Breastfeeding in public- Are you OK with it?

In My Humble Opinion
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Wunky- I’m a middle class professional in my late 20s, earning a good wage.
I know which fork to use in a restaurant, how to address formal letters and even that the correct way to eat asparagus is with your fingers.

I’ll still whip a boob out if the baby needs fed (as discreetly as possible).

Breastfeeding is not like clipping your toenails, spitting or any other unpleasant bodily function best carried out in privacy. It is feeding an infant, and it isn’t trashy or common or skanky (which are just other ways of saying gauche) not to feel the need to run away and hide to do it.

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Looking at Wunky’s other posts he’s made recently, he seems to have…somewhat of an agenda.

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Hey, if that’s the way your social circle works and it works for everyone, that’s your (and their) business. However…

I really wouldn’t equate breastfeeding with personal hygeine and sex (with oneself or others). First, as noted above, you are feeding someone, not diddling yourself or potentially leaving bits of toenails about. Second, if women were relegated always to side rooms when they nursed, especially during the first part of a child’s life, they’d probably spend the vast majority of their time alone, which is not exactly conducive to emotional health right after you’ve had a baby, especially when you’re probably more sleep deprived than you’ve ever been in your life and vulnerable to post-partum depression.

And bjbrashier, I’m sorry if I came down really hard on your comment. I didn’t intend to blast you, but it did touch a nerve. I can only speak for myself, but I have noticed a stunning lack of support for breastfeeding women, particularly from groups like LLL, which are ostensibly designed specifically to provide support. Since nursing is no longer culturally ingrained, it’s hard to regain ground, even with scientific support. So many people still consider nursing gross, so I don’t think it’s surprising that many women feel compelled to hide it and as a result never receive valuable education that comes with simply watching other women do it. Groups that actually provide meaningful, non-judgmental support are worth their weight in gold, but, because of the very personal nature of breastfeeding and somewhat controversial nature (why it’s controversial I don’t know, but so are many choices regarding parenting, even down to where the kid sleeps and pacifier use), many women are afraid to seek them out. Most women who have children (can’t remember the statistic, but it’s well over half) fully intend to breastfeed, but I think less than 10% continue until even the 6th month and if I recall correctly, the most common reasons for stopping is discomfort (pain) or lack of education (can’t figure out how to do it well).

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I’d just like to say that my experience with La Leche, personally, is nothing like the nazi image I’ve read about here and elsewhere. I’m not arguing that it exists. But I would like to say that good, supportive “take what you want and leave the rest” groups DO exist! Group members were even willing to help me over the telephone. I called them when I was pregnant the first time for advice on buying a nursing bra, for example. Sweet, wonderful women.

When I went to meetings, everyone was sunny, helpful and supportive. I eventually quit going when I got it down, and could nurse with confidence with subsequent children. It’s great to go to meetings even before you have the baby just to get a look at what a nursing mom looks like. Like overlyverbose just said, since it’s not really the cultural norm, it pays to seek out someone who can just sit around and show you what it’s like.

And FWIW, I frequently tell pregnant moms to ask me anything they’d like about nursing. LLL gets such a bad rap I’m afraid they’ll give up before trying. I like to think I, at least, am approachable. :slight_smile:

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I am glad you said this because I found your statement incredibly offensive (so much so that I contemplated a Pit thread, but decided to sleep on it and I’m glad I did).

I literally saw red – and I am not a mother, I never plan to be a mother, and babies repulse me. I have seen my friends go through the feeling of “i’m not good enough/I’m a failure” because supply is too low/serious illness/can’t pump at work/etc as described above. It is heartbreaking for them and people coming along to say how if only they weren’t so selfish they would breastfeed a whole year… doesn’t help… and yes they hear it all the time.

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Pumping didn’t work for me (I’d get about 2 ozs after 20 minutes); saw lactation consultants, nurses and nothing helped. I was just told that some women don’t pump very well and I was one of them. I couldn’t work and pump the 8-12 times a day that they recommended (while pumping in the bathroom!). Well I guess I could have but I’d probably have lost my job. Also, if you spend ~4 hours a day pumping then when do you get to spend time with your child?

With both of my children, my breastfeeding diminished quickly after going back to work because of low milk supply.
I know many, many women who have amazing amounts of milk from pumping…I’m not one of them.

If folks strongly believe in breastfeeding then they need to realize that it’s more than just about a mother’s personal choice. The maternity leave policies in the US (unpaid at that!) are fairly short and don’t provide that much time. Workplace policies are also not very good.

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I have no problem with seeing breastfeeding of children of any age. ‘Discretion’ (which seems to mean hiding yourself in a private area or physically covering your boobs and the kid’s head) is not important to me and I don’t intend to practice it when I’m feeding my future children. Anyone who tries to tell me how to do it ‘right’ will get an earful. I already get really angry at people who are offended by breastfeeding and who try to tell women how/where to feed their baby, or talk behind her back about what they feel would be more appropriate.

