Breastfeeding in Public: Can we stop being stupid?

Fact: Breastfeeding in public is legal in all 50 states.

Fact: 45 states (including Texas) have specifically expressed, written laws further clarifying that a breastfeeding mother has the right to breastfeed her child anywhere and everywhere that she, the mother, has a legal right to be. (Check this link if you're interested in state-by-state laws)

Fact: When employees at the Pure Fitness for Women club in Spring, Texas, asked a breastfeeding mother to move to a more "private" area, they were in fact breaking the law.

Those are facts. This is my opinion: I think it is completely and utterly ridiculous that breastfeeding moms are still, in 2011, having to deal with such ignorance and discrimination. Mothers have only been feeding their babies in this way since THE BEGINNING OF TIME. Long before the modern advent of formula and bottles, long before uptight misguided fitness club employees declared it inappropriate (while fellow patrons looked on in their barely-there lycra and spandex), long before we as a society lost sight of what was good and healthy and normal and right.

We are mammals, and that is how mammals feed their young. That's a fact too. Your personal feelings of disagreement or discomfort can't and don't change biology. It bothers me - literally almost pains me - that people fail to recognize it for what it is: a mother feeding her baby in the way that her body was intended to feed a baby.

In an official statement following the incident, Pure Fitness made the following remarks:

"We have thousands of members' children that do not understand," the club stated. "At that age it is the discretion of the parent to determine if at a kids club age the child should learn about the benefits and reasons for breast feeding. We feel that children should not be exposed to these events without every parent being ok with their child being exposed to the action."

I don't mean to be disrespectful, but am I the only one who recognizes how ignorant - even stupid - these comments sound?

"We have thousands of members' children that do not understand". Such a tough thing to understand... A mom feeding a child. It's a wonder my non-college educated brain could wrap itself around the concept soon enough to feed my own children. If a child asks, the answer is: "That's how she feeds her baby. It's how I fed you (or if you didn't breastfeed, how Aunt Suzy or Grandma or the neighbor or someone else your child knows fed their baby)" It's not rocket science, folks.

"At that age it is the discretion of the parent to determine if at a kids club age the child should learn about the benefits and reasons for breast feeding."
Benefits and reasons? Sure, a 5 year old doesn't necessarily need a detailed list of the physical and emotional benefits of breastfeeding for the mother and child, nor would he even understand it all. But the act of eating and getting nourishment is something even a baby can understand. It is, again, a biological necessity, and one that is appropriate for discussion with any and ALL ages. Is there honestly a mother out there who would not want her child to know about the "benefits and reasons" for breastfeeding?

"We feel that children should not be exposed to these events without every parent being ok with their child being exposed to the action." I feel like I'm just repeating myself now, but "these events", this "action" in question was a MOM FEEDING HER BABY. Can I say that again?

This was a mom feeding her baby.

She was exercising her right - both her human right and the right given to her by law - to feed her hungry child.

She wasn't doing anything wrong.
She wasn't doing anything indecent.
She wasn't doing anything inappropriate.
She wasn't doing anything illegal.

She was feeding a child. And she was asked to leave.

It's 2011. I'd like to think I live in the real world, most of the time, but I'm having a very hard time understanding why we haven't come further than this. We should be informed by now. We should be enlightened by now. Can we please, please, stop being so stupid?



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Things That Make Me Go Hmm

The news stories that have been popping up on the internet lately have been coming from a veritable pool of craziness. Just when I think our world can't get any more absurd, I read things like this that prove me wrong.

Isn't this offensive?  Shield your kids!

Really?

This is not even about extended nursing (or as I like to call it, "regular length" nursing) In fact, I'd love for it be a non-issue altogether. This is just how we were designed. No matter how you personally feel about it, nursing a two year old is normal. The worldwide weaning average is still 4 years, so in many houses, nursing a five or six year old is normal too.

This is about an utterly ridiculous, and illogical, law whose goal it is to exert more control over the masses.  It's not about nudity (as it claims) because if it were, short shorts would have to be outlawed too.  They show far more skin than a breastfeeding mother.  Tube tops, tank tops, anything cleavage-baring: a million times more revealing than a nursing mom.

