The whole breastfeeding issue just seems to be another example of women’s bodies being turned into a battleground. As the bearers of the next generation, their bodies and choices never seem to be entirely their own. How and when their bodies in general are exposed, to what use they’re put, is put up to public, rancorous debate throughout the world, as near as I can tell. To some, any exposure is distasteful. To others, only if that exposure is not titillating is it distasteful. The attitude of being angry at a woman because her body isn’t arousing is disturbingly common, and I see it being brought up pretty often in these sorts of discussion. How grotesque a milk-swollen breast is will, nine times out of ten, pop up at some point, as if the relative attractiveness of a body part is actually relevant. Should ugly people wear veils, then, so as not to offend with pock-marked faces?
The breast is designed not for titillation, but for feeding infants. If it’s exposed (generally briefly) in the pursuit of feeding an infant, then so be it. As others have said, if it is inappropriate to breastfeed, then it must also be a) inappropriate to have an infant there and/or b) inappropriate to eat there. A bathroom is the most inappropriate place to eat that I can imagine, and should therefore be the absolute last resort of places to nurse an infant in my mind. A Broadway show is probably not a very good place for an infant either. A small child, possibly, but most can’t sit still that long until they’re two or older. It’s the parents’ responsibility to decide whether or not their child can handle it. If your two year old is likely to whine for breastfeeding an hour into a stage production, your two year old probably isn’t ready for Broadway.
On the flip side, of course, a woman’s body is her own. What she does with it is her choice. In the midst of debating breastfeeding, it’s perfectly appropriate for people to bring up whether or not they think it’s superior to bottle-feeding. In the midst of every day life, it’s entirely inappropriate. I have to cringe every time my mother (a Certified Professional Midwife) feels the need to proselytize to one of my pregnant friends on the topics of home-birth or breastfeeding. A woman’s choices are a woman’s choices–her reasons for using a bottle or breastfeeding do not require any justification. If a woman is on a plane, or in Starbuck’s, or in the park and is breastfeeding or bottle-feeding, absolutely no one should question her. Judge privately if you like, but as long as women are the primary caregivers of infants and as long as infants are allowed in public places it’s nobody else’s damn business…in my humble opinion, of course.
Though I agree with the thrust of your argument, I must take issue with the bolded sentence. Who, exactly, “designed” the human teat? No one, I would say, because it is not designed at all; it is the result of evolutionary processes, and likely its large size (relative to other primates) arose at least in part because our male ancestors found that size stimulating. (Yes, I know there are other explanations. My point is that the arousing sexual desire, though hardly the teat’s essential function, IS a function; the fact that it is uncivilized to indulge that impulse without restraint does not make the impulse unnatural or illegitimate.
Which is not to say that I won’t kick your ass for leerng at my little sister’s boobular region when she’s asked you not to.
Poor wording on my part, but since this has been brought up… What of other sexually titillating traits of women’s bodies? Full, red lips, perhaps? That, too, has been suggested to be the result of sexual selection. Or how about shapely legs? The ratio of hips to waist? The thought process that would advocate breasts shouldn’t be uncovered for a common function because of their sexual associations is the same behind covering women’s bodies entirely.
It’s true that breasts are more sexually charged in our culture than, say, the belly button, but only because they’re normally covered. Go back in time to when plunging décolletage was common and skirts went to the floor, and suddenly the glimpse of a bit of leg is more sexually charged than staring at cleavage could ever be. Were breastfeeding more common in American culture, I think it would lose a lot of its mystique. Breasts would still be seen as sexually attractive–as many other aspects of female bodies are–but in context. Not in the Victorian, pearl grasping Nipplegate way.
I’m not letting this one slip by–eating in a theatre is definitely inappropriate. Unwrapping, chomping, chewing, all make noises and smells that are very distracting to both the audience and the actors. Remember, those are live people on stage trying to do a job.
If you can’t sit in a theatre for 2 1/2 hours without eating, stay home.
The other issue with church – or any sort of trying to schedule the baby’s feeding – is that, inevitably, the baby will thwart your plans. Our church service is at 11am, and we leave our house at 10:30 to get there. My son used to eat about every 3 hours. Invariably, he would be hungry at 8:30 or 9:00am, and then would be fine and wanting to play/sleep/whatever until he was hungry again, which was always right in the middle of church. And there’s only so much you can do to put off a hungry 3-month-old. Now that he’s older, he can go longer between meals and he’s more distractable if I just want him to hang on a little longer.
That said, I usually take my little guy out to the narthex or something if he’s hungry during church, for a few reasons. One, he’s kind of a noisy eater, and always has been. Two, he’s one of those on-and-off eaters, and it’s a PITA to be sitting next to people and have to worry about flashing them because Mr. Busy wants to hang out upside down in between “bites.” Three, that whole upside-down thing… I don’t want him conking his head on the pew in front of us! But the biggest thing is that it takes a little bit to get everything situated for breastfeeding, and I don’t want him disturbing my fellow worshipers in that time, which would also draw attention to us, etc. (We have a round sanctuary, so people sitting on the other side are looking right at us).
This is just my experience with my son. We love bringing him to church, because he loves the music and there are a lot of other babies now, and we all hang out together in the narthex for a large chunk of the service. I don’t always like missing the actual service, but for us church is probably more about the community than the ceremony, and we get plenty of that while the babies try to steal each other’s pacifiers during the sermon.
ETA: A theatre is definitely inappropriate, because – as many have said – it’s a place an infant shouldn’t be in the first place. We’ve had to forgo a number of performances because we couldn’t find a babysitter, and that’s just the way it goes when you have kids.
