I love how in a country where people are celebrated for being overly sexy, sexual, and sexed, a woman breastfeeding at Target can cause such uproar. I just can’t wrap my head around the idea that you can barely watch a movie without hearing excessive profanity or seeing a topless woman or a sex scene, but the sheer idea of a woman feeding her child, which, by the way, is what the ACTUAL purpose of a boob is, sends people running in awkwardness. I have a theory, which you can freely disagree with, but here goes my honesty….
1. We are a perverted society. We have been conditioned to see sexuality as something it was never meant to be. Nudity is thrown at us at a rate that is hard not to get immune to. However, we are not a natural society, so we actual see what is natural as perverted and what is perverted as natural.
2. We are an artificial society. Oh yes, everyone in the medical field agrees that breastfeeding is wonderful, and most common people would have to agree. However, as a society, we want that idea to be just that, an idea. We want people to do the “natural” thing, which is healthy for their child, we just don’t want to have to know it happens.
3. We are a selfish society. This goes both ways. Often, the mothers who cause uproar do so because they walk through a public place with part of their breast showing because it’s more convenient, or more likely, just because they think they can. It’s selfish to do this, especially since there are specific products created to help a mother breastfeed whenever necessary without being exposed or making the baby uncomfortable. On the flip side of this, those who are outraged make noise because they “felt uncomfortable”. It’s funny that something like this is ok to raise a fuss about but in other cases, we would never say anything about something that made us feel uncomfortable if we thought it would be seen as politically incorrect to do so.
4. We thrive off of illusions. As a society, we take our artificial, perverted selfishness and form the illusion that having children is “easy and convenient”. That is what we want out of everything in America, so why wouldn’t we expect that from our children. However, this isn’t at all true. Children are a wonderful blessing, but they are hard work, and honestly, it’s not convenient to take an infant, or in my case two infants and a toddler, somewhere while making sure you are at home when your infant needs to eat. Others looking on, however, need that illusion. They need to see you with your child and feel that children are a commodity, for whatever reason.
Now, I am not saying that I am at all in favor of exposing yourself in pubic in order to breastfeed your child. I believe we should have some feminine modesty about ourselves. To me, breastfeeding is a wonderful, special thing that should not be put on display for an ulterior motive. That being said, my pediatrician said some pretty insightful things to me when I had my twins. It was a challenge, to say the least, to feed two babies at once by breastfeeding them. I basically had to get into whatever strange position necessary and try to hold that pose for however long it took. My surgeon and anesthesiologist both stood behind the curtain and darted for the door asap when they came to check on me and I was breastfeeding. Personally, I’m a very modest person, but I had just been through major surgery, handed two children to care for completely for the rest of their lives, and was heavily medicated, so I wasn’t exactly diving under covers when medical workers walked in (not that I could have if I had wanted to). My pediatrician, we’ll call him Dr. BabyGenius for obvious reasons, simply walked in, leaned against the sink and carried on as if nothing was happening. We talked about both babies, and when we started talking about breastfeeding, he encouraged me to keep trying but also gave some subtle warnings and forgiveness, which I didn’t understand until now. He talked about the challenge of nursing two babies in comparison to just one, which include the fact that you either have to feed two babies at the same time, which isn’t easy, or put them on opposite schedules, which means you are nursing almost all of the time. He did not recommend the latter. He talked about how backwards America is about breastfeeding. He does a lot of work outside of the U.S. in needy countries, and he says that the comparison is strange. In the U.S., breastfeeding is seen as something obscene and should be done in hiding, while in other countries, it is not even given a second glance. He mentioned that I would face the challenge of either having to pump, supplement, or stay at home basically all the time. At one point he said, “For you, breastfeeding is going to basically be a topless job.” This meant there would be no easy way to nurse in public discreetly. This is one reason that I knew early on that I would supplement. If you’ve read my other posts, you know that it didn’t work out for very long anyway since I never made a good supply of milk, but I had to at least give it a shot. (I’m sure those of you who have had children can understand that feeling.) I never tried to feed them anywhere other than at home, so I don’t know how it would’ve worked out.
In the end, I get pretty ticked off at some of the people who publicly talk about how breastfeeding in public is gross. Nursing is not gross. You can feel that nudity is gross, boobs specifically are gross, or the idea of a baby eating in public is gross, but if you think the act of nursing is gross, you should try to decide why it is you have a problem with it. I especially get mad at the fact that we applaud nudity in our society, but condemn this particular act. I mean, it’s not like you’re seeing the whole actual boob. I also get ticked off at the ladies who use breastfeeding as a reason to be an exhibitionist. I think it’s completely unnecessary to expose yourself in order to feed your child. I didn’t like hiding in dressing rooms, bathrooms, my car, or the occasional stock room (if the workers knew what I needed and were especially nice about it) to feed Princess either, but I always thought of people like my dad or brother who felt really weird being in the room while I nursed even if I was wearing a nursing apron. Some people are just extremely modest, and I would never want to make them feel uncomfortable. (I’m talking about strangers, because I actually thought it pretty fun to make my dad and Bubby feel awkward). I think God wants us to do things for the right reason. If you want to breastfeed your child because you feel it the right thing to do, and if you need to feed your child while out and about, by all means do so. BUT what are you trying to prove by making yourself an exhibitionist? What we all need to do is decide what our motives are for feeling the way we do about the subject. Feed on ladies, feed on. P.S. If you need a good website for a cute nursing apron, I have a friend who makes the cutest ones!!!
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