The XX Factor: What women really think.

Why Is the Breast-Feeding Brigade So Successful?

Clearly the audience is complicit here: At the turn of the 20^th century, the newly scientific experts peddled their intricate formula recipes not because they were better or safer (back then, when cow milk supplies were dicey, they were anything but). They peddled them because they were well-aware that middle-class "modern" mothers were eager not to be tied down all day the way their mothers had been. So how do you read the peculiar eagerness among mothers recently, as they stream into the workforce, to, well, swallow the opposite, highly inconvenient expertise? In the video accompanying your piece, you and your friends touched on this, confirming my sense that nursing isn't about helping our kids to ace their SATs. Isn't it more about helping to reassure ourselves that we mothers really are indispensable?