I've never breast fed but I've been around plenty of women that have and boy is it a minefield a lot of the time.
There's the whole breast is best vs bottle debate.
The demand feed vs regulated feed debate.
There's the "it's natural and you should just be able to do it easily" thing that a lot of women have to endure and any failure of the baby to thrive is seen as a failure by the woman.
There's the milk coming in at all kinds of inappropriate moments, drenching clothing and I'm sure highly uncomfortable and embarrassing.
Not to mention some of the hideously painful blood blisters I've seen some women endure because bubs is a gnasher. :eek:
There's the complete change of lifestyle that a new baby brings, lack of sleep, hormonal changes from the pregnancy and birth, post natal depression, it goes on and on. That some women are able to negotiate all these things as well as the well meaning advice from bloody near on everybody around them, and somehow make it out of the house to go do something normal like shopping, well it amazes me. After they've packed enough extra crap as if they're going on holiday for a week, just to get the bub through a day. Well to get through all that and discover bubs in hungry right now and people are getting irritated because they can't stop their hungry baby crying, so they juggle the stroller, the screaming baby, the maternity bra, somehow manage to get the baby latched on to their breast and there are still more people with their comments about appropriateness and bitching because they're offended??????????????????? No wonder more women don't want to have kids. Frankly that a woman is out of the house at all with her baby is a minor miracle a lot of the time. Imagine being in that circumstance and embarrassed but baby needs a feed, or so exhausted or stressed that their "flop out" technique is up for question and criticism, their lack of a suitable "blanket" while they feed is the source of "discomfort" for others?????????????????????? :rolleyes:
Breastfeeding Mums, I'll say it again. I take my hat of to you and whatever you wanna do, wherever, HOWEVER, you wanna feed you baby is fine by me. Oh and for the record if I ever come across one of these "uncomfortable" "modesty" types who feel the need to criticize you in my presence while you breast feed in public, rest assured I'm more than happy to move them along for you and I will.
Do you ever get a hunger pang at 10 am when you have already eaten breakfast??
Babies bellies hold very little and they are growing like crazy.
Their little brains are growing... Their skulls are hardening... They are growing in LEAPS and BOUNDS... and their immune systems are developing... hell their entire infrastructure is growing and developing daily!!!
SCHEDULES???
OMG. People crack me up. Let me guess. You have no kids.
I don't have any kids, but I witnessed my mom raise my brother and breastfeed him, and then as an adult I nannied a small baby- he was on a schedule for eating. I can see there being emergency-type situations, but I don't think it should be an ordinary occurance to have to feed while you're shopping in a store. and as I said it sounds like something one would avoid having to do if they could.
I don't have any kids, but I witnessed my mom raise my brother and breastfeed him, and then as an adult I nannied a small baby- he was on a schedule for eating. I can see there being emergency-type situations, but I don't think it should be an ordinary occurance to have to feed while you're shopping in a store. and as I said it sounds like something one would avoid having to do if they could.
And so the lion fell in love with the lamb...,"
"What a stupid lamb."
"What a sick, masochistic lion."
At this point I would say it's the law, on behalf of the culture, that defines how discreet we must be. Some societies have laws that women must cover their ankles. Some allow women to be completely naked. Ours allows us to bare our breasts in public for the sake of breastfeeding, but not otherwise.
So why are we even having this argument?
The women at H&M were merely trying to educate the public about the rights, afforded them by law, of breastfeeding women.
I agree.
I just find it so frustrating that some people seem to think that others are responsible for their own discomfort. It's really simple if you don't like something or it makes you uncomfortable don't look and if you feel the need to criticize or look down on someone don't come bitching to me when your comments are unwelcome and the subject not responsive to your comments.
I'm glad they protested. Clearly a lot of education is still required that this is even an issue.
this is my issue with it- the planning thing. Sure, I think people should have the right to do it if they need to, but people feed their babies on a schedule. It seems like you'd want to AVOID having to do it while shopping or something. If I were doing it, I'd think I'd view it as a more private thing, but I guess that's me.
The one issue I did have a problem with was the woman who was taking the medical boards and wanted to have her test time extended so she could pump breast milk. I do have a big problem with that. She knew she was having a baby, she knew she was talking the medical boards, so could have waited to take the boards or waited to have a baby if it was planned. I don't think she won her case, which is good. I don't think that would have been fair to the other test takers who planned their lives more accordingly, or made sacrifices, or to people who had health concerns that may have needed extended breaks.
I'm ridiculously scheduled...I LOVE LOVE LOVE having a schedule....ahhhh yeah organizing is my life But I gotta say...this sounds ridiculous to me. And yeah...I don't have a baby, but if I did, I would expect that I would at times have to throw my beloved schedule out the window to meet the needs of my child.
