Breast Feeding in shops

[Stunna-21]

Breast feeding is perfectally natural. If you child is hungry you feed it. Simple as. What should she have done, left it crying? Get over yourselfs and concentrate on real issuses. Bunch of twats.

[Jessie]

Try breastfeeding in Newcastle! I breastfed my son when he was a baby there v discreetly under my tent-like top - no boob on show whatsover - and peolple pointed, stared and tutted at me whilst sitting on a bench near the one I was on a woman openly smoking a fag while with a newborn baby was completely ignored. But then again perhaps they'd somehow found out I'd left the Toon for London and saw me as a traitor..

Breastfeeding in public - god, does it really make some people so uncomfortable? Says more about them and their repression and f*cked up pyschologies than anything.

[spadetownboy]

if it makes you feel any easier cow and dom the wife of a mate of mine regularly breastfed in the dog,not one person batted an eyelid, its natural for a child to be breast fed and only for the reactions of the repressed and outraged it would be a more open thing for mothers to do, but its more likely not done as often as it should be because a lot of mothers are scared of offending the more prudish members of our society, i say three cheers to the lady in question.

[FatHappyChappy]

'Stunna-21' This is a real issue, and YOU are missing the point. Not many people ARE disagreeing with you that' Breast Feeding is perfectly natural' (as opposed to perfectally natural - well you are 21 and probably a blonde). It's about one particular demented woman giving other poor Breast Feeding mothers a bad name!! She's demented, go take a look for yourself, times listed above and maybe have a quiet word in her Breast, sorry, EAR.

[FatHappyChappy]

FOR GOODNESS SAKE - LET POOR DOMITIANUS air his Penis in Public, I suggest 3:00pm this afternoon, Dulwich Park by the Tennis Courts. I notice Cowpoke or is it Cowbarn who started all this has gone quiet? Mind you the Rabbit Snatch thread was amusing, we need more, the Lounge is getting a little stuffy. They certainly have more fun on the Chelsea and Battersea Forums.

[ChavWivaLawDegree]

I have to admit, some women who do breastfeed do seem a bit on the exhibitionist side. I breastfed all 4 of my kids, and my 19 year old daughter breastfeeds her baby. I never hid away to feed my children, and if anyone had tried to complain I'd have told them where to go, but I didn't shove it in people's faces either.

I noticed at the school fair yesterday a mum was breastfeeding her kid on the main steps, as if to make a point, but my daughter automatically went around the corner a bit where she could feed her daughter in peace. She doesn't have a problem feeding her baby anywhere, on the bus, in the park, wherever her baby gets hungry, but she's not trying to make a statement, she just gets on with it and if anyone tried to make her feel like she shouldn't she'd use even stronger language than me to tell them where to go!!

So really we need to ask, are the women breastfeeding so deliberately publicly trying to make a statement or just feeding their children? If the former, we still need to look at why they feel the need to make a public statement about something which really shouldn't be an issue any more.

[Keef]

*Bob* Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I'm at a total loss to explain how a series of

> amusing (and obvious) comedy postings have managed

> to generate 'face value' reponses.

>

> Get a grip!

What he said.

[batdog]

Cowbearuk,

Some mums will tell you that it is a necessity and needs to be done wherever whenever. (especially the politically correct, green bandwagon jumper in etc...)

I can tell these mums: 'vanity has no limits' >:D< ...and welcome vanity in all its forms, a female without vanity wouldn't be a female....!!!

[Jessie]

What's wrong with having a discussion about something many people feel strongly about? I think it's good to hear lots of different views about this.

[cowbearuk]

HI CHAVWIVALAWDEGREE - PRAISE BE!!! AN INTELLIGENT, ARTICULATE AND HONEST COMMENT from a REAL MUM, Hopefully "DulwichMum" can get her head out of her baking tray and smell the cookies instead of praying on all fours to Sean Almighty!!! YOU are my hero, Thanks!! It's all BENEATH DulwichMum, more likely out of her depth here?

[SeanMacGabhann]

CWALD

I have been slighted (as has a good friend) by someone who knows neither of us..... The prosecution rests

re-edited for further thoughts: I have been slighted by someone who THINKS that random CAPITAL LETTERS and exclamation marks (of all things!!!!!!!!!!!) make a point more forcefully and more righteously

If I've read the thread correctly the original poster made a point with which I, DulwichMum and ChavWithALawDegree all essentially agreed (ie - breastfeeding = A Good Thing, but exhibitionism is slightly less edifying) but then the original poster (with an apparant chip on their shoulder the size of a baking potato) decides to attack both myself and DulwichMum by name

What gives?

