Conservative Breast-feeding

Based on an inconclusive twitter discussion between three “prominent conservatives,” none of whom I’d ever heard of, the Daily Caller‘s Matt K. Lewis imagines a possible left-right controversy over breastfeeding in public.

Don’t be surprised if issue could becomes even more divisive and political. It fits neatly into the “war on women” narrative Democrats have clearly signaled they like to push — and could potentially be the next front in the culture wars.

The problem is that there are swaths of conservatives who could be bated into opposing the movement to remove barriers to breastfeeding. . . .

In some sense, concerns about the mainstreaming of breastfeeding are really part of the backlash against a culture that over-sexualizes everything.

“Don’t be surprised,””fits neatly into,” “could be bated,” “In some sense” . . . in other words, “I have no evidence for this.” It doesn’t seem likely that conservatism, whatever exactly that is, and outside a few people you would definitely not want to sit next to at a dinner party, would oppose the mainstreaming of breastfeeding. Some cranky old men will complain but their complaints will have nothing to do with their politics but with their being cranky old men.

The last line quoted seems to me the opposite of the truth. If there is an ideological component to such reaction to breast-feeding as there is, it’s much more likely to reflect a war on children than a war on women. And the war on children is waged by conservatives and liberals because their vision, their shared vision, of the good life is one without room for children except as a personal choice. A personal choice, like that to smoke cheap stinky cigars, not allowed to affect anyone else.

You see this in the increasing number of stories not only on the benefits of not having children but the “selfishness” of having them, like this one from the nominally conservative Daily Telegraph, a little more ambivalent than others but published a couple of days ago and so a useful illustration.