Last night I was watching "ER." For those of you don't watch the show or who have drifted away from it over the years, the character of Abby Lockhart recently gave birth to a son. On yesterday's episode, it was her first day back at work.
Among all the chaos and drama that seems to happen in the fictional County General hospital, we watched Abby debate whether to call the baby sitter and check on her son. We watched as she took time out to pump breastmilk for her son. And we watched as she took a call from the baby sitter and then sang a song, over the phone, to calm the baby down.
Maybe one of the "ER" writers now is a working mother, but these things are pretty realistic, even if the medical needs there are sometimes far-fetched.
On my first day back to work, I wondered constantly how Autumn was doing at home with Daddy. When she started at the child-care center, I popped up there on my lunch hour to see how she was doing. And every work day the time my maternity leave ended until Autumn was 13 months old, I sat in a little room and pumped breastmilk for her to drink.
It's not very common to see women "breast-feeding" on television shows. I saw it with Miranda on "Sex and the City," but it happened once, just after her son was born. When she went back to work, there wasn't much talk about it anymore. Usually it's something not discussed, which I suppose is because it's not something that really relates to the central storylines. But last night, I felt a jump of joy at seeing Abby take out her breastpump and tell her attending physician that she needed to pump because "my boobs are about to explode."
So kudos to "ER" for acknowledging this, even for a brief moment on one episode. To me, it makes Abby's life more realistic.