I've breast-fed three (including twins!) and I have the same attitude. I never once found it necessary to breast-feed in public. And I took my babies everywhere with me. Some people just don't care that they offend people. It's the attitude of the "me generation".
Hey Mabel, is MLC your sister by chance? ;)
Good for you, MLC. I was starting to think it was absolutely impossible to do anything but breast-feed on demand, the way this thread is tending.
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I've breast-fed three (including twins!) and I have the same attitude. I never once found it necessary to breast-feed in public. And I took my babies everywhere with me. Some people just don't care that they offend people. It's the attitude of the "me generation".
I have a one-year-old son. His mother is normally very discreet, but after the baby was born her attitude was that his needs come first. She didn't breast-feed in public too often, but any sense of shame about breast-feeding in front of family members seemed to greatly diminish. I don't think that taking care of the not-entirely-predictable needs of a small baby amounts to selfishness. Sometimes people are too easily offended.
Not long before my son was born I sat next to a woman on a plane who had a baby with her. Before we took off I commented (stupidly) that babies don't seem to like the air pressure change when planes take off and that it helps if they have something to drink. This woman responded, "Don't worry, that's all taken care of." Naturally when the plane took off she started to breast feed the baby. I was not offended (and I didn't think she was being selfish) but I arranged to sit elsewhere to give her some space.
As for the "me generation", on another flight I sat next to a woman who had been a stewardess in the 1960's and she told me a lot of interesting and funny stories about this time. I mentioned the incident of the breast-feeding mother to her and she recalled a time in the 60's when she had to ask a breast-feeding passenger to be more discreet and to keep her large breasts out of the aisle.
An infant's right to be fed when hungry supercedes anyone else's "right" to not be offended.