Heck, let's pass laws about flip-flops and hem lines and sheer fabrics.

Is it about someone feeding or comforting their child?  Maybe the-powers-that-be feel that becomes inappropriate once the child is two?  Then outlaw pacifiers in public too.  Outlaw sippy cups.  Outlaw those little round snack containers packed with Cheerios.   You probably ought to outlaw hugs too, and holding your child all together, lest anyone get the wrong idea.  And for pete's sake, have your child's birth certificate readily available, because they reserve the right to verify their age at any time. 

Such a bold and productive new step for our country.  Way to go, Georgia.



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Little Girls in Pretty Dresses

A couple of weeks ago, during the Spilled Milk debacle, I got a curious comment that said something to the effect of, “I'm just wondering why you have such an aversion to anger, which is a normal human emotion?” The comment quite honestly left me a little confused, because I didn't understand how my desire to stay calm during what was a typical 3 year old exploration equated to having an aversion to the emotion in general. As I said at the time, I do get mad occasionally (because I'm human), but I just feel that it has to be something really worthy of an emotion as strong as anger.

Well let me be perfectly and painstakingly clear when I say: Today, I am angry.

Interestingly, the internet – which is also filled with light and inspiration to be sure – supplied me with more than a few nuggets of frustration today. This led me to do some serious head shaking. This got my feathers all kinds of ruffled. But this, this made me flat out mad.

In what kind of world is injecting your 8 year old child's face with a toxin, in a quest for perfection, okay? Or subjecting her to painful body waxes to ward off unwanted, and inevitable, hair growth in puberty? Or saying that you'd “rather she be perfect and have a little frozen face?” In what kind of reality should an 8 year old ever have to feel that she needs to check nightly for wrinkles, or that it takes these kinds of procedures for her to “look way better...beautiful...pretty....all those kinds of nice words?” In what kind of society should a child this age even be aware of the existence of a rhinoplasty or a breast augmentation, let alone desire to have either one?

My heart is broken for this girl. This beautiful little girl whose innocence is lost. This girl who will never measure up, who will spend her whole life lost in chasing the unattainable. This girl who is being taught by the person that she is supposed to trust the most that she is not good enough. This girl without a mother holding her sticky hand, playing with her tangled hair, telling her, “You are perfect, JUST THE WAY YOU ARE.”

I'm angry. I am. What in the world is this beauty pageant, Toddlers In Tiaras, bikini-waxing, hair bleaching culture doing to these little girls? Spray tans, eyebrow threading, false eyelashes, hair extensions, hair straighteners, hair curlers, face makeup, body makeup, push up bras! And now Botox? POISON, painfully injected into their faces? These are little girls. Girls who should be running through the playground, playing tag with their friends, and building forts in their backyard.... not worrying about being prettier, or sexier, or more of a superstar than their preschool counterpart standing next to them.

Please, please, can we let our children be children? But more than that, can we please let them know that they are unconditionally loved? That they are beautifully, and uniquely, and perfectly created exactly as they are? No matter what size they are, or how tall or short, or how straight or how curly. Whether they have freckles, or birthmarks, or thick eyebrows, or no eyebrows. Whether they walk differently, or talk differently, or think differently. Is it too much to ask that we recognize and appreciate the inherent beauty in all children when they are allowed to be children ... not when they're falsely plucked, polished, and pressured into being somebody else's distorted version of perfect?

I want to know when someone's going to stand up and say, “Enough.” I want to know when someone is going to be the voice of reason, and compassion, and what's right. These girls are being damaged and abused. Not just in ways we can see right now, but in ways we can only imagine for the rest of their lives.

They are beautiful the way they are.

And Moms? You're beautiful the way you are too. But you're adults. If you want bigger breasts, or a smaller nose, or a smoother face, it's your body. Have at it.

But I beg you, please, leave your little girls alone.

Be the mom.
Be the one who protects her.
Be the one person in her life she can count on for unconditional love, acceptance, and devotion.

Be the person you want her to see reflected in your eyes every time she looks at you.... someone who is beautiful not because of what she does or does not look like, but because of who she is.



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