Inviting the Wrath of Mothers Everywhere
Sometime this morning a group of women are breastfeeding their babies in protest at the Delta counter in Portland and across the country. What are they protesting? That over the weekend a woman was asked to use a blanket while breast-feeding her nearly 2-year-old child on a flight and when she refused the airline (which actually wasn’t even Delta but one of their partners) had her removed from the flight.
Ok - so let the angry responses come flying in - but I think that these mothers are in the wrong. The airline was wrong as well - they should not have removed her from the flight - that is an excessive response. However - there is no need for a protest to occur making a busy holiday airport even worse because a flight attendant asked a woman to use a blanket while breastfeeding on an airplane.
The problem here lies in the over-reaction of some mothers that they and their children can do no wrong. How do the women here in Portland, Oregon know that this particular woman wasn’t in the wrong?
I have seen women breastfeed where you can barely tell what they are doing, or so that you know what they’re doing - but it’s subtle and unobtrusive.
I have also seen women breastfeed who practically removed their entire top - then go pick up the crying the child, shuffle about, making a giant spectacle as if to say “hey - look - I’m breastfeeding and you can’t do anything about it - it’s natural!”
Well yes - but is so is the act that got you that child and I don’t want to see that while I’m eating, flying, shopping, etc. either.
So how do we know that the woman on the plane wasn’t sitting their almost entirely bare-breasted? Or that it would have hurt her to simply take the blanket offered and wrap a bit of it around her child? Again - I do think their airline was wrong in removing her from the flight - but really - it’s all about moderation people. On BOTH sides.
But now these women in Portland and other cities are making it a fight that it shouldn’t be. It’s these parents with this “we are right just because we have children” attitude that raise children like the ones we encountered at Caro Amico on Saturday night. Running (literally) around the table they and their family were seated at for grandma’s birthday -chasing each other and tackling one another on the floor - pausing occasionally at nearby tables such as ours to stare and then run off hitting one another - while the parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles talked and drank and ate and laughed.
Ok - I’m done. Give me your best shot.
I wish that folks who insist that we all respect their rights as parents would respect the rights of those of us who have chosen NOT to have children — not to have our airplane seat kicked from behind, not to have infants screaming for the entire hour we’re at the market (hey — go outside and calm her down!), not to have kids running around while we’re out to eat at a SIT-DOWN restaurant. Your point about moderate behaviour is a good one.
I’m a mother and I’m over here giving you a standing ovation.
I’m also the former waitress who used to actually *tell* the parents to keep the kids in the booth already, ’cause I didn’t want to spill hot coffee or drop a heavy tray on their little noggins accidentally.
See, there are rude people who have kids, and morph into rude parents.
Then there are people like me, who have kids and consider it our job to ensure they stay similarly rude-free where possible.
The only time I’ve ever had an issue with someone breastfeeding their child was when I was in the middle of a job interview. The woman who would have been my direct supervisor took her top completely off at the conference table and stuck the kid on one side. The company owner (the other woman at the table) kept on going with the interview, and I kept responding with nary a pause in my voice, but seriously, the other boob was RIGHT THERE STARING AT ME so I think some surprise showed in my face.
I wasn’t offered the job, but on the drive home I had decided not to take it if they asked me to.
I was a kid once. I know it’s hard to sit still and be quiet and pay attention or whatever (who am I kidding, sometimes I still have trouble!), and I can respect that kids have a certain amount of “kidness’ in them that cannot be ignored. But letting a child run rampant in a store/restaurant/airport and acting like it’s the cutest damned thing you’ve ever seen is YOUR problem. I am more than willing to cut a kid some slack based on the fact that they are four, for example, but not the parents. How is it that I was the only kid who was ever threatened with punishment? I’d rather sit still than get in trouble, and that was all the motivation I ever had.
And the next bunch of people who get all worked up based on HALF the information and do stupid things like this are going to be counter-protested by me, I’ll be there with a sign protesting the protesters. Or something. (:
The height of hypocrisy is that some of the same people who totally object to a mother breast-feeding her child in a public place are some of the same people who vote for “family values” conservative politicians.
Although discretion is appropriate in some public places, I cannot think of a “family value” more basic than a mother feeding her child.
It’s not as though the mother was stripping. She’s feeding her child.
The child that the pro-lifers ought to be glad she had, rather than aborted.
how can people be AGAINST boobs?
