Posted on 04/10/2005 7:31:46 PM PDT by NCjim
BREASTS – more specifically, my wife's breasts – have been a contentious issue since we arrived in Washington DC. Everywhere we go they seem to come up – after they come out.
Breastfeeding, that's what this is about. I knew from previous travels here that there was a bit of prudishness about the place but I wasn't prepared for a debate about breastfeeding. I thought that one had been done and dusted.
Our house in Sydney used to be like a dairy when the mothers' group mafia descended on us. All those slurping and burping little bundles, latching on and off in milk-drunk indolence.
And I reckon our little Sofia, at just four months old, has been a leader of the pack.
In our first week here we made our way to a social security office 1km north of the White House. We had to wait the obligatory three hours or so to apply for a social security number, which you need for everything here.
But about 90 minutes into our administrative purgatory all hell broke loose. Sofia woke up, yelling for milk, but my wife Nikki and our son Angus had gone for a walk.
Picture any bureaucratic office where you have to take a number, with 40 or so people waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Now picture me, with a baby screaming at the top of her lungs.
A 185cm-tall female security guard admonished me, saying no one could conduct interviews because of the noise. She asked if I have a "ball" for the baby.
"A ball? Are you kidding? She's four months old – what good is a ball?"
"Pardon me?"
Then it dawned on me that she had said "bottle". I told her, "no, there's no bottle, only my wife's breasts", and that I had already scrambled her via her mobile phone to hurry back.
Soon after, Nikki arrived, sat herself at the back of a long line of chairs and Sofia latched on.
The same security guard then sped across and told my wife she was not allowed to breastfeed in the lobby.
Amid a "hang on, fair go, you said" from me, Nikki and Sofia were spirited away behind a security door and into an empty office, door shut behind them. Be away with you and your unrestrained bosom.
Ever since, we have noticed a bit of snootiness here and there when it comes to breastfeeding. Not all the time, but it's enough to be noticeable. One of our expat friends told us some of her American friends would get up and leave the room when she breastfed.
My mother, a young 70-something, rejoices in the progressiveness of today's mothers in Australia and would regale me of tales in the 1950s when women breastfeeding in public was a no-no.
That view is still alive and well in the US, where the debate has been raging and legislators have had to step in to try to kickstart a culture of acceptance for public breastfeeding.
"It varies from state to state and from community to community," said Audrey Naylor, chairwoman of the US Breastfeeding Committee. "But we have a couple of generations here who didn't breastfeed and we are seeing the results of that."
Like the 1950s Australia my mother described, many oldies here either prefer to see their grandchildren bottle-fed or at least breastfed behind closed doors.
Their views are perhaps best represented by Roxanne Roberts, who set off an almighty brouhaha last August when she wrote in The Washington Post that she objected to one nursing mother's campaign to be able to breastfeed in the Starbucks coffee chain, a campaign that started after a staff member told her she was offending patrons.
"As a former baby snack bar, let me say upfront: I've been there, done that. But not at my neighbourhood coffee bar," Roberts wrote.
"The objection is not with the babies, God bless their mewling little souls. Nor is it with the medical benefits of nursing, or even the legal right to do so.
"It's about the fragile balance of liberty and taste, questions of appropriateness and venue. It's about the slippery and ever-changing slope of social standards.
"Overt public breastfeeding makes lots of people uncomfortable, so this is less about nursing than about imposing a belief system on those who do not share her views.
"It's about who offends whom, for what reasons, in what settings. It's not about rights, per se. It's about taste and prevailing social norms."
Imagine Roberts turning up to any shopping centre in Australia these days. At our local mall on the northern beaches in Sydney there were some mornings you couldn't get a chair in the coffee shop thanks to dairy patrol, God bless 'em.
I'd wager that Roberts is facing a losing battle. About 70 per cent of women in the US start breastfeeding their baby at birth, up from 50per cent a decade ago.
And to reflect this shift from bottle to boob, more than 30 states have enacted legislation preserving the rights of women to breastfeed in public.
It's not that it was illegal to start with, but the politicians are arming women with a law that allows them to push back if someone tells them to stop feeding.
