Opinion Ms. Mon's Salon (Breast) Pumping Your Tax Deductions
|
She invites you to pull up a chair, let down your hair and cut to the chase on the issues we like to talk about -- and some we don't. |
RSS: |
|
Local Blogs I Read
Great Humans
|
A Little Inspiration
|
Follow Me
|
Looks like there's another controversy brewing (thank goodness, because writers need things to write about), and this time, it involves differing opinions over whether or not breast pumps for nursing mothers should be tax deductible.
I wonder if this means we'll see H&R Block commercials showing breastfeeding women soon. Or if "Lady Liberty" in all of her foam costume glory hawking for Liberty Tax Service (someone, please explain the red costume) will be publicly nursing her baby on the corner of Brownsville Road and Arlington Avenue.
From Katie Park at the Post-Gazette:
A recent decision by the Internal Revenue Service to recognize breast pumps and breast-feeding supplies as tax-deductible medical expenses has led some to question if breast-feeding has become part of a political agenda.
After Michelle Obama announced just before the IRS ruling that she would support breast-feeding as part of her campaign against child obesity, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., pegged the first lady's position as "hard left" and suggested she was creating a "nanny state."
Sarah Palin made a similar jab at Ms. Obama in a speech Thursday, media outlets reported.
Aside from the fact that Sarah Palin has become the eternal butt of the "that's what she said!" joke, there is so much evidence that breastfeeding is the healthiest choice for your child, with hard science to back that up, I'm not sure why we're still debating this. What the right is uncomfortable with -- more than anything else, I'm wagering -- is this:
Years ago, when my youngest son was about seven months old, I made an appearance on John McIntire's defunct NightTalk show to discuss a story I'd written for Pittsburgh City Paper about breastfeeding in public, and Jim Roddey was also a guest.(Technically, it's not defunct -- it's just not the same show. The worst thing you ever did, Channel 11, was not pay him enough to stay. "Movers and shakers" on the show my butt. Your guests are most often old, boring, white men.) After I spoke to John about a woman's right to breastfeed in public, and my experience with a colleague as she breastfeed openly in Hooters -- McIntire asked Roddey what he thought about public breastfeeding. Roddey said he supported a woman's right to breastfeed (gee, thanks), but doing it in public made him "uncomfortable." Well, you know what I thought? Maybe your old man smell makes me uncomfortable, and tough turkeys, Roddey.
The woman who is against the new IRS decision had this to say in the P-G article:
Ms. Miller, 29, said that although she is not opposed to breast-feeding, she chose not to breast-feed her children because she was nervous about becoming a mother. Government support of breast-feeding creates pressure on mothers, she said.
"There is a ton of pressure to breast-feed," she said. "I don't think it's fair or right to pressure moms to breast-feed, and they deserve to make the choice that's best for them and their families."
Classifying breast-feeding equipment as a medical expense is a slippery slope, Ms. Miller said.
Who the he$$ isn't nervous about becoming a mother? I'm still nervous, and my oldest is turning 18 in less than two months. But I'm not sitting around biting my nails ruminating about all the "pressure" from society. That's where we mothers go so wrong.
Ah yes, the potential things breasts can do are a great source of anxiety for all.
(Maybe she should get her nipples up over this: stripper's breast implants are ruled tax deductible.)
If you feel pressured to breastfeed, that is really, really YOUR problem. A breast pump isn't a luxury for women who choose to breastfeed. I'd hardly call a contraption that looks midieval and causes discomfort -- and sucks up all a lot of time (pun intended) -- a luxury item. It's a necessity, and should be tax deductible, and women should be rewarded for giving consideration to all of the future health problems she's averting by breastfeeding. Like obesity -- and making her child a part of the first generation of Americans with a shorter life expectancy exactly because of obesity-related mortality.
I think if you work it right, almost anything can be a tax deduction. Like blogging, for example.
Meantime -- aren't there bigger things than breasts we can worry about?
Subscribe to this comment's feed
written by Ed H, February 21, 2011 - 07:55 AM
OK, a) does this woman think the IRS will send out auditors from its reduced staff to watch women use the breast pump, to justify the $37.50 reduction in taxable income?
Then there is b) I don't know what kind of mother this woman is, she may be a (possible conservative Republican) saint, but I really worry that she not only does not want to secure the health benefits of breast feeding for her child, but also does not want the improved emotional attachment that comes with breast feeding, and further resents that other people are slightly encouraging her to have these things for her child. I mean, I don't know, maybe her family pressured/is pressuring her to breast feed, but that should not be an excuse to get a negative quote in the paper.
We can only hope this woman's kid does not grow up to carry a sign around telling us how Congressman Coyne is beaming satellite rays into his skull.
-
- +0
-
-
written by PatOMalley, February 21, 2011 - 01:25 PM
And as for Jim Roddey, I fed my son on the front porch, in the park, in restaurants, at a church carnival, at the mall, at Kennywood, and in a bar full of Ironworkers on Labor Day. No one made a peep about it.
It's quite easy to do it discretely. It doesn't have to be a peep show.
Could Roddey claim a stick extraction from his backside as a medical expense on HIS taxes?
-
- +0
-
-
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
+ +
In breastfeeding news:
Try to take a breast pump past security at the airport. The parts and heft of them are sure to freak out the guys at the gate. They'll ask, What is this??? Then they blush and let a loaded weapon past, seemingly. What's worse is the return flight when there are bottles of breast milk along with the pump. Humm, what's that restriction in volume size in ounces these days?