Mon 24 Sep 2007
While I have teased about boosting my blog hits there are some kinds of hits I do not want and I certainly don’t need any more spam. I am distressed that some legitimate comments get lost in the spam folder but I can hardly wade through thousands of spam comments a day. If you don’t see your comment it has either gone to moderation from whence it will appear later in the day even if you say ugly things about me, or it will be in the spam folder where it will languish and die.
I say all that because today’s topic uses a few words that could provoke problems. I am going to use the word ‘nursing’ to describe how a mother feeds her baby and I might also make up a few words or leave out a few letters as I go along.
This reminds me of the night Alex and Andrew and I spent in the Dupont Children’s Hospital after they both had febrile seizures. I was there all night “nursing” Alex. I told Andrew he couldn’t go to sleep yet because the “nurse” was coming in to see him. He got a disgusted look on his face and cried, “She’s going to nurse me?”
I am not done with disclaimers. I am going to discuss this subject from a sociological point of view. I don’t mean to imply that I think women should let it all hang out in public. Nursing mothers should be discreet.
But that really isn’t the issue here imho.
My dad told me this story while I was visiting him in the hospital in Lexington, KY. He said a woman had been asked by the manager to stop nursing her baby in a local Applebys. This had caused the woman to start some sort of campaign for the right to nurse in public.
Putting the woman’s motives aside and the manager’s also, is this not the height of hypocrisy?
For a society that has a restaurant named something like “Shooters” to feel all disgusted by a woman nursing her baby is truly the world turned upside down. When you can walk into any place of business, church or restaurant and see more cleavage than thought possible and sometimes more than cleavage and increasingly more often, at that, to be squeamish of a baby being fed seems over the top.
The truth is that we have so sexualized the breast that it causes us discomfort to be reminded that it is also a mammary gland. In our increasingly adult world not only are children not welcome but we certainly do not want to be reminded that there are words like ‘procreation’ and ‘breastfeeding’. Better to hide the children away than to be reminded that ideas have consequences.
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Touche!!
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/touche
Comment by Dana (September 24, 2007 @ 9:07 am )
All I can think to say is, “Preach it, Sister!”
Comment by Michele (September 24, 2007 @ 9:28 am )
“In our increasingly adult world not only are children not welcome but we certainly do not want to be reminded that there are words like ‘procreation’ and ‘breastfeeding’. Better to hide the children away than to be reminded that ideas have consequences.”
You know what? The church has led the way!
My visiting friend was describing her former church and its problems. Her former pastor’s wife broke the rules, she said, and brought her (nursing) child to the women’s retreat.
I was stunned.
Women aren’t allowed to bring their nursing child to a “women’s” retreat?
In our circles that would be considered the biggest act of hostility.
Further probing on my part revealed their system for handling children in church: you take your child to the nursery, get a number or a buzzer, and if said child has “issues” the number flashes on the screen on the side. Or the buzzer vibrates.
Lord, have mercy.
Comment by Carol in Oregon (September 24, 2007 @ 9:34 am )
Cindy, I’d really recommend your gal who does all the behind-the-scenes work on your blog use the plug-in Spam Karma2. It works great. It has a ton of criteria for determining if comments are spam and if it’s questionable, in its mind(!), you get an email asking you. I’ve only gotten five or six in the entire time I’ve been using SpamKarma2. I’ve only had one spam get through and I don’t have to do any moderating of comments. I know that you get a lot more than I, but I’m pretty sure it would help a lot.
Comment by Patti (September 24, 2007 @ 9:37 am )
My brother and his wife just had their first baby this past week….. It isn’t only the restaurants who are anti-breastfeeding but hospitals (generally speaking) are anti-breastfeeding too. I wonder, have they been bought-off by formula companies since every new mom is sent home with a “welcome packet” including formula? Where are the nursing pads and breast pumps?
Preach it!
~Jody
Comment by Jody (September 24, 2007 @ 10:00 am )
I was always uncomfortable (while growing up) around nursing because I was rarely around it. It was unfamiliar, and then we were also taught that the breast was a “private part,” and that combination of ideas can confuse a young girl about what is decent and what is not.
But I knew nursing was healthy and continue to nurse my babies anyhow. The interesting thing to me is the difference in responses I get. My nephew, who has never seen nursing other than when I am around, became very embarrassed (and he was only three or four), and literally hid his face under a couch cushion. Some of it might also be a personality difference, but I think my son (age 5) has no clue that the breast has any purpose other than to nurse a baby!
All of this is to say that I have come to believe that one of the best ways to combat the way society views the breast is to nurse in public. It is a reminder to them of what a woman’s body was created by God to do. Hiding it, by contrast, only seems to affirm society in their foolishness.
