I just found out this weekend that a friend of mine cussed out some guy who made a negative remark to her about her breastfeeding her 3 month old. I was like, “Woo hoo! One for breastfeeding!” But really, it wasn’t. It was just a tie.
Sometimes I feel like an accepting breastfeeding culture is on the rise. There are so many people doing good things in the breastfeeding community. And it shows! I ride a wave of pride in my fellow citizens for awhile, but then I surf off onto twitter or some news sites, and I read about hospitals contributing to lower breastfeeding rates, formula companies sponsoring health conferences, moms getting kicked out of pools and off buses, breastfeeding moms getting yelled at by hospitality managers for standing up for their rights, and random twitter folk tweeting shock, dismay, discomfort and/or disgust at seeing breastfeeding in public, and the wave crashes down and my surfboard breaks and floats away, and I am left wondering why this keeps happening.
Some places in the world have it worse than others.
As stated recently in this article in the Daily Express in a survey of British mothers, 60% do not think Britain is breastfeeding-friendly and 65% wouldn’t even try to breastfeed in public because they were worried about being stared at.
Of those who did breastfeed their children, more than half (54 percent) said they had been asked to leave a restaurant or cafe, while 30% had been asked to move in a shopping centre. Thirty-five percent admitted to breastfeeding their child in a bathroom.
In North America, our acceptance and practice of breastfeeding might be slightly higher, but I do think a fear of breastfeeding in public remains. More and more I am seeing breastfeeding moms use breastfeeding covers. I don’t have anything against the use of nursing covers if they can help some women feel more comfortable nursing around other people or if they help moms nurse longer than they otherwise might have (the most important thing is that you’re breastfeeding!) but I don’t like that these products reinforce the perception that breastfeeding is something to hide. And if you’re hiding something then it must be bad or wrong or dirty or socially unacceptable. And that’s the last thing breastfeeding needs to be perceived as if we’re trying to create a breastfeeding-friendly culture.
The question I’m asking myself today is do we already have a defined social norm or custom for breastfeeding or is it something we presently are trying to define, which is why it is so hard to make way?
Less than a century ago 99.9% of women breastfed their babies. Breastfeeding was the cultural and social norm. There was no formula, there was no shame. Women mingled with men, unbuttoned their shirts and fed their hungry babies. Sometimes their breast showed. It was okay.
But then formula appeared. It took a few decades, but with marketing and influence over health care professionals, it became the cultural and social norm. Whereas once the symbol of feeding a child was the breast, it became a bottle. Now some of us are trying to change things back to the way they were.
Can a culture move backwards? Must backwards always be perceived as the wrong direction in which to go, or can backward become the new forward? I personally think it has to become the new forward if we are to heal our planet and survive as a species. I’m talking about environmentalism here, but I think that breastfeeding-alism can take note too. (Yes, I know that’s not a word).
North America and Britain will always be a little more modest than some other countries, and we will certainly never adopt a societal culture that is not and has never been our own. But the culture I want to create has been here before. Society brings back bell bottoms and mini skirts, so why not breastfeeding? (Tongue in cheek people. No, I don’t think the two are the same.)
Right now there is a struggle going on. A group of moms want to make society safe for breastfeeding mothers. We want the right to feed our children without the fear of being shamed. We want to create a strong breastfeeding culture for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren. The other side just doesn’t want to see our boobs. That’s pretty much the mainstay of their argument.
When you hear the word “culture” do you have a gut reaction of wanting to hold onto it regardless of what “it” is? Is this part of the problem with changing it? So many thoughts are going through my head tonight as I ponder the enormity of this subject. It really shouldn’t be such a big deal – just let women nurse their babies in public. Support them, make them feel safe, make them feel normal. How long will it be before we can get back to the place in that picture taken not so long ago?
Related posts:
- Monday Musings: What Are You Doing For World Breastfeeding Awareness Week?
- Monday Musings: Are You Going?
- Monday Musings: Were You Breastfed?
- Monday Musings: What Do You Do When Breastfeeding?
- Monday Musings: Disappointments
Tags: culture, Monday Musings, nursing covers
Hmmm … I don’t think of normalized NIP as moving backward so much as moving forward in a new direction that happens to be a movement to bring back something that was important to our ancestors. Like planting a garden in your yard – that’s not backward momentum, although it might seem like it to some people!
I, personally, think us moms who are comfortable breastfeeding in public just have to continue doing it and be confident in doing it. Culture change happens S.L.O.W.L.Y. Like you said, it took decades for the bottle to replace the breast … it’s likely to take more time to switch back!
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You may have heard about the woman on Vancouver Island who was asked to move when nursing her baby in a Wal-Mart last week. People are up in arms and I feel sick to my stomach. Comments on newspaper articles suggest ‘common sense’ and ‘discretion’ such as the use of nursing covers or nursing in the parked car.
Like you, I say that whatever a mom needs to feel comfortable is fine. But to state that someone is REQUIRED to behave in a certain way for your comfort is not fine. It’s not common sense to suggest that a mom needs to hide to feed her hungry baby. And it’s actually far more rude for someone to confront a mom minding her own business than it is breastfeed. In the case of nursing you aren’t deliberately setting out to be confrontational or make anyone feel bad.
It just … ugh. I think it can create a situation like you’ve described where there’s backsliding. Because the story gets splashed everywhere and the ugly comments start and moms are afraid. I wouldn’t want to be confronted when I was feeding my baby, even though I know I have the right to. I can understand why others would feel the same, and why they might be timid in the face of the backlash.
