How to make a bunch of old white guys uncomfortable: talk about breast feeding. What to make them really uncomfortable: talk about breast feeding in the state capitol. Good for Connie Williams.
Leigh Bellini didn’t think she would offend anyone when she breast-fed her infant son on a bench inside a Reading-area mall in February.But even though she had parked his stroller in front of her to obscure the view of passers-by, security guards eventually noticed her and told her she had to cover her baby’s head with a blanket, nurse him in the restroom or leave.
‘‘Imagine having the police called because you are nourishing your infant the way you have chosen,’‘ said Bellini, 30, of Shillington. ‘‘Let me put it another way: It is legal to have an infant and his mother removed from a public place because he has gotten hungry.’‘
Bellini and nearly 100 women and children gathered in the Capitol Rotunda for a rally in support of legislation to allow breast feeding in public places. A few held signs expressing sentiments such as ‘‘I won’t eat in the restroom,’‘ and ‘‘Bathrooms are for diapers — not dinner.’‘
breastfeeding
I don’t need anyone’s permission to do what nature intended for me and my child. The same guys who are uncomfortable with breastfeeding are the ones you can find behind porn mags and in front of strippers. I’ll nurse any where I damn well please…grow up America!
Sorry, no
I can certainly understand public breast-feeding if it’s absolutely necessary, but I don’t understand this attitude
of “I’ll whip out my boobs any time and anywhere I want”. It’s a matter of common courtsey not to make others in public uncomfortable. Would you like it if every time a man had to relieve himself, he did so in public and took the same attitude about it you do about breast-feeding? I’ll bet you’d think that would be crass, rude and unsanitary. And you’d be right.
It’s not the end of the world if your baby drinks from a bottle when you’re out in public.
pd
Actually it is the end of the world for some
Many breastfed babies do not drink from a bottle at all. In the early days of breastfeeding offering a bottle can cause nipple confusion and damage the breastfeeding relationship. Many other babies will refuse to take a bottle from Mom when the real thing is right there.
I am confused about how you can compare a man urinating with a baby nursing…its like comparing apples and oranges! Two completely different functions. Not to mention that one is a grown adult that can wait and the other is an infant who’s needs need to be met. Babies get hungry anytime and anyplace. The only way to avoid public breastfeeding would be to ask all breastfeeding moms to stay home and that IS ridiculous.
I am saddened to see why people constantly choose to make such an issue out of something that is so normal. This is how babies are supposed to eat!
Heard of breast pumps?
You can use them to store up your own milk for your baby.
When a baby is hungry, he or she will eat regardless. I myself was successfully raised on soy milk and in over half a century have been healthy as a horse.
I am not advocating nursing mothers stay home. I AM advocating a return to some degree of modesty in public.
pd
Breast pumps are expensive
PD,
Breast pumps are expensive. Then you have to add in the costs of bottles and insulated carriers to keep the breastmilk from spoiling.
Being a new mother is hard enough as it is. New mothers don’t need the morality police running around arresting them because they dare feed their child in public.
-BR
Public breastfeeding does not equal immodesty
I refuse to take the unnecessary extra step of pumping my milk into a bottle to be used when taking my child into a public space. I have found that my breasts travel very well, keep my milk at the perfect temperature, and do not require extra time for cleaning, storage, etc. I also never have to worry if I’ve brought enough with me.
This notion that breastfeeding mothers are “whipping it out” is truly inane. You’ll see more skin on the average billboard or teenager at the mall than you do when a woman is breastfeeding.
Ok then
If this is so natural and acceptable to do in public, why make such an effort to be discreet? Maybe because it’s not really socially acceptable.
pd
Subject aside
Subject aside (and I happen to disagree with PD, but that’s besides the point): this is the best line I’ve read in a long time.
“I have found that my breasts travel very well, keep my milk at the perfect temperature, and do not require extra time for cleaning, storage, etc. I also never have to worry if I’ve brought enough with me.”
It's not her fault you're uncomfortable
LVDem, thanks for the comment about my line.
PD, who said anything about being discreet? I don’t use a blanket to cover my child’s head, but I also don’t find it necessary to expose much skin to get the job done.
Just because the sight of something makes some people uncomfortable, does not mean it is wrong or should be stopped. Don’t blame a mother taking care of her child for making YOU feel uncomfortable. Blame a marketing and media culture that promotes breasts solely as sexual toys rather than for their biologically-intended use for feeding children. And blame yourself for falling prey to the messages that sexualize all things breast-related.
