Should women be allowed to breastfeed in public areas?

Yes

1 of 105

by Heather Kelley

Write now Print Invite a writer™ Add to Favorites RSS Feed Contact this writer

At first, the idea seems ludicrous - a bit scary, even. "To breastfeed a baby in public? Unheard of! Absurd! To breastfeed a baby in public? Unthinkable!" is the determined cry of countless parents (and quite a few more un-parents) across the nation.

You sweat a little, just thinking about it. Can you really do it? Do you even WANT to?

You put the idea aside, tucking it away in that convenient back corner of your brain's filing cabinet, where you won't even have to think about it. But then the Big Day arrives. The moment of reckoning occurs. It's all or nothing.

It happens this way, usually: you're out, in public, with your sweet little one. S/he is all smiles (or serious but calm, depending on your wee bairn's personality), and then the darling starts to fuss.

"Maybe it's time for a diaper change," you think nervously (and hopefully, to your chagrin). But then you do the Sniff Test and it comes up clean. Unfortunately for you, your small bundle is STILL continuing to fuss. Squirm. And...oh, no. Root.

If you're a formula-supplementin g mom, you've got no problem (sort of). Wip out the bottle, the powder, the water, mix it all together, and enjoy the blissful stares of passers-by who are touched beyond words by the completely non-threatening and unoffensive sight of a mother bottle-feeding her hungry babe.

But if you're an exclusively breastfeeding mama, you've got a problem. A big one. And s/he (or they) is starting to kick up a big old ruckus in the middle of a crowded mall (fill in the blank for "any public place," but crowded mall is simply for the sake of example).

And...dang, darn, and completely consarn that scientifically documented condition known as "momnesia"...you forgot to bring a blanket for that slim just-in-case. It's roasting outside, for Pete's sake (again, for the sake of example). Junior gets hot and sweaty enough as it is without being confined beneath a blanket (even a thin one). You just didn't think clearly enough about it to remember. It slipped your mind.

Now, The Quiz runs through your panicked mom-brain. Should you, you wonder:

a) Run all the way out to the car so you can be "in private," albeit in an even more hot and sweaty place, where strangers could possibly walk by and spot you through the windows (if said windows are without tint),

b) Run into the bathroom for the same reason, knowing that at least it's (usually) air-conditioned in there, hoping they have a sort of mother's lounge-but if they don't, you cram you, your babe, your ginormous diaper bag, and your wounded pride into a dingy little stall, where you wrestle with babe, diaper bag, wounded pride, and those annoying-as-hell toilet seat covers (so that you don't get germs on the seat of your pants),

c) Wip It out while sitting on a bench. In front of all these people. With no blanket.

Now, if you're a first-timer, the usual first reaction in a dire situation like this is to dash into the nearest "private" place (i.e. car or bathroom, whichever happens to be closest). Experience will teach you not to use the car, if at all possible, for reasons explained above (although experience also teaches you that nobody actually notices you nursing through a car window-but it DOES get mighty hot in there without A/C-and sometimes even with it). Experience will then also teach you that neither is the bathroom (sans a convenient mother's lounge, that is) an ideal place to feed and bond with your wiggling child; the cramped accomodations (which, too, even in the cleanest bathrooms, could be crawling with germs) just don't make for very enjoyable nursing-for you or your little bean.

So then, after learning from your "mistakes," you make it a point to always bring a blanket-sure, it's tough, trying to discreetly wip It out WHILE struggling with a hungry babe AND covering the both of you with a Hooter Hider at the same time-but hey, despite the weird looks, at least you're modest. Right?

The time comes, however (and it almost always does, but yours truly will NOT insert an evil laugh here despite mighty temptation), when you DO forget. You rifle through that ginormous diaper bag of yours. A bead of cold sweat forms on your brow. You keep looking-even though you already know what you're not going to find. The blanket lies abandoned on the arm of your couch at home, or is lovingly crumpled in a corner of your darling's crib, or-yeah, you get the picture.

