I don't blame the mother. Breast feeding is natural and should be accepted as long as a reasonable amount of modesty is practiced. I think it is ironic that a beach which is probably the most immodest place on earth outside of a strip club would become the site of a breastfeeding contraversy. I personally believe that the move away from breast feeding and towards a non-parent culture was one of the first steps towards the increasingly the increasingly vain and selfish generations we see today.
PING!!!
After having been to countless rock concerts and being harrassed by security for having (gasp) a camera (while surrounded by dozens of kids smoking dope -- an illicit drug -- in open view), I can see how this sort of lunacy gets started.
Bravo! Only I think you reversed the cause and effect: first, a certain generation became selfish and then the move towards a non-parent, non-breastfeeeding, non-marriage --- non everything --- occurred.
That generation was what their offspring now calls the "Greatest Generation." These are the people who grew up and went through the Great Depression, which developed an understandable longing for material things they did not have. The same people fought in WWII and, having come back victorious, were not going to listen to anybody objecting to their choices: they were heros, they saved the world, and nobody was going to question their choices.
And nobody did. Nobody questioned when they moved out of the cities into the 'burbs in the 1950s. Nobody questioned when homeownership was declared American Dream (what an insult: from Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death to... two bedrooms in the suburbs; but nobody questioned poor heroes who had it hard and DESERVE all the material possessions they could get their hands on). Nobody questioned when they started to ship their elderly parents (who tended to stay beind in the cities) to nursing homes: poor heroes that saved us from fascism simply could not find time, for the first time in American history, for their parents; and they just did not have room, you see, in the suburban homes.
Naturally, lacking a moral compass themselves, members of the "Greatest" generation raised the most egotistic and amoral (and often immoral) offspring. That offspring exploded in the '60 with mass destruction of America stood for: education, marriage, child-rearing,patriotism, even basic respect to the public...
Yes, that generation fought in the war. So did our heroes of the Revolutionary War and WWI but they did not, upon coming back, destroyed our culture. The "Greatest" generation has raised the most egotistic children America has ever had. Together, in two generations, they destroyed thevery foundations of American culture.
Are you surprised at the reaction to breastfeeding? The me-centered, infantile culture is all around us, Witness grey-haired Jay Leno telling penis jokes every night --- jokes that boys yused to stop telling beyond middle school. Witness infantile preoccupation with bodily functions --- on TV, in magazines, in the jokes people tell each other.
Look at the members of this board, self-proclaimed conservatives. Look at the reaction to this story. Most of the male posters, apparently focused on touching them so much, as Jay Lenos urge them every day, that they forgot what woman's breasts are for. It is absolutely ridiculous that in this culture, G-d's miracle of birth and motherhood is found offensive --- by supposedly conservative FReepers no less.
Regards,
EP
I wonder how many of the women on that beach were ticketed for wearing a thong. I have more of a problem seeing someone's bottom, than seeing a breast. And I am a woman.
Right on, Ma!
So is a man urinating.
Are you comfortable with men urinating in public as long as they show a "reasonable amount of modesty"?
The move to bottle feeding was in the VICTORIAN ERA. That's about six generations ago.