I Was Fired For Breastfeeding At Work — 'Just Have The Daycare Give Her Formula'
My boss didn’t have any business telling me how to feed my child, but I needed to keep my job.
Curated Lifestyle | Unsplash, 06photo | Canva “Just have the daycare give her formula. My kids had it, and they’re fine.”
My manager waved her hand at me and shook her head, effectively dismissing my determination not to give my baby anything but breast milk for her first six months.
“I need somewhere I can pump at least once a day, or my milk will dry up,” I replied. I explained how the staff break room wasn’t private or clean enough for me to do so. I wanted to redirect the conversation from breastfeeding versus formula feeding, an argument I did not want to have, especially since I felt it was a personal decision and not something to fight over.
My boss didn’t have any business telling me how to feed my child, but I needed to keep my job, which had benefits for my children and my husband.
Antagonizing her wasn’t going to help my cause, and I had seen her fire coworkers just because she was having a bad day. I couldn’t make my first day back from maternity leave a bad day for her, because it would become a nightmare for me.
But I had done well at home with my daughter, who took to breastfeeding easier than her older brother had, and she seemed to be satisfied with what I could give her. Her brother had gnawed on my breasts and cried in frustration until I gave up and added formula to his feeding schedule.
My male coworkers were already making jokes about catching me pumping milk in the corner of the break room. I had a blanket over my shoulders but it was hard to hide what I was doing, and one of them was relentless in trying to sneak a look.
“I can hear the sucking!” he laughed, and my efforts to relax and ease the discomfort of my engorged breasts were ruined. My manager didn’t think this amounted to sexual harassment and told me to forget about my baby while I was at work and get my job done.
After a week of struggling in the women’s restroom, pumping while I sat on the toilet, I was tired and angry, and I called our human resources department. I told them everything that was happening, as well as my manager’s refusal to help me. Within an hour, my manager told me my audit percentages, which spoke to my data entry accuracy, were down since I had returned from leave and I wasn’t working up to company standards.
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I knew her analysis of my job performance wasn't true, but she fired me anyway. “Stay home and breastfeed, since that’s your priority.”
I was too stunned to argue, and even my male coworkers, who had eased off on the teasing since they couldn’t see or hear me pumping anymore, were shocked. While I had taken a lot of medical leave while pregnant, before that I had earned top performer awards for quality and production. At the end of last year, I took home the largest Christmas bonus the company offered, which paid my rent at the beginning of January.
As soon as I got home, my husband told me I should start to look for another job. He couldn’t keep a job himself for a variety of reasons, but mostly, he just didn’t want to work. Instead, I filed for unemployment, and after nearly a month of appeals when my former employer fought against it, I started receiving payments.
Only 21% of U.S. workers have access to paid parental leave through their employers, and the U.S. remains 1 of 6 countries that doesn’t offer national paid parental leave, as reported by the American Psychological Association. In fact, according to a recent 2023 study by Abt Associates, nearly 1 in 4 women return to work within two weeks of giving birth, with three-quarters of the women citing financial struggle as the reason they return to work.
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It took nearly four months for me to find another job, which aligned perfectly with my breastfeeding plan.
I didn’t have to pump anymore since I was home with my daughter, and I was able to see my son off to school and again when he came home in the afternoon. Getting fired for the wrong reasons had been a blessing in disguise.
Breastfeeding is such a personal decision, and I would never tell anyone that it is right for them or judge them if they choose not to do it. I was shamed for breastfeeding and then, later, shamed for doing it after what others believed was an acceptable age.
While it’s over two decades since my daughter and I fought that last booby battle, I won’t forget when I realized we needed to be entirely physically separate for her to grow — and for me to face our family problems without hiding behind her as a shield.
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Maisie Archer is a writer of fiction, poetry, and personal essays about relationships, grief, parenting, mental health, and more on Medium.