Huh? I assumed you were objecting to the sight of the baby sucking at the nipple.
You are objecting to the sight of the fleshy part of the breast? The part that is exposed on every beach in this country. The part that is purposely flaunted by every starlet on Oscar night? You mean you don’t want to see the cleavage???
>> sigh. I never said to cover up the baby. I mentioned covering up the breast.
If a the sight of the breast of a woman breastfeeding makes you uncomfortable maybe there is something wrong with you and not with the rest of the world and you are the one who should get over it. Attitudes like yours are more harmful to society than anything else. It is pretty sick to be made uncomfortable by that. How prudish can you be? Maybe the USA should run an ad campaign featuring ads like the one I posted so that some would leave the 19th century and at least make it to the 1940s.
ARGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Read the gosh darn post. I don’t care if women run around stark bloody naked. I was speaking for the silent folks. God, please read the whole post before you comment.
Run naked in the streets, throw your breasts around- heck, throw your penis, butt and vagina around too. I do not have a hang up with it.
Some people do and consideration should be given, that is all. If you do not want to do it, then I think it is inconsiderate.
Read my story, do you think what she did was appropriate? If so, we are not in the 21st century, rather 3000 BC.
>> I don’t care if women run around stark bloody naked.
Me neither. I just wish they would not run from me so fast 
>> I was speaking for the silent folks.
I don’t care a bit about them just like I don’t care about those who are offended by couples of mixed race or by men who wear turbans. People who are offended by those things do not deserve my consideration. people who are offended by breastfeeding can go back into their caves and stay there. Sorry.
Mr. Lissa (who, by the way, should really get his own identity), you are speaking in defense of the indefensible. People are NOT entitled to have their every personal whim catered to by everyone else around them. You would have breastfeeding women engage in all sorts of contortions (or stay at home) solely to salve the conscience of a handful of repressed twits. I can’t imagine why you feel the need to stand up for these people.
If you were truly playing devil’s advocate for a silent minority you are not a part of, Mr. Lissa, you wouldn’t be using scornful language like “mammary glands laying out in the open” (mine are nicely tucked away under my skin, thank you), nor would you compare public breastfeeding to not bathing, being abusive to wait staff, farting, or maliciously exposing naked genitals in people’s faces.
And you requested more than courtesy when you said lee should have inconvenienced herself and her hungry baby “out of respect for the comfort” of a hypothetical stranger. I firmly believe that indulging people who are disgusted by the sight of a woman’s bare breast is a step backward in making breastfeeding a socially encouraged activity. If more people became comfortable seeing a breast being used as it is biologically intended, more women would nurse their children and more children would be able to enjoy the advantages of breastfeeding.
For the record, I have been in public three times that I know of when women near me were breastfeeding. I say “that I know of” because in two out of the three cases, I would never have noticed had Mrs. Evil Captor not pointed it out to me (not that she pointed or anything rude like that). In all three cases, there was nothing much to see and it was most decidedly No Big Deal. I don’t know what kind of weird fantasies are going around in people’s heads but really, the whole public breastfeeding thing is such a non-starter as an issue. It’s not very noticeable.
Getting all worked up about public breastfeeding is like getting all worked up about women who wear open-toed sandals in public. I really like looking at women’s breasts, but breastfeeding just doesn’t do it for me, and I can’t imagine it doing for anyone who is normal. It’s just taking care of business.
And I have been in strip clubs, and had a great time there, and it’s not the same thing at all.
Scientifically inaccurate; studies show otherwise. Please see <A HREF=“http://www.health-e-learning.com/breasted_web_articles/JustOneBottle/supplementation_of_the_breastfed.htm”>Supplementing the Breastfed Baby</A>.
But if you can’t be bothered to read it for yourself, let me give it to you in a thimble:
The human infant gut is immature, and permeable to foreign proteins until gut closure occurs at roughly 6 months. The intestinal flora of a baby who has been fed formula <em>even one time</em> will change to resemble that of an adult. Does this predict or doom the child to illness? No. But it’s not what nature intended, and it can certainly have negative consequences. Just one bottle can do it. Literally.
Most babies do all right on formula. This says more about the ability of humans to assimilate available food, than about the food itself. I should correct myself: most babies in Westernised nations do well on formula. The same cannot be said of babies in 3rd world nations with the misfortune to not receive a mother’s milk.