Comment by Brandy (September 24, 2007 @ 10:22 am )
I’ve nursed so many babies, that’s what my boys think they’re for
Comment by Kendra (September 24, 2007 @ 10:38 am )
Amen sister!
Comment by Janet (September 24, 2007 @ 10:57 am )
Hear! Hear!
I just read another blog post about this very issue. (It’s quite PG-13, so I won’t post the link.) Why can you have br**sts in plain view at the grocery store aisle (via magazines, etc.), but yet you can’t nurse your baby in the grocery store aisle? Grr. makes me mad.
Comment by Andrea (September 24, 2007 @ 11:43 am )
I’ve nursed nine babies, sometimes in public. I admit, I’ve always been very discreet and try to go to a private place if I “think” someone in the room might be uncomfortable. I believe as a Christian it is our duty to try to help others around us feel comfortable.
On the other hand, I have been around folks who, when they notice you are nursing, stare like there’s no tomorrow! Or some stare at the ceiling or floor when they are talking to you because they cannot seem to look you in the face for some reason. Others shudder with disgust or even make rude comments. Maybe if discretion was learned by all involved, this wouldn’t be an issue.
Or is it truly the anti-child mentality in our nation? People don’t like to see a pregnant woman with her other little children toddling along behind. What should be a beautiful sight causes many to sneer. I suppose that attitude would just continue on with breastfeeding.
So, yes, I think we need to continue to nurse (discreetly) in public, but I don’t think it should be a tool to fight for our “rights”. (And some of the women I’ve noticed with that mentality have NO concern about the discomfort of others. They are bound and determined to let it ALL hang out for the world to see!) Rather, it is the beautiful way God has given us to nurture our little ones. If people don’t like it, they can lump it.
So there.
Comment by Linda (September 24, 2007 @ 12:15 pm )
I agree with Linda that nursing should be done discreetly. From a woman who nursed five babies, I would be uncomfortable with a woman walking down the grocery store isle and nursing at the same time.
Comment by Janet (September 24, 2007 @ 2:14 pm )
I hope I wasn’t interpreted as meaning that I thought women should nurse without discretion…
After a short re-read, it kind of sounded like that, I think. I simply meant that I think that the presence of nursing can be, I think, an effective counter to the oversexualization issues.
Comment by Brandy (September 24, 2007 @ 4:06 pm )
Brandy,
I really think you are right on, with the caveat that we don’t need to be militant or indiscreet which I am sure you weren’t implying and I think the others understood that too.
Comment by Cindy (September 24, 2007 @ 4:34 pm )
Hi, Cindy - this is Kerry from ClassEd.
I love your post here. I’m not exactly sure why, but I’d never drawn the conclusion before that the reason so many are uncomfortable with nursing and not with practically bare breasts - wasn’t because of the skin they were seeing!
You are so on target, sadly.
I loved nursing my three kids and hope to nurse any more the Lord might send us (although after 6 years, it is looking unlikely). I was not afraid to nurse in public, but did try to be discreet. I do remember a “militant” phase, but, thankfully, I chilled out a bit.
I’m probably going to link to these great “rant” posts. They are really insightful! Come say “HI” if you can!
Comment by Kerry (September 24, 2007 @ 6:01 pm )
Just to clarify myself I think as long as you are discreet, then public nursing is appropriate. I also do not agree with public demonstrations for public nursing. That’s not discreet.
You *can* be discreet in a grocery store aisle. (with a sling, for example) My point was some people have qualms about public nursing, yet look at the magazines in plain view in our grocery stores. World upside down.
Comment by Andrea (September 24, 2007 @ 8:10 pm )
Oh my. I hope no one thought I was referring to them when I spoke of indiscretion and nursing. I didn’t have any of you ladies or your comments in mind!
I was simply thinking of the world in general and not making a response to any previous comments. 
Comment by Linda (September 24, 2007 @ 10:43 pm )
What a good point about the mixed-up view of a woman’s body that allows her to bare almost all for public gaze but not do what the lovely design was created for (and the Bible also says that they are there for our husband’s enjoyment, mustn’t forget that!) I exclusively nursed my first six babies (no bottles, an average of a year each child) then had big problems with milk supply for the last four. I continued to nurse them, with great effort (pumping, etc., to keep up supply), but I also had to supplement with a bottle. I got some really mean looks and even rude comments about giving my babies a bottle, and the commenters had no idea about the extraordinary measures I was taking to keep nursing those little ones. A good lesson in not judging hastily.
