Am I a bad mother if I bottle-feed my newborn instead of breast-feed?
Mom, you’re entering a social minefield. Feeding formula to an infant is liable to get you lectured by total strangers. That’s because scientific studies have piled up like cordwood recently, all attesting to the same thing: Breast milk is awesome stuff.
The evidence is convincing: Mother’s milk provides a child with immunoglobulin IgA, which protects against infection. It contains DHA, a lipid associated with improved mental development - which may be why breast-fed kids tend to score higher than bottle-fed ones on IQ tests. Breast-feeding has also been correlated with lower rates of allergies, obesity, diabetes, and a host of other conditions. Scientists don’t fully understand how the heck breast milk does all this, but hey, it was designed by evolution - the ultimate quality-assurance program. You can’t argue with Mother Nature. “It’s an absolutely remarkable food,” gushes Mary Marine, a liaison for the La Leche League of Northern California and Hawaii.
But is it really so bad to opt for formula? Michel Cohen, author of child-rearing manual The New Basics, points out that breast-feeding rates rise with income, so all those superhealthy tikes may be in better shape not only because they’ve been breast-fed but because they live in more affluent households. Among his high-income patients in Man-hattan, Cohen notices little difference between formula- and boob-fed babies. (This may also suggest that breast-feeding is most beneficial for poor and working-class families, where, ironically, mothers’ jobs rarely allow for pumping milk or breast-feeding.) So, while Cohen advises moms to breast-feed, he doesn’t think they should agonize about it. “I’ve seen mothers driving themselves crazy over this,” he says. “If it gets like that, it’s not good.”
Try breast-feeding - it’s healthier and may be less onerous than you think. And if it just doesn’t work out, formula is fine.
I’m sick of having a weak-ass World of Warcraft character. Can I just buy a high-level avatar on eBay?
Sure, you can. On eBay, $300 will buy you a hot, female, level-60 warrior with Cloudkeeper legplates and a Hammer of the Northern Wind. IGE, the Wal-Mart of online worlds, will transform you into a demigod with the swipe of a credit card.
But when you show up online, prepare to be shunned. “You will look like a jerk,” says Joi Ito, the venture capitalist who runs a World of Warcraft guild. Seasoned players can tell when someone is clad in unearned raiment. Those who spend months slogging up to level 60 learn the Elizabethan protocols that govern Warcraftian society - loot divvying, cryptic jargon, secret handshakes. You will have no clue, and they’ll pick up on it immediately. “It takes a lot of practice, thinking, and time to learn how to play a character,” Ito says.
Cliquish? Perhaps. But Edward Castronova, an economist who studies virtual worlds, points out that online games are the closest thing we have to truly merito-cratic societies. Everyone enters World of Warcraft equally weak, and only through toil do heroes emerge. A store-bought identity makes you no better than a trust-fund brat: powerful by dint of your wallet, not your mad skillz. Money can buy you everything but cred.
My buddies keep asking me to be their friend on MySpace, Netflix, and other networking sites. How do I make them stop?
“Reply to all invites with fake bounced-mail messages,” jokes Sean Bonner, who created the parody site Isolatr after getting bombarded with invitations. If they still don’t get the message, close all your social-networking accounts and send out elegant, handwritten notes explaining your actions. Everyone likes getting stuff in the mail.
- Clive Thompson
Need help navigating life in the 21st century? Email us at mrknowitall@wiredmag.com
credit: Christoph Niemann
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The Boob vs. the Bottle