PS with a further caveat agreeing with Bob and Keef that the original post appeared to be a spoof but further exposition appeared to give credence to it

[Domitianus]

Repressed, outraged and prudish are three qualities that I think most people who know me would laugh outright to hear ascribed to me. Let us consider this arguement that breastfeeding is 'natural' and therefore can be done anywhere the mother wishes. Here is a list of a number of other 'natural' processes - urination, defecation, sex, childbirth, masturbation. As these are also 'natural' processes (some of them indeed probably much more universal than breastfeeding) I take it you would be happy to see anyone engage in such behaviours in 'the dog'.

Obviously if you objected to someone having a quick toss in the window of Cafe Nero that would make you "repressed", "outraged" and "prudish". Or would you say "Yes, it's perfectly natural, but there is a time and a place."

[Domitianus]

Nice one Dulwich Mum, deciding not to lower yourself to the level of this discussion and then promptly doing so. Have you been drinking too much champagne or something?

As for supporting mothers who breat feed and all the associated social and health benefits - I agree with that. I do not, however, agree that it is a practice that is appropriate for every environment (few activities are, almost everything is context appropriate). If a woman's breast is such a natural thing would it be acceptable for women to parade bare breasted up and down LL, or is a woman's breast only a thing of beauty when it is used to suckle a child? If the human body and its processes are so natural why has that poor nudist hiker been arrested so many times for hiking through the UK in his birthday suit?

Breast-feeding has certain connotations that it evokes in peoples' minds - winding a child, a child potentially vomitting whilst feeding, the concept of soiled nappies etc, and that is not the sort of thing many people want to have brought into their mind when they are eating/drinking in a cafe or when they are choosing fresh food for their evening meal. Squeezing spots or picking scabs also perfectly natural activities, however, most people would probably agree that they are not the sort of thing it is considerate to do in front of others in a dining or food service environment. Burping and farting are natural processes to expel gas from the intestines but if someone stood, 'both ends burning', in William Rose or Moxtons, I imagine they would be asked to desist or leave forthwith.

Sadly, predictably, inevitably a number of the posters on this thread have resorted to taking the position that if you object to a woman breast-feeding ANYWHERE, you are opposed to breastfeeding fullstop! That is nonsense and it is perfectly reasonable to expect any mother to balance her right to breastfeed with the rights of others who might find the sight distatseful in certain environments. The problem is, of course, that support for breastfeeding is the POLITICALLY CORRECT option and once something is deemed to be POLITICALLY CORRECT, it is sacrosanct for the liberal middle-classes and anyone who disagrees with them must be unenlightened, reactionary etc.

[Jessie]

Fair points.

Must say though when I was breastfeeding i fed on demand, so did feed whenever/wherever. But always discreetly.

Not sure about your point about connotations of breastfeeding in a cafe - are you saying you'd feel uncomfortable seeing a baby bottle fed in a cafe/at evening meal times, as inevitably it leads to the same soiled nappy scenario?

[SimonM]

>Let us consider this arguement that breastfeeding is 'natural' and therefore can be done anywhere the mother wishes. >Here is a list of a number of other 'natural' processes - urination, defecation, sex, childbirth, masturbation. As these >are also 'natural' processes (some of them indeed probably much more universal than breastfeeding) I take it you would >be happy to see anyone engage in such behaviours in 'the dog'.<

Clearly it is not enough to justify breastfeeding in public places simply on the grounds that it is "natural", as your list demonstrates. But I think what used to happen in the (happily) fairly distant past was that various pompous asses would seek to criticise women who refused to hide themselves away in public loos (or wherever) by declaring that they were "disgusting" and it was "unnatural" to inflict their exposed breast(s) on deeply sensitive men such as themselves who thought Page 3 of the "Sun" or mediterranenan beaches were the only socially-acceptable venues for such exhibitionism/harlotry/etc etc.

Eating in public is socially ok, and personally I find a woman feeding a baby a food deal less alarming than some obese citizen stuffing his mouth with a big mac in the street: pissing, shitting, self-abuse etc etc are not really within the parameters of what is currently deemed socially acceptable. I cannot help but marvel that this neanderthal attitude to breast-feeding still apparently refuses to die a long-overdue death :))

[Administrator]

Please note: I have asked cowbearuk and FatHappyChappy to decide which of the two usernames they wish to use and to stick with it.

[Domitianus]

"Self abuse"? Now there is a 'neanderhal' attitude to self-gratification. I think an important point that I outlined is that there are connotations of breast-feeding (most of them to do with a child's digestive functions) that are quite natural but not very savoury and are not pleasant for other people to have to come face-to-face with in certain environments - such as dining or food service environments.