Scientifically inaccurate; studies show otherwise. Please see: http://www.health-e-learning.com/breasted_web_articles/JustOneBottle/supplementation_of_the_breastfed.htm
But if you can’t be bothered to read it for yourself, let me give it to you in a thimble:
The human infant gut is immature, and permeable to foreign proteins until gut closure occurs at roughly 6 months. The intestinal flora of a baby who has been fed formula even one time will change to resemble that of an adult. Does this predict or doom the child to illness? No. But it’s not what nature intended, and it can certainly have negative consequences. Just one bottle can do it. Literally.
Most babies do all right on formula. This says more about the ability of humans to assimilate available food, than about the food itself. I should correct myself: most babies in Westernised nations do well on formula. The same cannot be said of babies in 3rd world nations with the misfortune to not receive a mother’s milk.
I’ve never been able to understand why a child who can ask for what s/he wants, ought to be denied it on that basis alone. Well heck, my kids ask me for fruit, cheese, bread-and-butter, and McNuggets all the time. Should they be refused simply because they can ask?
I nursed my eldest until she was five, tandem-nursing with her younger sister. One of my twins was weaned at 3 1/2 only because my current pregnancy dried up my milk supply. I pumped successfully for the other twin for 21 months until ‘pump resistance’ and dwindling supply made it more effort than it was worth in terms of milk extracted. And this baby, circumstances permitting, will nurse until s/he weans. I figure, they’re little babies, and little children, only once. And they’ll be adults for a very long time. I see no reason to hurry them out of one stage and into the next, but rather to allow them to decide when they’re ready to move on.
If somebody else wants to do it differently, that’s fine with me. I have my reasons for why I’ve chosen my path.
Young people–I’ll never understand 'em. In my day we knwe how to do this sort of thing and I have one word for the couple whose actions started all this: Polaroid.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be concious of the effects of my actions on those around me, and to adjust my behavior accordingly to avoid giving others discomfort. It’s concessions such as these which are the oil which makes the machinery of society run smoothly.
For example, I would not wear my shoes into a someone’s home if asked to remove them, or wear a miniskirt to a conservative church. I don’t swear in front of children. I don’t smoke in a non-smoking section, don’t talk in movie theaters, and I practice moderately good table manners. As a married woman, kissing my husband is perfectly natural, yet I would not “make out” passionately in front of a roomfull of people. All of these are just small things which are considerate of the comfort of those around me.
I do not think that breast-feeding is at all distasteful or shameful. It’s natural and healthy, and should be encouraged. There’s nothing wrong with a naked breast, but there are times and places in which it is not appropriate to display one. Despite the need to feed a baby, I don’t feel it’s appropriate to bare a breast in one of these situations, when there is almost aways a way in which the feeding can be done discreetly.
No one can force another person to be polite. It’s perfectly within a woman’s rights to completely expose her breast in order to feed her child. I just feel that it’s more considerate of others to feed the baby subtlely.
Back to the spotlight-and-lamprey side of the cycle, I see.
Carry on.
How about an update on the case in the OP?
Huh? I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what you’re saying.
I have a bitchster-in-law in North Richlands Hills too. The kids are coming here for a visit soon, can I request it be nuked then while their mother is there and they are here?
“We were in a nice sit down restauraunt. A woman had multiple children around her that she did nothing to control, by the way. A child, about 2, said they wanted “titty”. Mom whipped open her shirt , exposed her breast (fully) and the kid leaned across the table and started feeding. Then, a three year old said I want “titty” too. She exposed the second breast and let the other one lean across the table. Both children had solid food in front of them. The woman sat there, whole front exposed with two children sucking on her breasts in the middle of a restauraunt. I find that alittle objectionable. If you do not agree, sorry.”
I watch friends breastfeed all the time so I’m used to it, but this personally would have turned my stomach and put me off my food, whereas a baby on a lap wouldn’t. I agree I find this woman’s behaviour unacceptable in public. One of my friends breastfed her son until he was 5 - I’m trying to be reasonable but when a kid walks up and politely requests for a feed in very articulate English, something inside me goes ‘bluergh’.
I’m open to reasons why I have this reaction but doesn’t anyone else have the same?
That being said, in NZ, most people (self included) wouldn’t bat an eye at a baby breastfeeding in public - we tend to see the American problem with it as a hangover from puritan days.
So, a loving mother cannot breastfeed her children… allright, now it´s official, the world is going nuts… see you at the apocalyse…
Wait, so feeding from a bottle is easier for the child but using the tried-and-true tits are better? What am I missing? Besides how to use clever alliteration?
I regret to inform you that, judging from some of the responses in this thread, consideration for others is apparently dead and has been replaced by “It’s my right, so screw you.” Hey, if that’s the kind of world people want to live in, go right ahead…