My brother-in-law Matt got us My Two-Year-Old Eats Octopus: Raising Children Who Love to Eat Everything as a Christmas gift.

It’s an interesting book, written by a lady who worked extensively in the food lobbying industry. It’s pretty well researched, and she is pretty passionate about the subject. I’m three chapters in, and it’s a good read, but it’s rapidly boiling into a “my kids are so awesome and I’m probably the best parent ever” narrative. I can deal with that if I learn something.

What I don’t quite understand is that she very quickly and thoroughly pisses off anybody who formula feeds their babies. Her argument, which is observational and not at all backed up by actual scienticians, is that marketing and laziness is what ultimately drives parents to use formula. The hospital gives you free formula and coupons for formula, and the FDA-approved and well marketed iron-fortified, algae infused dried cows milk “lays in wait” for moms who may have a hard time with breastfeeding. She sees it as an easy way out for moms who can’t or won’t take the time to properly breastfeed their child. And she links it to an invariable diet in children today, and to a lifelong pattern of “taking the easy way out” for parents.

I don’t fully agree with her position on why women stop breastfeeding. I’m no expert, and we’ve managed to keep one child alive nine months – he’s currently chewing on a remote control, and wearing this shirt for the record. It’s not as simple as she paints it. I do believe that it has been made easy to give up, and is made easier by a giant industrial food complex and implicit endorsement by hospitals who give the stuff away for free. But her puzzling as to why people quit is very … unforgiving. Just because a mom chooses to use formula doesn’t necessarily mean that in future challenges, such as getting a child to eat broccoli, a mom is going to quit and feed her child chicken nuggets/macaroni and cheese/pizza for every meal because it’s the easy way out. That may be true for a subset of all formula-feeding mothers. I won’t believe it applies to all of them.

Anyway, this was only the third chapter – and it’s kind of amazing how quickly she’s alienating a large percentage of any parents who picked up her book. What’s interesting is that you can tell that her rant against non-breastfeeding mothers was heavily edited – but it is still very harsh. I guess by that point, though, you’ve already bought the book and she no longer cares!

It’s worth reading, at least so far. I’ll keep at it and let you know.