As for "pissing, shitting, self-abuse etc etc are not really within the parameters of what is currently deemed socially acceptable", I would suggest that the level of disquiet about VERY public and unselective displays of breastfeeding elucidated within, and which initiated this thread, suggests that for very many people breastfeeding without consideration for the context is also "not really within the parameters of what is currently deemed socially acceptable". I am NOT against the concept of breastfeeding but I believe it needs to be balanced with the right of others not to be compelled to be confronted by a practice which may put them off their food etc. Let me take the urination analogy a little further. If someone was caught short I personally would not particularly mind if he or she popped down an alley or pee'd against a tree, but I would like to think that he or she might have looked around for a public convenience first. And I would certainly be pretty hacked off if he or she decided, with no apparent concern for my feelings, to pee against a tree in front of me when I was eating a sandwich in the park and exhuded the air that he or she had a God-given right to do so.

The objection I think many have is about this militant, "in your face" attitude that many breast-feeding mums have, ie. "I am going to breastfeed my child and I don't care if it puts you off your latte or makes you uncomfortable. My right as a nursing mum automatically trumps everyone else's interests." Well, sorry but B****CKS it does! Allied with that is the added attitude "And don't you dare look at my breast while I am doing it." This latter attitude which can be noted in glares and frowns at anyone who doesn't instantly avert their eyes the moment they light upon a breast-feeding mum, completely undermines the arguement that it is a natural and appropriate public behaviour. If it's so natural and appropriate why do BF'ing mums seem to get so stroppy about being watched. If you don't wish to be seen BF'ing - don't do it in public!

[Domitianus]

The great irony for me is this....about fifteen years ago I was working in head office for a charitable organisation devoted to the welfare of lone parents. The organisation was enormously female and feminist dominated. I had a discussion one day about breastfeeding and observed that I felt it was the most natural and healthiest form of feeding a child and that it should be encouraged. At this comment, a considerable number of these feminist, single mothers who I worked with attempted to try to take me apart telling me that it was a typical male attitude that women should be compelled to breastfeed and made to feel guilty if they didn't! I replied by pointing out that I wasn't trying to make anyone feel guilty but was simply reflecting the consensus scientific position on feeding children.

Strange, isn't it, that even when I was championing breastfeeding I was also acused of being "sexist", "old-fashioned", "misogynistic" etc etc etc! It seems that anyone who disputes the contemporary view of what is POLITICALLY CORRECT is immediately vilified by the same sorry slogans, uttered without thought or consideration.

[Asset]

for crying out loud - I can't believe this subject is getting so much discussion.

There is no argument.

Breastfeeding is necessary, wherever and whenever it needs doing.

It is not akin to getting one's kit off or displaying one's genitals in public.

It just shows how prudish, uptight and generally up its own arse the British public is that this discussion is even taking place.

BORING.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Speechless

Absolutely speechless

(not at you Asset - but the previous posts)

I'm re-reading again... nope - still speechless

[TillieTrotter]

Well I'm afraid I have to agree with Dom for the most part, accept I cant get the bit about other bodily functions being brought to mind when seeing breast feeding!!!

Yes breast feeding is best, did it with all my 3, but it should be a discreet (I even went to say private) act. I agree that it should take place anywhere, anytime, but it should be a discreet act. Any woman who has breast fed her child/ren knows that it can be done with the minimum of exposure and fuss. Those that chose to swing them around in public do cause embarassment and I feel that anyone who says that thats OK, likes to read The Emporers New Clothes!

[FatHappyChappy]

SHE'S THERE....SHE'S THERE........FOR CRYING OUT LOUD - SEAN, BOB, ASSET...ANYONE PLEASE PLEASE GO TO NERO'S NOW, SHE'S THERE WITH TWO FRIENDS....IN THE BLOODY WINDOW........THIS WILL AT LEAST GIVE 100% CREDIBILITY TO THE STORY. POSTED 8:38 AM MONDAY, HOORAH (Purple top, cream T-Shirt and Jeans)

[SeanMacGabhann]

But I don't desbelieve you about the woman FHC - I do believe you. And I think I've said that she does sound like an exhibitionist, not just an earth-mother with a desire to breast-feed on a whim...

so at this point I think we all agree about her at least

[mockney piers]

Perhaps if a few more had been speechless sean...

Anyway, just a quick note to remind FatHappyChappy that it's rude to shout; do try and keep the volume down. Raising your voice should be used sparingly. We have some posting guidelines here

[citizenED]

Lets have a show of hands - What would you prefer to see in the window of Caffe Nero: Dom spanking the monkey or that Radical Woman breastfeeding her baby?

I vote Radical Breastfeeding Mum.

citizen