The oldest children I have seen breastfed (in the privacy of their own home) were 7-8 years old. IME many Americans think breastfeeding past 6 months is ‘weird’. Personally, it starts to be a little out there once the kid’s 3-4, but it’s a personal choice. I’ve know a ton of very late breastfeeders and they all turned into normal kids and adults.

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(my bold)

Cultural norms, and all that … but … ummm … EIGHT YEARS OLD?!? That’s, what, third grade? Unless there are extremely extenuating circumstances (and I can’t think off hand what one would be) I would think that would be psychologically … confusing, no? Especially if breast-feeding boys? A lot of the guys I’ve talked with have said that they remember having clear sexual feelings about girls even way back in elementary school. Having those feelings AND being breastfed seems like it would seriously cross some wires.

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Live and let live and all, but… that’s sure as hell not about meeting a nutritional need, and frankly at that age a child should have been taught more appropriate ways of meeting their emotional needs.

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I’m going to go with no.

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Eh, it and others were harsh, but all that really said to me was that I’d stepped on people’s toes, and hard. Then I reread my message and realized that I was way out of line, saying something I hadn’t intended. I’m as prone to making Stupid Internet Mistakes ™ (not to mention having just plain wrong ideas) as anyone, but I like to think I’m at least pretty good about owning up to it.

If someone is trying to breastfeed and can’t for actual reasons, obviously they can’t and there are actual reasons. Berating someone for something they can’t control is beyond stupid and into cruel. I personally haven’t seen real reasons often, and what I have seen is people saying something more like ‘it’s just too weird’ or ‘it’s just time to move on’. I do know of a couple of cases, though, and I would never have spoken down to those people for doing the best that they were able and using the best alternatives they could find.

I will step, however, back into politically incorrect territory for just a moment, and say that I think raising children is HARD, and not something anyone can really do as a hobby, at least not without serious effects on the child. As such, if two people are holding 2 jobs AND raising a child, that’s 3 jobs between 2 people. I’m of the opinion that one parent should stay home. During breastfeeding ages it makes more sense for it to be the woman. It’s hard to mix business and children, and all the amenities in the world won’t make it easy – just easiER. Breastfeeding in public is less of an issue when the woman isn’t forced into public as often by having a job, and can go only when she chooses to.

As a man, in high school, choosing where to go to college and what to study, I thought of this exact thing and decided that if I wanted children, I needed to either choose a career that would allow my partner to stay home, or choose a wife that brought in enough money to support a family on her own (and who still wanted kids). Not seeing the 2nd as a likely option, I thought it was MY job to make sure my wife would be able to make a choice, and not HAVE to do both. Once I got married, I have always let my wife know that if she chose to work, I would support her, but that it was not required. She tried a few jobs early in our marriage and has chosen not to go back, especially after kids.

I don’t feel by any stretch that men are better at business or even at any specific jobs. But I do think men and women have differences, and it seems silly not to play to our strengths.

Men’s strengths seem to be primarily in the area of sticking our feet into our mouths. I feel that I’m especially capable in this area.

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Neither choosing to work nor choosing not to nurse indicates that one considers parenting a “hobby”.

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I’ve never seen any evidence, anecdotal or scientific, that late breastfeeding (which is all about comfort) gives kids a single issue. If it’s not harmful then how is there any ‘should’ about it? How can you prove it’s better to use say, a blankie or other comfort object, or thumbsucking, for emotional/physical comfort rather than your mom’s boob?

Confusing? Why? The vast majority of little boys don’t get sexually ‘confused’ or aroused at any age by sitting on their mom’s lap, being kissed by her, resting their head on her bosom, spooning/cuddling with her, or seeing her naked. However boys and men usually find any other woman doing those same things VERY sexy. How is breastfeeding for comfort different, or more sexual? It’s just your mom, who has breastfed you all your life.

All the very late breastfeeders (past 5 years old) I’ve known have been girls, FWIW. The ones I mentioned, the latest I’ve ever seen, were a family of 4 girls. I was best friends with the oldest daughter and my mom was good friends with her mom. She breastfed every one of her daughters til they were 6-8 years old, although it was very much just an occasional cuddle/comfort thing (and never in public) for them once they were past 3 and getting most of their calories in solid food.

I know all four girls still and they are normal, happy, and successful with great relationships with their mom, and each other.

Further anecdotes: I have a friend who’s about 45 now and grew up in rural Korea. She says when she was a child her whole family slept in one bed, and she and most other children she knew, boys and girls, were breast-fed to sleep and for comfort during the day by mothers, aunts, and even grandmothers until they were as old as 10 or 11 (once the child was getting close to puberty it was discouraged). Ideas of what’s appropriate here are very much cultural, and like I said there is zero evidence that in countries where extended breastfeeding is practiced that it has any sort of effect, much less a negative one, on the kids.

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Choosing to work does not necessitate that one has considered parenting a hobby, I agree. But it is an indicator.