It just makes me so, so sad.
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I tended to feel shy about NIP, although I did it. Hungry babies need their milk.
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I also tend to NIP as much as I need too and wish more mothers felt like they could. You want to be everyday normal nursing wherever, but not so sneaky that people don’t realize it is happening so they CAN get normalized to it….
“see, I am nursing my infant/toddler and you can barely ‘see’ anything but how content we both are”
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It makes me upset to hear how people are asked to leave or cover up. My plan is to have a bunch of cards printed out that clearly states my rights and carry them with me at all times.(If I can find them to buy or I’ll make my own) So that when I get that funny or shameful look or asked to leave I will just politely hand them a card and continue on with my feeding.
I’m not sure that it’s going backwards, but rather that we’re always on a pendulum swinging closer or farther to the right place.
There are lots of things I wouldn’t want to see come back: the high maternal/infant mortality rates in a time before infection control & anti-biotics were used or the exploitation of lower income women as ‘wet nurses’ for the wealthier class for example.
Breastfeeding-friendly practices are practices that do good for mothers and babies above and beyond breastfeeding. To be breast-feeding friendly, an environment has to be respectful of the woman and the unique and powerful relationship she has with her baby. In that way, the cultural transformation has a lot further to go – but the change has the power of many mama bears behind it!
I’ve become very outright about my NIP.
I do it uncovered, out in the open and free.
I hold my head up and feel confident, even if I’m asked to cover it up.
I hope women and girls see me and feel brave as well.
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Perhaps I could have worded the post better. Maybe I shouldn’t have used the phrase “going backward.” It seems to have negative connotations of its own.
@Michelle – I think you said it best “To be breast-feeding friendly, an environment has to be respectful of the woman and the unique and powerful relationship she has with her baby. ” Very true.
@Kim – you said it very well too. Thank you. “I don’t think of normalized NIP as moving backward so much as moving forward in a new direction that happens to be a movement to bring back something that was important to our ancestors. Like planting a garden in your yard.”
All of us are doing our parts though. You women are the ones who make me feel like it’s happening. It is. It’s just slow, and I can be impatient sometimes. Sigh.
I’m not nursing anymore and when I did NIP, I was never told that I had to move. However, these stories just irritate me to no end. If it had happened, I would have told “the person” to stuff it up their patootie! We are protected in Canada by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms so suck it up! (grrr!)
How dare ANYONE tell us to give up our rights as a Canadian!
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Just a couple thoughts:
1. The arguement of taking care of your hungry baby doesn’t work once they are old enough for solids. Those who are doing or have done “extended breastfeeding” (I hate that phrase) know that many, many needs are being met and hunger is rarely one of them.
2. I think that is the entire problem! Respect. The people having the problems don’t have any. These are the same people that would say “It doesn’t hurt the child to cry. Don’t pick them up, feed them til its time, sleep with them, etc, etc” If you get the chance to watch and listen to these people, they have no respect for anyone or anything.
Very nice post. Its a shame so many countries have become so industrialized and lost so much of the human contact and caring. I understand the going back to the simpler ways and good things that have worked successfully. Or trying to figure out how to overcome current norms and bring the important stuff back. And no, the word culture always makes me want to ask tons of questions and know the details.
[...] I felt that he had little respect for and even less understanding of a breastfeeding mom’s right to nurse in public. He even wrote that he hoped no “militant breast-feeders” would reply. Likely because as a teenage boy he is not really equipped to write about a breastfeeding mother’s rights let alone go head-to-head in a debate with one in the first place. Naturally, I sent him the following letter. I thought it kind of tied in nicely to my last post Monday Musings: Changing Culture. [...]
Forgive my naivete, but didn’t someone like the Supreme Court in Canada a bunch of years back, before I left in 2002, say that women can go topless just like men? Did I dream that? Seems like if we’re allowed to go topless back home, a little moving of the shirt to let the nursling at their food shouldn’t be controversial.
Right…
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CaroLyn — You’re absolutely right. I live in Ontario and it’s definitely legal for women to go topless. Not many do — but we can! Seems a lot of people (sadly!) have sexualized breasts to the point where people are offended when they see them being used for their intended purpose. I love to NIP and I hope I inspire others to do the same.
@Shelly – You’re right, BUT, for me anyway, I would rather nurse a toddler in public than listen to her scream and cry for it, thus exposing everyone else within hearing distance to her screams and cries. I have two screamers. It’s unfortunate, and I am unsure how they got that way because their dad and I are not screamy people, but that’s the hand I was dealt. As uncomfortable I might be nursing my toddler in public sometimes, her screaming makes me even more uncomfortable. When I NIP I do do it discreetly. I try to be respectful of who is around me, but I also do it in a way that let’s people know I am confident in my decision to do it. Regardless of how respectful I try to be I am sure there will always be some people who think it is disrespectful. I can’t please everyone, although I do my damnest trying. Ah, the crosses women bear!
[...] policy and have it be legal no matter what State they happened to be flying over at the time? Let’s change the culture! Airlines did it once before. Smoking isn’t illegal in any State or province and yet all of [...]
[...] policy and have it be legal no matter what State they happened to be flying over at the time? Let’s change the culture! Airlines did it once before. Smoking isn’t illegal in any State or province and yet all of [...]