I am a frequent flier. Some flights I can’t stand kids, others I love them. In my opinion other passengers are just as fickle. Some of us need sleep on a cross country flight, others don’t mind playing a game of peek-a-boo flying from here to LA. The red-eyes are particularly bad, but what can you do as they are a paying passenger and most times try their best to control their child. MOST times, not all.
If the breastfeeder was feeding to calm the child, I say let her do it. You are right as both sides should have come to an agreement divebar, but it wasn’t right for her to be removed especially if the gain for the plane was quiet.
Something everyone should take into account here is that Delta (Freedom Air, AKA Mesa Air) is a private entity and has rules it can impose without penalty. Sure it may have been bad policy again to remove her from the flight but it wasn’t something illegal… Delta felt she was a nuisance on the flight and when asked to stop breastfeeding, the passenger refused.
There is always the airplane bathroom, and I know those Bombardier and Embraer planes are tiny, but she could have gone to the toilet for 5 minutes.
Mary Sue - all I can say to that is…WOW!
And everyone else - I’m glad that for the most part you all don’t feel my thoughts on this are totally out of line. I am absolutely not against breast feeding or kids or boobs! But so often when I’ve had discussions like this I get bombed with people telling me that I just must hate children and why is it ok for people to hate parents just for having kids…so I’m glad to see my fellow readers and bloggers are much more rational on the issue of balance!
The lady in question says she was discreet and covered, and really, discrimination against breastfeeding women and babies is a different issue than rude parents/children. I’m all with you on the latter. We were at Orycon on Saturday with our 9-year-old and 5-year-old, and one of the volunteers at the art gallery was so floored by their good behavior he stopped us and begged us to bring them back next year. Not that they’re perfect–they’re not–we just have a standard of behavior we expect from them in public.
I don’t generally have a problem with breastfeeding. (Although, did anyone else see that Desperate Housewives episode where the lady breastfed a 5 or 6 year old? That’s a bit disturbing.) But I understand that others do and it seems reasonable to request that someone try to use a measure of modesty if possible. Since it was possible and the lady apparently refused, what other choice did the airline have? Should they have just given her the silent treatment from then on and not offered her drinks and peanuts? Barred her from using the bathroom? Skipped her while passing out headsets for hte movie? There’s really only one option with an unruly passenger on a flight, and that’s to remove them.
Kids in restaurants can definitely be a problem with how over-indulgent parents often are. I think they’d learn quite quickly, though, if restauranteurs weren’t pansy-asses about it and took parents aside and told them to get their kids under control or leave. This is a topic that comes up a lot over on PortlandFood.org. I’ve eaten with the kids of several people there and they’re much better behaved than the average.
I saw the footage of the PDX “protest” this morning, and thought “They might as well have a sign saying ‘We’re Diversity-Obsessed White Portlanders with No Real Problems.”
Just 2 little notes for those of you who have never breast-fed. 1- some babies won’t nurse when their head is covered, it gets quite hot under there. 2- it sometimes takes in excess of 45 min. to complete a feeding and people would be upset if you didn’t let them in the toilet for that long. That said a kid that old should be able to do without unless it was a VERY long flight. 2yr olds eat regular ‘human food’. And many airports have very nice areas for nursing in the ladies room.
I’m not at all against breastfeeding. If at all possible, I think it’s way better than formula, though I don’t have kids.
But the facts as presented in the linked article seem to indicate that the flight attendant had an issue with it, and this is the heart of the problem:
“[The mother and baby] took the window seat in the second-to-last row, and her husband took the aisle. She began nursing, using one hand to hold her shirt closed. She says: ‘I was not exposed.’
“…the flight attendant approached, tried to hand her a blanket and asked her to cover herself… “You’re offending me,” Gillette quotes the woman as saying.”
So, Delta has aplogized and this was a case of bad behavior on the part of airline staff. Geez, who would have thunk it?
I think what people objected to was seeing a toddler nursing in public. The mother should have had manners enough to cover up with a blanket in such close quarters. Her defiant behavior leads me to think she was trying to make a statement.
Extramsg, thank you for saying that. I don’t want to change the course of this thread, but it’s nice to hear someone standing up against unruly kids in restaurants.
Quote: Or that it would have hurt her to simply take the blanket offered and wrap a bit of it around her child?
Maybe. Airlines only clean blankets sporadically. *I* won’t use one, so I sure couldn’t imagine wrapping a baby with one of those nasty things.
Personally, screaming babies drive me nuts on a flight. They don’t scream when they’re feeding. ‘Nuff said.