This discussion about church is cracking me up. At my daughter’s baptism, she decided to start crying right about at the time the priest was getting up to give the homily. She cried and cried, and he talked louder and louder. We were in the front row, of course, and I didn’t know what to do. She wouldn’t take a pacifier, she wasn’t on bottles yet, and I desperately just wanted to nurse her to shut her up. But, of course, I didn’t. I was about to just get up and leave (which I really didn’t want to do, considering it was her baptism, you know?), when she just stopped, thank goodness. I was a little more savvy and prepared with my second baby (he liked the pacifier, which helped a lot.) So, no, I wouldn’t breastfeed in church, but I’ve never been back with a baby without bringing a bottle. No matter how full you think they are, they get hungry at the most unexpected and inopportune moments.
Since I have no problem with public breastfeeding in any venue where infants are appropriate, I have nothing to argue with you about. Besides, I owe you one from the unicorn thread.
And neither of us are Catholic any longer. I’d breastfeed in the crying room of my Unitarian Church (I’d breastfeed in the crying room of a Catholic Church) - or if one wasn’t available, in church itself - its a different atmosphere. My Catholic church was formal and stuffy to an extreme, and whipping out a breast there would have probably caused little old ladies to faint and knock themselves out on those holders the missals were in. Better to not go to church with a breastfeeding infant at all than risk that - the priest would have happily dropped communion by if it were that important.
(Well, actually, I wouldn’t - my daughter would never breastfeed with any distractions - so we never did public breastfeeding - tried a few times. But she was absolutely convinced she needed to be in a quiet space to eat. Surprisingly, the delay between her “I’m hungry” wails and me finding a mother’s room in the mall didn’t do her any permenant damage - or who knows, maybe that’s why she is stubborn and disorganized. And we just learned not to go out to eat for those months - when we did, the quiet place was back in the car - which wasn’t really the best spot either).
(We just built a new sancutary in my Unitarian church - and got our first crying room. And apparently the discussions, even among the liberal hippies in my Unitarian congregation were around providing a place for children and mothers so maximize comfort for everyone - parents and members of the church who wanted to listen to our minister and weren’t charmed by someone else’s children.)
Does a crying room provide one with a view and way to listen to the sermon? ‘Cause I think that would be an awesome compromise. I don’t want to defend a woman’s right to feed her baby to the *exclusion *of others’ comfort and ability to gain spiritual whatevers, but I also don’t want to tell her she can’t get *her *spiritual comfort and whatevers met, you know? It’s not quite the same ballgame as foregoing the theater for a year.
WhyNot - the cry rooms in the Catholic churches I’ve been in usually have large (double-paned for sound-proofing) windows and a speaker, as well as hymnals and missalettes. And more comfortable seating, and a few toys to keep the toddlers busy. Some Masses will have a child-care providor available if you want to drop you child off, or you can sit in there with your kid.
Usually they have a glass front and a set of speakers. They are much less common here in the Netherlands, possibly because of the culture which is famously tolerant-of-children but also possibly because of architectural strictures --the pervasive agedness of the buildings tends to limit what you can do in the way of building on, lol.
That sounds pretty good. There’s a bit of the separate-but-equal vibe going on which reminds me of Orthodox Jews and Muslims and excluding women during prayer, but I have to remind myself that not all religions are about sharing yourself and your space with other groovy people.
What bothers me most about this is how close together everyone sits in a theater. If I can reach out and touch you, and I don’t have the option to move somewhere else (as in a theater or on an airplane), you shouldn’t be breastfeeding. I’m fine with feeding in public, but I think that in such close (and constrained) quarters it is rude. Maybe if you had a seat on the aisle I’d feel a little better. What is rude about this behavior is that the other theatergoers had no recourse - it’s not like they could go somewhere else if it was bothering them.
Of course, I recognize I’m a bit strange - the sight of breastfeeding doesn’t bother me, but the sound does…some babies are noisy! All those snorting, smacking sounds… ::shudder::
Lots of daddies end up in the cry room, too. It’s not just for nursing mothers! My church, being an old one, doesn’t have an official cry room, but the ushers will let you in their little room if you need to (you can’t see, but they have the audio piped in). My husband and I take turns bringing the kids in there when need be. Truthfully, there are usually more toddlers in there who just can’t sit still than there are crying babies.
Was the baby quiet? If so, then it’s no one’s business. I’m actually happy to see fearless women nursing their babies. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. In such close quarters, I think it would have been appropriate for her to bring a nursing cloth to drape over, but I just don’t think it’s something people should be offended at or outraged by. She’s nursing a baby, it’s not like she’s treating her yeast infection or piercing her nipples.
As has already been addressed, it likely can’t wait–but aside from the feeding issue, nursing helps keep the ear pressure equalized, and keeps the baby quiet, content, and sleepy. If she hadn’t nursed, you might have spent the entire flight next to a painful, shrieking infant instead of a quiet and content one. I much prefer the latter.
I’m a strong proponent of acknowledging the fact that there are places where infants (and toddlers, and ten year olds, and sixteen year olds) simply do not belong, for reasons of both their own well-being and the comfort of the adults who went to those places reasonably expecting them to be child-free.* As a parent myself, I tend to be of the opinion that if I payed a babysitter to take *my * kid off my hands for a few hours so I could enjoy an adult evening in an adult venue, I’m not interested in listening to *your * kid while I’m there.
That said, I’ll take a nursing baby over a screaming baby any time, and the last I checked, there is no constitutional right to never be made uncomfortable. If you think breastfeeding is “gross”, well tough. I think Axe is gross, but the world is awash in it, and with far less justification.
*Bars, for instance. Do not take your baby to the freakin’ bar, okay? Just. Don’t.
I don’t always like missing the actual service, but for us church is probably more about the community than the ceremony, and we get plenty of that while the babies try to steal each other’s pacifiers during the sermon. 