely on the mother's individual needs. I follow the teachings of the psychologist Oliver James, author of How Not to F*** Them Up; I think a happy mother is a good mother. Martyrs beget martyrs – the joyous beget the happy, and, according to James, who designates mothers "huggers" (they usually breastfeed), "organisers" (they often don't) and "flexi-mums" (self-explanatory) – all mothers will thrive if they listen to themselves. (The organiser's worst fear, says James, is loving the baby. The hugger's worst fear is hating it). But this is not a truth interesting enough to emit – we must have drama.So here is the fury of breastfeeding advocacy, stuck down women's throats like an ardent nipple, as if by this one act we can wipe away the poisons of industrialisation and be clean again; women of the woods, but woods with shops. This has provoked a backlash, certainly in me. I resent the hyperbole of breastfeeding advocates. The Association of Breastfeeding Mothers website carries an article blaming bottle-feeding women for some deforestation. Now that is heavy burden to bear. This comes with 101 Reasons to Breastfeed Your Child, each with a mirror image the bottle-feeder must face; 101 reasons not to bottle feed, unless, of course, you hate the baby. (Breastfeeding promotes bonding; so bottle-feeding doesn't? Breastfeeding satisfies Baby's emotional needs, so bottle feeding thwarts them? Etcetera.)The NHS treats bottle-feeding as a footnote for the naughty, even though many of the stated health benefits of breastfeeding have never been proved. And I must ask: would Felicia Boots' children, killed by their mother in a fug of mental illness, be alive if she had been encouraged not to breastfeed but to sleep? It is a question worth asking. But I should mind my language: the backlash against breastfeeding is equally furious, riven with disgust for female bodies and their mad spurtings. Who says a woman cannot be a misogynist if she is self-hating? There was an appalled response to a photograph of American Air Force women nursing in their uniform – apparently they were insulting it by lactating in its presence. Breastapo, is the unkind gag. Lactivist.The Lib Dem MP and equalities minister, Jo Swinson, says she wants breastfed babies in the voting lobby. Is this an ending of days or a sensible plea to incorporate motherhood into a career? (By their decisions shall you know the smallness of women's choices: the market has spoken). Unfortunately another working mother, the journalist Cathy Newman, slapped her down. Do other working mothers have the "right" to breastfeed, she asked, forgetting that parliament exists to represent the nation, and sometimes to educate it. "It doesn't greatly advance the feminist cause to allow MPs to cart their bawling babies through the lobby," she said. Does it not? Why shouldn't a woman bring a child to work, if she is able? (MPs can't get maternity cover, although the famous might find lookalikes). And who says Baby Swinson bawls? He may simply gurgle, and in doing so, spread joy.So much posturing, so much fear! And as ever, a hole in the debate that, for now, is full of shouting. Simply put – where are the men?(theguardian.com)ANN.Az