If you hear that a person has a full-time job as an X, but she also works nights doing Y, would you not be inclined to think that Y is her hobby?

I used the word “hobby” to try to show that raising children is difficult, not to try to say that everyone who has a job must be treating their child poorly. If 2 people are already in a situation where they must have 2 jobs and they then have children, then they must simply juggle 3 jobs. This does not necessarily mean any of them is a hobby. But it’s sure tough.

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By that age, I’d also discourage carrying a blankie around or thumbsucking. I’m of the peculiar mindset that the goal of parenting is to make grownups, which is not something that people magically become when they turn 18. It’s a process, involving important steps like weaning and setting boundaries and otherwise equipping them to engage with the outside world.

I have no problem believing that your friends weren’t harmed by nursing until they were prepubescent, and I’m delighted for them. I just personally wouldn’t be inclined to baby them like that.

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No, I’d think it’s her other job.

You used the word “hobby” to belittle a woman’s choice not to devote the entirety of her life to childrearing. I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt in assuming you didn’t do that consciously, but that’s absolutely what you did.

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DianaG: There’s no fucking way I’d be nursing an 8-year-old, I would find that super-creepy. Around three years old is the latest I can possibly imagine breastfeeding, and I highly doubt I actually will. I don’t see the point of it past toddlerhood, when it’s not providing nutrition. And again speaking personally I don’t plan on encouraging physical comfort objects or extending ‘baby’ behavior any longer than I have to.

But that’s just me and I’m not a parent yet. And as long as the kids seem relatively well-adjusted, I hesitate to think parents ‘should’ be doing (or not doing) things differently. I think little things like this are most often pretty inconsequential when it comes to what kind of adult the child grows into - although preparing them early for independence is definitely a good strategy and might lead to a few less bumps along the road.

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Then you’re due for about a billion tiny little wake-up calls in your future.

Everyone has plans of how it’s gonna be when they have a kid. And then suddenly the kid is here, and even at five minutes old it becomes perfectly evident that they have their own plans that may be in complete conflict with yours.

I thought I was going to be a lot more crunchy-granola than I turned out to be, and I turned out to be the way I am because I followed my daughter’s lead. We thought we’d co-sleep, but it turns out my daughter can’t sleep unless she’s alone in a room. I thought I’d breastfeed her into toddlerhood, but I always had supply issues and she was done with it when she was 11 months old and got used to the sippy cup. She’s just not that kid of kid. She’s the kid who never once cried when I dropped her off at day care. She’s just got this fiercely independent streak that conflicts with my desire to be a nurturing, touchy-feely mom. So I had to be the one to adapt.

Plans mean nothing until you’re living the life. Remember that, and your parenthood, when it happens, will be much more sane.

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Oy, vey. I agree with you that in the situation of two parents working and raising children, there are three jobs to go around, but I’d hardly call any one of them a hobby. Knitting is a hobby. Building model trains is a hobby. Kids? Not a hobby. Not in the slightest.

Unfortunately, many parents don’t have the luxury of having one parent stay at home, even if they’re not keeping up with the Jones’s.

And, yeah, as a mother of two with a full-time job, sometimes it’s absolute hell. And I’ve got it good with two healthy children. But, if we want health insurance, it’s necessary. If we want to retire, it’s necessary. If we want our children to start their adult lives without student loans, it’s necessary. It’s not something I ever planned on doing. When I was younger, I assumed that I’d work until I had kids, stay home with them, then go back to work when they got older. I could never have planned for being unable to get insurance (or having to pay $2,000 in premiums per month on the off chance I could find someone to cover all of us) or for insurance being so necessary in the first place. I also never considered all the expenses associated with owning and maintaining even a modest home and retirement and college fund. Then there’s the impact to your career. If I leave the workforce now, I’ll come back at probably just over half the salary I make now. It took me years to claw my way to this point; I really don’t want to lose all that ground. That’s selfish, I know, but I am happier when I work than when I don’t, and my children deserve a happy mother. Oh, and my job isn’t a hobby.

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Father’s perspective: I agree 100%. I’d like to add that you should still plan, however, just realize that said plans will be wrecked, frequently.

I don’t think that’s selfish. I think a happy mother IS an important thing. Some moms would be happier having more free time, some would be happier working at a job with that time. To each his own. It’s only when trying to have free time AND a job AND children that there must be conflicts. And even then it’s not insurmountable, just difficult.

I have to ask, and I know this is off topic, why is it that people are assuming that I meant that of the 3 jobs, one must necessarily be a hobby? If a full-time job is 8 hrs per day, and there are 24 hrs, 8 for sleep, plus 8 for 1 job, leaves 8 for another. A single person can have 2 jobs. 2 people can have 4. And have all of them be full-time, no “hobby” required. I just think it’s very stressful to have any more than 1 per person (which is why they’re called “full-time” and not “half-of-your-awake-hours-time”), and would choose to avoid it when possible.