Bathroom? you think tiredly. Maybe not this time.(Too, if Junior's a little older-say, the 8-months-and-up range-you might already have experienced the total embarrassment of him/her violently reaching up with a chubby little hand and determinedly pulling the blanket OFF of the both of you while nursing in a very public area-ergo, your decision to nurse in public without may be a simple matter of Not Wanting To Deal With It.)

Compelled by necessity (the all-powerful mother of both invention AND, may I add, some pretty gnarly risking of ego), you Look Both Ways to make sure no one is watching you too closely, sneak your little one up to your still-covered breast, and-with reflexes you never quite knew you possessed, until this magical moment-wip It out of your shirt into your child's open, searching mouth.

A moment passes.

You look down. And then you look around.

A stunning realization comes over you. Your baby's head is covering nearly every inch of exposed boob-flesh. You never really thought about that before. A few arm maneuvers (and perhaps some clever conniving with GDB - Ginormous Diaper Bag) cover up any remaining skin. (Hopefully, you were clear-headed enough to pull/unbutton your shirt up from the bottom rather than down from the top-and that, my dear, as every proficient mom-who-nurses-in-pu blic will tell you, is the Main Secret.)

You've just entered a new zone. Feelings at this point tend to differ quite a bit. Some mamas feel triumphant-calm, cool, collected. Others are uber-paranoid, checking every nano-second to make sure no skin is showing! Still others smile weakly at any passers-by who happen to stare, and shrug helplessly, uttering a nervous, high-pitched laugh that makes them sound a little like Chief Inspector Dreyfus.

Now, after you have entered this sometimes glorious, sometimes highly embarrassing New Zone, one of two things tend to happen:

a) Slightly traumatized by the incident, you never venture out in public without a blanket again - and if you DO forget again, you either suck it up (excuse the pun) and feed your bairn in the bathroom or find a VERY, very out-of-the-way spot in which to do so,

b) Empowered and relieved by the feeling of "That wasn't so bad after all," you (more or less) become quite marvelously adept at nursing in public - so adept that no one even knows you're doing it unless they come within five inches of you.

Of course, there is the third option, a kind of unsteady balance between the two. Yours Truly is still there, in that limbo between embarrassed and empowered.

It takes time to acclimate yourself to nursing in public - sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. I personally am a very vocal advocate of a woman's right to nurse in public, without being forced to hide in a room or cover herself up (especially when, quite often, no covering needs to happen at all for reasons already stated above). Do I feel completely comfortable yet? Not quite. I sometimes turn my back to people, I often make those dreadfully absurd arm maneuvers...but I'm getting there. I haven't taken a Hooter Hider along in my GDB for quite some time now, and if anyone DOES happen to catch me with an odd stare, I smile blissfully back at them, forcing back, with all my might, the urge to blush.

After all, this selfsame passer-by is studiously ignoring the seventeen-year-old bimbo next to me (to the last, for the sake of yet another example). Said seventeen-year-old is wearing a see-through top which (transparent nature of this altogether risque garment aside) exposes precisely 7/8 of her large, prominent breasts-this chick is practically a walking soft-core porn centerfold. While I, in point of fact, am showing little or no skin. So why, I ask, am I the one who gets dirty looks (and when I say dirty, I mean the how-dare-you kind, not the ooh-show-us-more variety)?

It's a little unfair, how our society prefers tits over ta-tas. The double standard-that public exhibition of partially nude breasts for sexually stimulating/advertis ing reasons is perfectly fine, but the image of a mother using her breasts to give nourishment and comfort to a tiny infant is hideously perverse-seems, in every way imaginable, to be monstrously unjust.

Time for a change in attitude, says this proud nursing mama. After all, if society's attitude toward public nursing were more favorable (as well it should be), there's no doubt in my mind that I (and countless other mamas like me) wouldn't be half as gun-shy.

Learn more about this author, Heather Kelley.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.