Comment by Carmon (September 24, 2007 @ 11:58 pm )
I started thinking about the disappearance of children when we lived for a short while just outside of DC. It was so striking to see so many young couples, and so few children. Our society has already warehoused most of the elderly…and the trend is clearly there with children too. My theory is that when a couple chooses deliberately not to have children, they have to suppress their God-given instincts…you know the ones that cause women to crave babies, coo over them, eat them up etc. Once those desires are destroyed, babies and children are just an annoying reminder that ideas do indeed have consequences.
Lisa in Germany
Comment by Lisa (September 25, 2007 @ 6:23 am )
I think Lisa makes a good point–sad though it may be. I am currently nursing my 5th dc. Sadly, any negative comments I remember getting were from women.
Thank you Cindy for your ‘rants.’ I am enjoying them–very thought-provoking.
Wendy–aka your stalker at church
Comment by wendy (September 25, 2007 @ 10:59 am )
Jody: what makes you think the hospitals are “Anti-breastfeeding” and “bought off by formula companies”?
Our hospital was VERY pro-breastfeeding (even had lactation consultants on call when our son was born) and on the parenting boards I frequent, was not unique in this either. There is also a Women’s Center associated that you get an appointment while still in the hospital to go to on the child’s 4th or 5th day of life and one of the things they do is evaluate your breastfeeding and give you tips to help out.
Is it just because they send formula home also that you call them hostile? Because not every woman CAN breastfeed, for whatever reason (it was the lactation consultant I saw that recommended I supplement with formula and then, when everything we did has not upped the supply, my doctor is completely supportive of our 50/50 breastmilk (pumped) and formula feeding of our son. He was losing weight when all he was doing was breastfeeding. Now he’s gaining fine!) Our doctor even says a greater percentage of women than most guess do a combination of breastmilk and breastfeeding.
I think it very good that a hospital supports us in our decision, as parents, on how to feed our kids. I get enough criticism on the Internet because our baby is not “all breastfeed all the time” and he doesn’t have the all wonderful “virgin gut” But I listened to these voices when my mommy instincts TOLD me my son was starving. I refused to open that formula sent home and give him food and just offered him the breast again, and again, and again. And when I went in for my appointment, I got told that he was on the cusp of “Failure to thrive” he had lost so much weight. He was spending too much time breastfeeding for too little food gotten back in response. They actually told me to LIMIT the amount of time on the breast because it takes those little babies energy to suck. So all the time breastfeeding is NOT necessarily good for those who have limited supplies. (But, of course, to continue to brastfeed to get supply up) I took fenugreek and ate oatmeal and pumped after breastfeeding. I pumped every time we gave him a bottle. And tried to get him to take both breasts at every feeding. (We also had problems with him falling asleep at the breast. He didn’t fall asleep for a bottle)
I see it this way: God designed us to breatfeed, yes. But there are problems in all other parts of God’s creation. What makes us think that those problems have not affected the operation of some women’s breasts as well? So some women do need formula. And, now that we do have to formula feed, I appreciate the free formula as much as I did the help of the lactation consultant at the time to help with latch on (and providing a nipple when it turned out my large breasts were too flat for him to latch on at all)
So it seems to me the hospitals provide “free” stuff appropriate to each. (Not that anything is really free, I know) Stuff to take home for formula, and expertise on staff (and available by phone and appointment once you go home) available for breastfeeding (and some hospitals do provide manual breast pumps. Ours did not. But they have very cheap hospital-grade pumps for rent if you want)
Comment by my Boaz's Ruth (September 25, 2007 @ 11:57 am )
GREAT post & AMEN!
Comment by Heather (September 25, 2007 @ 8:04 pm )
Boaz’s Ruth, almost all hospitals say they promote breast-feeding, and they do strongly recommend it. But their actual practices often hinder and interfere with healthy, successful breast-feeding.
In the same way, our culture claims to be child friendly, but its actual practices (forbidding breastfeeding in public, when it can and usually is done very discreetly), sneering at larger families, providing ‘child friendly’ services where the goal is a sort of apartheid, where children are isolated from adults as much as possible, keeping children drugged, doped, and hooked on video games and television programs (DVDs in cars, so they don’t have to talk to their parents, electronic devises with headphones so they do not have to hear the adults around them.
I totally agree, Cindy. Any establishment with Cosmopolitan magazines on the shelves, or frequented by women in cleavage baring clothing or skirts so short the wearer cannot bend over without showing more than she oughta (which includes too many churches) cannot object to public breastfeeding without baring more than a little hypocrisy.
Comment by DeputyHeadmistress (September 30, 2007 @ 9:49 am )