Can We Finish the Fight our (Grand)Mothers Started?

How many generations of women have to accept this bullshit?

👋✨A quick re-introduction: The Radical Moms Union is two moms, Andrea and Natasha, who write about all things dyad! All things radical mothering! All things that support biological needs over cultural demands! And sometimes stuff that has nothing to do with any of that! We do this mostly for free but do encourage you to sign up for a paid subscription because we use that to help pay for health insurance and homesteading manuals. We’re also leaders of a growing movement to protect the dyad from all threats, corporate, political, foreign, and domestic. In honor of National Breastfeeding Month we’re focusing on a hedge-fund backed corporation that spends millions of dollars trying to convince women to quit breastfeeding: Bobbie formula. We’ll continue to bring you irreverent and passionate articles of indoctrination on a variety of subjects in the coming weeks, but for now, let’s talk:

Startups and CEOs who claim to be ‘disruptors’ insist that their product will fundamentally change expectations and behaviors within a market. This would be something like an Amazon, an Uber, an AirBnb, and so on.

In the case of Bobbie, a formula ‘start up’ backed by big tech investors and private equity firms, they claim they’re disrupting the formula market by ‘changing the conversation around feeding.’ Since most American women fall short of their breastfeeding goals and over 70% turn to formula, why not start ‘combo-feeding’ from birth, Bobbie posits. That way you can make your ‘breastfeeding journey last longer.’

The Marketing Myths of Combo Feeding

In other words, instead of targeting formula feeding mothers and promoting their organic ingredients, Bobbie, DISRUPTORS that they are, targets mothers who want to exclusively breastfeed and promote combo-feeding as the happy medium for boss babes who care about their sleep, mental health, and career.

You can’t fail if you didn’t even try!

While this pitch may sound sexy and disrupt-y to the hedge funds and private equity investors (MEN, THEY ARE 99% MEN) gathered around a glass conference table in a San Francisco high rise, here on the ground, it’s a big yawn from us.

We’re invested in YOUR breastfeeding journey, mama!

The more things change the more things stay the same: a formula company spending millions to exploit the fears and insecurities of mothers through advertising -- NOT THE PRODUCT ITSELF-- has been going on for a hundred years. Formula companies have been using the same old playbook that was around since Don Draper was getting blowjobs from his secretary.

The pronouns may change but the tropes are the same.

Trope #1: Who ya gonna trust, a doctor or your body?

Formula companies have been using ‘doctors know best’ and ‘science’ to make processed cow’s milk appear somehow superior to human milk. It also has the added effect of making new mothers feel insecure about their bodies. Can you really trust your own breasts for success?

From the 1930s up through the 1970s is when we have a total the shift to "scientific mothering”: a cultural reliance on credited experts to tell mothers how to feed and care for their infants. By the mind 1960s half of babies never drank a drop of breastmilk.

Then: Carnation

Ad 1954

Now: Bobbie

Building a formula company takes a village!!

Trope #2 : Let dad bond with the baby through formula feeding!

Then: Enfamil …’the bodybuilder’

Now: Bobbie

This is an actual quote from a whole splashy interview Bobbie did with this couple from the Bachelor franchise. Look, we love trash television at the Radical Moms Union but we don’t look to the reality shows for our infant nutrition advice. More from Jared: “I wanted to make sure that I fed him as much as I possibly could. With formula, it just made it so much easier because I could get up, I could make the formula, I could do it myself.”

Neat.

Here’s another Bobbie example:

Trope #3: Make it easy on yourself!

Then: Enfamil a formula subscription service from the 1990s based on the dream of a frictionless motherhood.

Now: Bobbie a formula subscription service from the 2020s based on the dream of a frictionless motherhood.

In other words, breastfeeding moms are slaves to the breast.

#4 Just Like Breastmilk

Then: Carnation

Now: Bobbie “show us your Bobbies

Show us your udders is not as catchy

The trick is to narrow down breastmilk to a set of identifiable nutrients, vitamins, and enzymes and then mimic it as much as possible in order claim that your formula is the next best thing, basically interchangeable. Boobies, bobbies, whose keeping score? But of course, we know that breastmilk is a process not a product. It’s biodynamic substance tailor made for each infant it nourishes and a hormonal cocktail for a mother to feel relaxed, love-drunk, and sleepy at night.

The next best thing to breastmilk? Donor milk.

Trope #5 Breastfeeding is bad for your mental health

In a 1956 maternity pamphlet, “Your Contented Baby” published by Carnation, mothers were told that yeah, some women like breastfeeding but:

“Sometimes when a mother cannot see her way to getting the extra naps and long night’s rest, if she has a good-sized house to run, if she has several other young children to care for, it may be better for her not to undertake the additional strain of breastfeeding… If a mother looks at breast feeding as an ordeal she must go through for the health of her baby, it is better for her not to attempt it.”

Here are some choice cuts from Bobbie’s blog Milk Drunk:

And our favorite:

Formula companies like Bobbie are STILL perpetuating the narrative that breastfeeding is bad for your mental health. Starting breastfeeding is often not easy for new mothers. It can feel particularly overwhelming with no cultural or material support that encourages a new mother to breastfeed with resilience.

Companies like Bobbie have exploited this struggle to turn a profit, and ultimately, undermine public health.

These predatory marketing tropes have been around before there were seatbelts in cars and it was ok to give your wife a smack if she was lippy.

Are we going to let our daughters continue this fight or are we going to finally win it for them?