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Y workers get a little training after nursing mother told to knock it off because she was breaking Y policy against food
By adamg on Fri, 07/30/2010 - 9:44pm
Channel 4 reports on an incident at the North Suburban Y in Woburn involving a mother ordered to stop feeding her infant. In response, the Y will train hundreds of workers on the state law that says mothers have the right to nurse their babies wherever they're lawfully allowed to be - such as inside a YMCA.
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Comments
It never ceases to amaze me
It never ceases to amaze me that some of these mothers who breast feed feel it necessary to do so in the most public of places. A YMCA full of people and most likely, children and this woman whips out her bare breast and begins nursing a baby? Could she not have done this at home, car, locker room or any of the other less public places available to her or was this all about (a) making a scene at the Y and (b) seeking even more attention by going on TV? The breast feeding law should be amended so that breast feeding only be done out of the public eye whenever possible. It's a shame that the Y will be spending money on "training" to comply with this law rather than on valuable programs for poor kids.
RTFA, @O-FISH-L....
... she was in the babysitting room, with a nursing top on. Not out in public. Not exposing her bare breast. She did everything right, was discreet, and still she got harassed.
However, she's allowed to nurse ANYWHERE that's safe.
A locker room or public restroom are anything but hygenic. She didn't make a scene; the child care worker cited the "no food in the babysitting room" rule as the excuse (huh?).
The law doesn't need amending. As someone who did nurse her child (and who is the healthiest preschooler I've ever met, by the way), this law was long past due. And I nursed on airplanes without any feedback from the flight attendants (yes I had a nursing top and a shawl).
If you can't bear to watch breastfeeding, AVERT YOUR EYES, and keep moving.
Yeesh.
Can we stipulate that men like to look at female breasts?
Of so, why then the discomfort with a mother breastfeeding her child in plain view? It is the exposure of a breast or the act of her feeding her baby? I don't deny that many people are taken aback when the see it but I haven't figured out why that is.
Maniacs around the whole breast issue
Well the sight of half a boob with a baby on it doesn't get my engines revving. If you do look the mom always gives you a dirty look back. On the other hand there's a lot of creepy men out there.
The breast lobby is pretty nutty, like mommies are traitors for not whipping them out at all times in all places. Doesn't sound like that happened here necessarily.
What it is
Most men are aroused by looking at women's breasts. When women breastfeed, the breasts are there, with the potential to arouse men by the looking-at, but men are not supposed to look at them or be aroused. This is very confusing for small-brained men. The confusion is painful. There's all those boobies and none for them. Look, don't look, can't look. Boobies! No. Bad. Confusion. Pain. So the small-brained men get angry about it, blame their confusion and pain on the women who use breasts for their original purpose (rather than their own inability to just move on), and attempt to punish the babies: "If I can't stare at the boobies, you must put them away!"
It's a good thing for the babies that the small-brained men aren't in charge anymore.
I should have known Sock_Puppet
would rise to the occasion and explain the conundrum. Well done. So what's on the tip over every man's tongue is, put the baby down and leave the top open except for the men who are there with their significant others who fix a look on their face that says at once, I'm not interested and what a pretty baby.
I'm always surprised to hear
I'm always surprised to hear of people being offended by a woman feeding her child. If someone is concerned about children seeing something as "scandalous" as part of a breast, are they also as offended by magazine covers in grocery stores that children frequent with their parents, or billboards around the city? Often those are more revealing than a woman nursing her baby.