For working moms everywhere, finding the right balance is a notoriously huge challenge once maternity leave is over. And one of the hardest challenges can be breastfeeding–like the difficulty of finding the time and space to pump when you need to. Apparently, Chelsea Clinton learned this the hard way, illustrating this struggle knows no privilege.
Clinton told E! News how hard it was finding the time to schedule pumping once her maternity leave ended after having her now 1-year-old daughter, Charlotte. She stated:
“I think the one thing that I did find challenging was when I went back to work full-time. I still was breastfeeding and I was pumping and I was so committed to ensuring I could keep doing that for Charlotte, and balancing those logistics was really hard. I wish there had sort of been a guidebook on how do you think about this really, and how do you make this work?
I figured it out, but it took a while to figure it out. It also just took lots of, like…swallowing my pride and being comfortable with pumping in airport bathrooms and kind of wherever I needed to get it done.”
READ: Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky–The Poster Child of Intermarriage?
We hear that.
Even in places where breastfeeding is legal in any public space, like New York state, many women desperately face these obstacles everyday–even in an ordinary work setting. It’s no surprise why so many moms stop nursing once they go back to work.
Maybe now that Clinton, a public figure, has opened up about how tough it was for her to breastfeed as a working mom, more accommodations will become common for moms everywhere. Of course, we wish it didn’t take celebrities to make people listen about injustices. But hey, we can’t be picky.
