Posted on 01/27/2006 6:21:40 AM PST by Ellesu
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - The lifeguards find bare breasts distracting.
It's News that Dares to be News! Click here for more Bizarre Bazaar. That's one of the reasons officials at the Ann Arbor, Michigan, Y-M-C-A say they've banned breast-feeding at the pool. But nursing moms counter that's no excuse. The breast-feeding mothers plan a nurse-in at the Y tomorrow to protest the ban. However, Krista Dragun, one of the protest organizers, says they'll be nursing their babies in the lobby, not the pool area.
She says they want the Y to adopt a more mother-baby friendly policy for the pool. Y officials note there's no eating or drinking allowed at the pool for anyone. But they add mothers are welcome to nurse their babies in other areas of the facility.
Actually, it is my business, because the light photons that often bounce off of the fat, rotund bodies of large women unfortunately find their way into my eyeballs, causing my stomach to feel nauseated.
Second, it's not that I want to look at some "hot babe" breast feeding. It's not that she is there for me to watch. It has to do with the fact that there might be a chance situation where I would accidently turn my head towards her direction and see what she's doing. If it happened to be an attractive woman, I would be fine, in fact, my mood might improve, causing me to think of how beautiful this world is.
On the other hand, if I see some fat, unhealthy woman breastfeeding while eating some McDonalds, I would probably think of how people should be required to get a license before reproducing.
I have a month-old child who is being breastfed by his mother, and I can tell you it is decidedly not all about the mother or what she wants. It is all about the child. Babies do not always get hungry at the most opportune times.
lol
My information from the large-breasted and large-bodied women I know is that breastfeeding is very difficult, and they always give up. I've never seen a really large woman breastfeeding. Not saying it doesn't happen, but I imagine that most are embarrassed and would not do so in public. Otherwise, they are more than happy to bottlefeed. I wonder if bottlefeeding babies is prohibited at the pool.
Eating is eating.
It might be a stupid rule to you, but if you don't allow anyone else to eat or drink in the pool area, then that should include babies as well. You don't do for one what you can't do for all. When you bend the rules to accommodate one group, another group will make demands of their own, and it will go on and on. Many breast feeding women substitute a bottle when they are out in public. Not all woman feel the need to advertise that they nurse.
"On the other hand, if I see some fat, unhealthy woman breastfeeding while eating some McDonalds, I would probably think of how people should be required to get a license before reproducing.
"
I've nursed eight. I know all about inopportune timing of newborns. Personally, I was not in any condition to go swimming in the first four to six weeks postpartum. After that point, baby's schedule is more easily predicted. And it is not difficult to find another place to nurse.
Is it just me or does anyone else find it difficult to believe that lifeguards are more distracted by recently pregnant 30 somethings than they are by hot little teenaged chicks running around in bikinis? Does anyone here really believe this claptrap?
"Is it just me or does anyone else find it difficult to believe that lifeguards are more distracted by recently pregnant 30 somethings than they are by hot little teenaged chicks running around in bikinis? Does anyone here really believe this claptrap?"
I've always been a pro-breastfeeding poster on these threads. However, I do not have a problem in this particular instance. I have seen some obnoxious nursers in the last year. Some of them do not know the meaning of discreet. And I can understand how a young, horny teenager might feel distracted. And these women were not fat, ugly, 40-year-old saggin' to the floor types. They were doctors' wives (trophy wives) who would like nothing better than for some male to be distracted by them. But that's another story. lol
GREAT photo.
There is a movement afoot to breastfeed in a defiantly public manner. Seriously. Do a google on militant breastfeeders. They are the same sort that advocates for the "family bed." Don't google that one unless you want to barf.
I think I'll pass. lol
I don't argue against breast-feeding as breastfeeding is the best way to feed your baby but this PRIVATE business, the YMCA, does not want it going on in their pool area and have decided to stop it. That is their right to do so and their choice! These mothers who breast-feed need to just make the extra effort to go somewhere else to feed their babies.
Why is that such a problem???
All because they were allowed to take the "M" out of YMCA.
Amen, Sister...
Maybe they have other young children who are swimming and don't want to leave *them* unattended while feeding an infant.
So let the poor innocent baby starve so your senses aren't assaulted. How mature of you.
Hey, if the mother is overweight, we can automatically determine that the baby may have the same genetics which might tilt his scale towards obesity in the future. Perhaps the last thing the baby needs to do is eat. I've seen plenty of fat children, and I find it horrible that a parent doesn't have the common sense to put his/her child on a diet/controlled intake program.
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