After reading Evil Hr Lady’s post on breastfeeding at work about a working mom whose formerly accommodating boss is now putting restrictions on pumping breast milk at work, I started thinking about how far working nursing moms have come and how far they still have to go.
Close to nineteen years ago when I was nursing my first baby, I thought about pumping milk at work but was overwhelmed by the thought. Few moms talked about pumping milk then, let alone having time off or a place to express milk. And women who were doing it were trying to find privacy in closed offices or worse yet, bathrooms. The whole thing seemed so daunting and complicated that I negotiated to work at home for the first 6 months (which in 1993 was still fairly uncommon). But I soon decided to nurse past 6 months and made the decision to leave my position to be with my daughter full-time when she was young. I’m not saying that the nursing/breast pumping dilemma was the reason I made this decision, but it certainly was a contributing factor.
As of March 2010, employers are required to provide “reasonable break time for an employee to express breast milk for her nursing child for one year after a child’s birth.” Employers are also required to provide a place for expressing milk other than a bathroom that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from co workers and the public. It’s hard to believe that it took another 18 years following the birth of my daughter for this law to go into effect and I wonder how many other working moms over those years cringed while they pumped milk in bathrooms and hoped for the best or just gave up breastfeeding all together because accommodations for pumping were such a hassle.
I’m also wondering why the one year clause was added as a reasonable amount of time for the accommodation. Every baby is different and many (including mine) nurse way past the one year mark. Each state can decide how much more time they will offer (New York State offers 3 years) but it seems to me that the length of time should be left to the discretion of the mother.
Smokers get smoking breaks at work to feed their nicotine habit and no one puts a time limit on the number of years they are entitled to smoking breaks. Few employers tell a smoker when to stop taking smoking breaks, yet they can tell a nursing mom when they are no longer obligated to offer breaks to express milk. Like I said, working nursing women still have a long way to go.