And that's what we'll do next time we're unlucky enough to find ourselves in the social security lobby again.
Dr Naylor said the security guard overstepped the mark. Indeed, Congress passed a right to breastfeed in 1999, which governs all federal buildings and parks.
But I can't help thinking the fact that legislation is needed at all says a lot about how ingrained old-fashioned conservatism is in the US.
My daughter breastfed my grandson, but her paternal grandma, bless her heart, raised all her babies in the "bottled is better" era. One day when we were at her home, my daughter went in the bedroom to nurse the baby. My mother-in-law said, "I just don't understand why she would do that. It just ain't natural." LOL.
>>If she finds it more convenient to just whip out her breast and feed for the world to see, that should be OK as well. <<
If my hubby wants to whip it out and tickle in a cup is that okay too? It's natural.
I can see that the ladies here have much more tact than you.
I wanted to breastfeed sooo badly. HIP prevented it. The ladies here understand the way some people, not just men, can get a kick out of it. Sick people out there. Don't feed them.
I agree about being modest. It seems, though, that some people are offended simply at the *thought of what you are doing, even if there isn't one square inch of anything showing.
Yes conservatism is ingrained in Americans,but fret not,we're becoming increasingly more progressive(or liberal?).I'm sure the ACLU would love to hear about this incident.What about NOW?:)
I think you need to hold more little babies and see how sweet they are! and how happy they are when they're fed.
>>Personally, I preferred the extra cover. The most obnoxious comentators re: breast feeding in public always seemed to be the white teenage gangster boys at the mall. Such eloquent fellows.<<
Amen!
It does exist. You are not allowed by state law to refuse a woman the right to breastfeed in public in Utah.
There's nothing more natural than a man's need to scratch his private parts when they itch. I am mortified by the puritanical prudes who object to a man discreetly whipping out the boys to give them a good going over when needed. What's wrong with these uptight busybodies? Can't they just look away? </sarcasm off
I have never been offended ( or noticed for the most part unless pointed out) by a properly, discreet, and polite concealed feeding of a baby that way. As long as everything is covered up there is no problem.
The only women who must stir up "outrage" must be some kind of rudeness oriented women. They must ring a diner gong or somthing too.
Also, one need not be absolutist on this. It is possible to breastfeed most of the time, but give formula once in a while when it is inconvenient to breastfeed, or Mom's "tapped out."
It seems that there are extreme people on both sides of this issue.
Ah, this brings to mind the comment made by my friend's sister-in-law when someone asked if she was breastfeeding her baby:
"Not me! These are for recreational purposes only!"
I think the problem is in the women who want to emphasise the fact they are breastfeeding. Hard to imagine a woman using that to show off somehow.
Why slap conservatism? It is my view that the conservative, anti-abortion moms are more likely to be the ones breastfeeding and the NARAL/NOW moms(if there are any moms there) are the ones that see nothing wrong with abortiion or watching soft-porn, but are aghast at the social solecism of breastfeeding in public.
I breastfed my three circa 1955-1962 very much againt the norm then. My Catholic grandmother said feeding babies cow's milk was why young women were out "twitching their tails"--i.e. wearing revealing clothes and flirting outrageously. But ,then, she blamed everything bad on FDR and the "durn Russians", too.
Breastfeeding is beautiful, but please ladies, some modesty is in order in public I think.
There ARE perves who will stare and there are prudes who will be horrified. For the most part, it's all good.
Now that's a funny line.
I'm sorry but what is HIP?
I couldn't breast feed my 1st baby because of retained placental fragments. I was sicker than a dog and they placed me on antibiotics. Stopped the breast feedings but probably saved my life.
Second baby I did til I went back to work. It's very easy to be discreet.
Bill Maher posts here? Who'd ever thunk it!
If I see a mom is getting ready to breastfeed, or if I see she's already begun to engage the little one, I just discreetly DON'T WATCH.
Gee whiz.
Pregnancy Induced Hypertension.
I left the hospital with 270/180 BP.
Before and now I am at 120/80.
I was on some major meds which passed into breastmilk.
Idiocy kills. Try to stay alive, won't you?
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