Doing some recent research I have come across some disturbing information regarding breast feeding in public. Most recently a mother was asked to leave a Denny’s because the manager said it bothered the other guests and was indecent. Facebook banned a member because she posted pictures of herself breast feeding her baby. Now I am not advocating taking photos of yourself breast feeding but at the same time it bothers me that breast feeding a baby is seen as obscene. On a funny note a woman was given dirty looks by an employee while breast feeding her baby in an art gallery. One of the pieces of art in the room was a woman breast feeding her child. The mother commented that the artwork showed quite a bit of breast while she herself was completely covered.
On a blog I read recently two different women were at church feeding their babies while covered with a blanket and they were politely told where they could go away from the congregation. Both women were at the back of the church covered with a blanket and they just wanted to hear the sermon. These were two different churches. Another woman was at her Christian home-school group and was asked to go to another room to feed her baby.
In the U.S. breasts have become sexualized and used to sell every imaginable product from chicken wings to cars. We have young girls who get surgery so that they can look like the bimbos in the magazines and then later don’t have the option of feeding their children.
Yet it makes people uncomfortable to see a mother feeding her child. It is time we realize that God made women’s breasts for feeding and there is nothing indecent or wrong or obscene about it. It is the law that a mother has the right to feed her baby in public and that she can not be charged with indecent exposure.
In other countries it is a normal experience to see mothers feeding their babies in public and is seen as common place. Wouldn’t it be nice if our young people could see more women using their breasts for what they were meant for.
Recently Selma Hayek was in the news for breast feeding a sick baby in Africa. I personally thought it was a beautiful thing but others in the media thought it was gross that she would 1) still be breast feeding her baby when its a year old and 2) breast feed another woman’s baby.
I hope that as Christians we can try to be an advocate for mothers who want to nurse their babies and not act offended or prudish when we see a woman nursing in public. Also let’s not buy into the U.S.’s sexualization of breasts and remember what they were made for.
OK I am now off of my soapbox!
