I just returned from my mother’s cousin’s house this weekend and I was informed that one of her daughters did not make the trip to her mother’s house over a dispute about her breast. Let me explain.

10 months ago this daughter gave birth to her first child and has decided to breast feed it. This daughter has been attending classes (??) or meetings about breast feeding her baby and I guess one of the things that they encourage is a sort of pride and necessity for breast feeding. In other words when the baby is hungry there is no inappropriate time or place to perform this act. From the way the mother was explaining this to me it seemed like a paternal movement.

The mother went on to explain to her daughter that if she wanted to come over and meet this company (which consisited of mrscardero, my father and myself) that a certain courtesy or respect may have been implememted in regarding the time and moments of the baby’s feeding. As I understood it, the daughter was very open and frank about this performance and the mother was concerned about the company feeling uncomfortable. The daughter became offended by this suggestion and had decided to forgo the visit and any future conversation with her mother (so far).

My questions are what are the guidelines about something like this? Should a women who breast feeds their children excuse themselves from other’s company? Should a woman breast feed their child in a isolated area away from the public? When did the explicit practice of breastfeeding a baby become a movement? Could this decision to breast feed in front of family and relatives simply be settled by the polite question of “Do you mind…..?”

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"There is one thing that organized religion is not qualified to teach and that is an individual's purpose."-GOD

It's interesting how people get worked up about this question. A hundred years ago, of course, women must have breastfed their babies in public some of the time, despite Victorian mores. It would have been unavoidable in a great many cirucumstances (on trains, boats, in crowded urban conditions, etc), and no one seems to have thought it even worthy of comment.

Because, of course, breast feeding is not a sexual act -- despite North American fetishization of all things breasty.

Now, that said, some people manage to do it with a great deal less spectacle than others. I can recal about 20 years ago, when I was in Teacher's College, one of my fellow students who decided to "whipe it out" and start breast feeding her child during one class. It was still a relatively unusal thing, back then...but she tended to be a bit of an exhibitionist, so it was far more obtrusive than it needed to be.

I have seen women breastfeeding in public places often, since then, and have no problem with it. In a private home, I think it is even less objectionable. That said, some decorum should be observed.


"Be seeing you..."

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Grassaf, Eolas

Well.....

As a mother of four, breast feed three of them I think I should not have to ask: Do you mind? If my baby is hungry do I have to ask may I feed it?

Who's mind is wrong The mother that pulls out her breats to feed her baby, or the person that sees the breast as a sexualy object?

I would have reacted the same way as this mother. That is like saying to a women, plaese don't wear a short skirt, we have men in the house. Do we assume all minds think sexual?

Now I always pulled myself back from the public, I looked for a quite place where I could be intimate with my baby. I did this to make sure the attention of the baby was not on things that were going on around him/her, but on the observing of nurishment.

This has nothing to do with feeding through breast or bottle. And it has nothing to do with being a baby or an adult. When the focus is on the food and not on the T.V. or conversation or reading we can enjoy the meal and digest the meal better.

In situations where I could not pull myself away from the public eye, I put a cloth over me and the Baby to create a private space.

I think the rule is if I would feed my baby a bottle in the presence of family and friends, I would breast feed openly.

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May your awareness be perfection

My first child would've rather starved than breast fed, so he was a bottle baby, but my second was breast fed.

One day at a restaurant a man told me that I should do that in the bathroom. Now, keep in mind that I had a blanket over his head and my breast, nothing was showing. I got so upset with the man that I told him if he liked the bathroom so much, he could go eat his lunch there.

I think that there are steps that can be done to remain modest, but at the same time you shouldn't have to exclude yourself from everything if you are breast feeding.

I agree Rev. Kelly,
I was not "proud" to breast feed, but I also was not ashamed.

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May your awareness be perfection

Vivamis, good for you!!!! I agree with all you say, why should we have to ask if someone minds when feeding your own child. If they feel uncomfortable, they should leave the room!

Rev kelly, thats terrible that man said that to you. Its stories like this that put me off breast feeding when i had my child, i did try it but only lasted five days, but if i had succeded i know i would have hated doing it in public because of peoples attitude towards breastfeeding, its disgraceful really.

Caredero, i think that lady should never have been asked by her mum not to breastfeed, im really surprised that a woman was asking this, is it known that you and your family are uncomfortable with this or is she just presuming?

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" No sir, i don't like it!" Mr. Horse

I think one of the concerns that I had when I had heard the story was that there seemed to be some discord between the mother and daughter regarding this issue. Now I understand that our visiting party should not be held responsible but I couldn’t understand the daughter’s perspective on this. We didn’t visit these relatives very often but I knew the daughter was always very interested in visiting with us. I have known her to be shy but I haven’t known her very well lately which leads me to believe that “something” had gotten into her about the subject of breastfeeding because it was truly out of character for her. The mother on the other hand is very conservative.

I also think that even though the mother did not know our feelings about whether breast feeding the baby would have made us uncomfortable or not, I think that the previous conversation needed to take place. I know that the daughter’s father is uncomfortable about her breastfeeding because he explained that everytime she performed a feeding, he had to look away. I do not think that the mother was out of place to inquire about her daughter’s intentions, it is after all, her home and her guests. Maybe the mother should have polled us before the visit to put her daughter’s concerns at ease (mrscardero, my father and I all admitted at the dinner table that we wouldn’t have had a problem with this). All I do know is that it should not have ended that way between mother and daughter, some satisfying resolution could have been reached.

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"There is one thing that organized religion is not qualified to teach and that is an individual's purpose."-GOD

I agree Cardero, you are right the mother is allowed to ask the question. It is her house and she has to be truthful to herself. But... the daughter also has the right to be truthful to herself and accept or reject the Mother's wishes and stay away.

I too believe there must be something else going on between the mother and the daughter. My mother is conservative too but would have never asked me such question. She would have trusted me to do the right thing for all involved.

Since the daughter was probably raised conservative, she is maybe now coming to the awareness that not all that is conservative is good or natural and is using the breast feeding issue as a tool to rebel against the mother's conservative way.

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May your awareness be perfection

In all honesty, it sounds like there is some kind of power struggle between mother and child and breastfeeding is most likely not the real issue. It is just the issue that the mother wanted you to see, so that you would "take her side" and say that the daughter was being "rediculous" there is probably way more in that situation that is not seen.

But on the other hand, you asked how we felt about breast feeding and I was proud to be able to breast feed my youngest son but not to the point of making others uncomfortable. I never left a room or a public place to do it, but I always had a blanket or a vest or something to cover up with so that others didn't have to see nudity in public, many people are uncomfortable with the human body and its natural processes. It is a shame but the society we live in.