No Economists in the Nursery

Emily Oster is full of shit.

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There are only a few names in the parenting world who curry as much influence as Emily Oster, an Ivy-league educated economist who has become a media darling and thought leader for ‘data-driven’ parenting.

She’s not a child development specialist, doctor, lactation expert or psychologist. But millions of moms look to her for answers in the sea of mommy Facebook groups, Tik Tok misinformation soup and well meaning advice from boomers (the baby needs socks!).

Her trilogy of books that covers pregnancy to raising toddlers all consist of the same ethos: if the data doesn’t back up the claim then it can be dismissed and parents can relax. Oster is on a mission to “free guilt-ridden parents” with data.

 But as you’ll see, not all data is created equal.

In her book Crib Sheet, she pleads with parents to ask, “What do you want?” instead of “what does the baby need?” and for Oster, parental preference reigns supreme.

Of course, Oster’s massive popularity is right in line with the uniquely American deference to ‘experts’ when it comes to parenting. The fact that she’s an economist is an extra salve on stressed out parents. Here is a woman schooled in the cold, rational science of cost-benefit-analysis, market failures, and international commerce. Surely, this oracle of production and distribution knows more than the unshowered mom frantically trying to put Ms. Rachel to stave off her toddler’s tantrum, right?

It doesn’t hurt that she looks like the model mom: a marathon runner with a lob-cut, a Harvard degree, two kids, and a professor husband (who also went to Harvard). 

Oster has taken three mildly controversial positions in recent years, based on her own interpretation of ‘the data’ :

• Some drinking during pregnancy is ok.

• Sleep training is fine. 

• The benefits of breastfeeding are overstated.

We have A LOT to say about Oster’s approach to pregnancy and parenting -- is some of it spleen-venting-ly hostile? Yes! But for now, I want to tackle Oster on her own turf: on the Planet Data. The data on breastfeeding, according to Oster, “does not provide strong evidence for long-term health or cognitive benefits [for your child.”

Excerpt from Emily Oster’s Crib Sheet

Oster’s proclamation is largely based on two deeply flawed studies, whose covers I will yank off in a moment.

But before I do, I think 200,000+ years of human evolution is proof enough for the benefits of breastmilk and I don’t need a lab study to tell me that milk from another mammal is somehow just as good as the milk that comes from my own body. But the rest of the Momsphere is obsessed with Oster and it pains me to see them regurgitating her talking points without knowing where they come from.

So here we go.