You Can’t Force Poor Women To Breastfeed, So Mind Your Own Boobs

Hey poors, here’s a question: why are the rest of us paying for your lifestyle choice of feeding your babies poison? Inquiring minds want to know, y’all.

Now, I understand that the internet is a dark horrorscape of despair and douchery, but even I was a little taken aback by an attitude that I had not known existed: a serious rageboner that a lot of people seem to have for greedy WIC mothers who formula feed. And they’re asking the hard questions. Should welfare mothers be forced to breastfeed? Edgy!

I’ve always kind of been all eye-rolly at militant breast feeders, usually because instead of doing any real advocating for more breast feeding, they get all snitty about it instead. They want to know how you can abuse your baby with formula. They want to know why, if they could breastfeed, you can’t. Above all, they really, really want you to know that there is only a teeny tiny percentage of women who physically can’t breast feed, and you probably aren’t one of them.

But I had never known one to suggest that we should force people to do it. Now I realize that there are people who think we should force moms to breast feed, namely, moms on WIC and welfare. The barrage of ignorance is a little stomach churning:

There’s the racially tinged:

I mean, how dare these “mami-chulas”? First it was lobster, now it’s the world’s most expensive formula. Geez, can’t you just be happy with your Cadillac?

There’s the concern troll:

RE: Should welfare moms be forced to bf?

“I think it’s a bit harsh forcing someone to breastfeed (although it’s quite harsh to feed a baby formula). I think prescription measure could cause a black market with even more risks for the baby as a result.I think instead it would be better to get rid of Healthy Start vouchers or that, instead of formula, they could be used to buy nursing bra’s and other breastfeeding paraphenalia .”

You don’t need formula, lesser moms. You need a nursing bra. That’ll get you on track!

And of course the ever present  “Hey, I’m just asking a question here!”

To piss you off, obviously.

The concerned taxpayer, who wants to tell you what to do with all those fat government stacks:

Yeah, ladies. Have you ever even tried to breastfeed? Ugh.

And then there’s the reasoned, rational argument that formula fed babies are sick babies who go to the doctor more thus spending more hard earned tax payer money something something AFRICA!!

All your boobs are belong to us!

Okay, I am about to drop some truth bombs all over the internet here. You want to know why more poor women don’t breastfeed even though their daily lobster rations more than fulfill their calorie requirements to do so?

Because they fucking work. I know that it’s popular to believe that poor women are just shooting babies out of their vaginas like a baby makin’ gatling gun for the sheer thrill of upping their EBT limit, but back when I was on WIC and sitting in on a mandatory class (oh yeah they have those, dummies) about how much formula feeding sucked, it was at my own peril. I almost got fired for attending these things.

And yeah, I know that employers are supposed to accommodate people who breastfeed under the law, the La Leche League lady told me that. Unfortunately, no one told my crappy boss who smoked in her office and the break room and the bathroom so I had to pump out in my shitty station wagon.

There’s other reasons poor women formula feed, too, and all of them are equally none of your business.

WIC isn’t SNAP or TANF. It’s a set of vouchers that you can use to buy a block of cheese, some peanut butter, eggs, Juicy Juice, and yeah, eventually, formula. They aren’t nice about it. They don’t encourage you to formula feed. It isn’t fun to humble yourself and wait in line for five hours to get yours just so you have something to eat this month.

Oh, and as far as all of that money you’re spending on formula feeding gross poor babies? It comes out to about $0.02 a day, the same amount a lot of WIC moms pay from their own paychecks. If you want yours back so bad, come see me. I’d be happy to pelt you with pennies from my upstairs window.

(Image: Dima Sobko/Shutterstock)