Susan
Dear Susan
It’s the “bus rider” guy. While your arguement has many holes in it, I agree with your jist. Public Breastfeeding should be a naturally accepted, non-taboo phenomenon in our society. Unfortunately, IT IS WHAT IT IS. Hundreds of mother’s protesting on the steps of the capital building (some withb babies latched on) will not solve the problem. Also, our male dominated society will continue to objectify women’s breasts as purely sexual objects. Once a woman president stands up and advocates public breastfeeding….you are stuck with the ignorance of American Taboo. Personally, any average man should not have a problem with public breastfeeding unless they have an experience like mine below. That was too much.
oops
I meant to say, “UNTIL” a woman president stands up and advocates public breastfeeding….
I will keep my comments as
I will keep my comments as clean yet HONEST as possible. Many of these pro-breastfeeding women feel it is the viewers problem to handle discomfort. They also argue that ALL breastfeeding mothers excercise discretion when feeding in public. NOT TRUE.
When I was a 13 year old boy, I was riding the bus from the mall. In the seat across from me was a mother with a 3 year old child. I will never forget that day because the toddler lifted her shirt exposing BOTH breasts babbling loudly about wanting something. The woman had very large breasts and I got AROUSED!
I had NO IDEA the baby was trying to FEED (sex education at my school did not prepare me for it). I was not a perverted boy. I just got SEXUALLY EXCITED looking at those large nipples and breasts 4 feet in front of me. I tried to look away…but I couldn’t help but look everytime the child started yelling and lifted her shirt. My hormones were raging, and I had HONESTLY HAD NO IDEA why this white lady was giving me such a show on the bus. In my uneducated mind, it was a surreal display erotic body parts in a place I would have never imagined seeing large breasts for the first time.
In my opinion, either mother’s should be required to be a little more discrete with breastfeeding, or PUBLIC breastfeeding should stop. I could not help myself then. Hopefully my comments won’t get deleted because of my honesty. I feel the racial detail of my comment enhances the impact of my experience.
Too many people have not matured past 13
The fact that breastfeeding, even if done discreetly, gets so many people in a tizzy says a lot about this country. The primary evolutionary purpose of women’s breasts is to feed the young. We in this country are so desparate to distinguish ourselves from other animals that we forget that we are mammals.
It would be nice if all public places were like Nordstrom and provided a clean, comfortable place for a woman to nurse her child. Since that is not the case, women who are breastfeeding find it necessary to breastfeed in public. Unless the infant is a newborn, and extra precaution must be taken to ensure the infant is not being smothered, breastfeeding doesn’t involve that much skin being shown.
For those people who have problem with public breastfeeding, regardless of how discrete the mother is being, I say, grow up.
The Breastfeeding Menace ;-)
Anon –
The problem with your pubescent response to the “evil breastfeeding bus rider” had nothing to do with her, but with your parent’s (and society’s) attepts to cover up this activity and make is somehow “bad.” If you’d actually had decent sex education, this would not have been a shock to you — you would have been prepared for it. Ditto your parents, who clearly wanted to avoid the issue. I understand, ‘cause my parents told me NOTHING about sex.
But it certainly isn’t the fault of some woman who is doing one of the most natural things in the world. Now, that’s not to say that you woudn’t have gotten excited. When I was that age, just about anything had that effect….
Finally, let me say this; given the current state of women’s fashion, I’ve been able to view more breasts in the last five years than I have in the past 40 years. One more nipple, more of less, isn’t anything to get wound up about.
Pilt
I agree with Pilt.
This is the guy who posted the bus ride incident. I agree with Pilt.
If our society made it “normal” for public breastfeeding to take place, I would have been educated enough to know that the child was trying to nurse in a natural G-d given way. In that case, seeing breasts in that fashion definately would NOT have affected me the way it did.
On the other hand, I had no “breastfeeding education” or exposure to breastfeeding family members to know why I was getting such a show of partial nudity.
Again, this lady had MORE THAN ENOUGH SKIN showing. Both breasts were ~FULLY exposed. (we were up front, her bench faced me), milk was dripping onto her stomach, it was just too much for me to handle then! I HONESTLY didn’t know what I was looking at. (FYI Pilt, back then, as a 13yr old boy, that was a grrreat bus ride)
Now to the dorky/pervy men that get uncomfortable with “discrete” breastfeeding in public, they need to grow up. As a man, I would not be repulsed or offended (or aroused) by a breastfeeding mother. I have respected them by not staring and feel happy that a new life is in this world.
NOTE OF HUMOR: My mother actually started teaching the benifits of breastfeeding at a WIC clinic last year. If she knew what happened back then, she would be upset….at the mother and I.
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