I don't have any kids, but I witnessed my mom raise my brother and breastfeed him, and then as an adult I nannied a small baby- he was on a schedule for eating. I can see there being emergency-type situations, but I don't think it should be an ordinary occurance to have to feed while you're shopping in a store. and as I said it sounds like something one would avoid having to do if they could.
Well, some babies by the time they're three or four months old, have something that vaguely resembles a schedule. What needs to be considered here though, is that babies grow at an astonishing rate, and their needs change, sometimes daily. You would probably find most mothers, when they are planning to go out somewhere, will try to time things so the baby feeds before she leaves, and won't need another till they get home again. Alas, as they say, the best laid plans...... One thing needs to be remembered, a breast feeding baby behaves very differently to a bottle feeding one. And even today, with all the education surrounding breast feeding and its benefits, people still expect a breast fed baby to get on a schedule the way a formula fed one does. It just does not happen. Breast milk is much easier for a baby to digest, it doesn't sit in the stomach for very long, so they feed much more frequently. Formula on the other hand, sits heavy in the stomach for longer periods, so the baby feels full for longer. The whole four hourly feeding regime, I thought, went out years ago. Demand feeding is promoted in every health setting as the optimum way to successfully breast feed an infant. This basically means, when the baby demands it, you supply it. When you start trying to apply the rules of bottle feeding to breast feeding, this is where you run into problems and women start to believe they don't have enough milk. In part this is true, because the signals their body is getting is that she only needs to produce milk every four hours, when in fact that baby needs it much more often than that, so the baby cries or doesn't thrive and the whole situation is then set up to fail.
OK, first and foremost, there is no ONE correct way to raise a child. Secondly, if you want to start looking at other cultures, you have to address a lot of factors. For example, many of the places you have mentioned are third world countries or developing countries, where sanitation is not anywhere near what we have in westernised cultures. Thus feeding a baby is something only a mother can do. In addition, due to the hand- to-mouth existence many of these women live in, there is no other option than to have a baby strapped to them whilst they work. Of course you then have issues such as religion which may dictate that women stay at home and look after children exclusively. Bed sharing may in some cases come down to a simple necessity due to lack of rooms or beds, or heating.
Again, I am gonna stuff up the quoting thing coz I just can't for the life of me figure it out.I do apologize for that.
You're right, there is no one correct way to raise a child. All kinds of things need to be factored in. My reason for using the examples of other cultures, was simply to demonstrate this is the way the majority of people around the world do it, for all kinds of reasons. Whether by choice or necessity, they make up the majority. I did state and make the differentiation between western cultures and others around the world though.
Looking further though, to primates and the assumption we've evolved from them (a whole other discussion), they also carry and sleep with their young. Primates live in very social groups with structure and organization, and at the risk of upsetting some, from a biological point of view, women are designed much the same way. We are supposed to feed, nurture and be the primary care-givers of our young. Our society has evolved to have very different expectations though. Women are expected to work outside the home, Men are expected to be hands on parents and play a nurturing role as well. I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing, but it moves away from our biologically defines roles and purposes.
And there’s just as much evidence to suggest that what you have said is in fact not the case, the research is available for you too to find.
Plenty of research that backs it up too, it's available for you too to find.
My best research however, is my own experience.
:eek: I don’t want to be rude, but is a five year old in your bed not a bit of a passion killer?!
LOL, well, think about it like this. As we've discussed, other cultures co-sleep etc. And they are well known for their large families. My older three children didn't sleep in our bed, but they did share our room until they were out of their cots. And after number one, number two arrived, as did number three and four. It can be a bit of a passion killer, but so can breastfeeding. From the mothers point of view, when she has a child attached to her day and night, she kinda likes her own space. Call it a natural contraception, I am sure there are biological reasons for the lack of libido of a breastfeeding mother.
For us, it was a conscious choice to parent out children this way. We decided to bring them into the world, so we felt it necessary to raise them consciously and in a way that was best for them, rather than convenient for us. By the time we had our fourth child, we were acutely aware of how short childhood really is and how quickly they grow up and separate themselves bit by bit from their parents. We knew and planned for him to be our last child, and wanted to savour and enjoy every moment of his babyhood and young childhood, knowing it would only be a few short years before he was waving us goodbye on the steps of his school and becoming an independent little person with a mind of his own.
No matter how much you try to influence a child’s upbringing, there is no way you can control how their personality will develop. Studies have shown that a child’s peers are more influential than their parents anyway. One case looked at children whose parents were immigrants. The children continued to speak their parent’s language at home, yet were still able to learn the new language and speak it without an accent, whilst their parent’s retained their accents.
Very true, there are myriad influences on how a child's personality develops. But it is a well established and well researched fact that children who grow up secure in their parents love, secure in their own worth as a person, who are encouraged to think for themselves, who's needs are met without question, grow up to be pretty well adjusted individuals. Whichever way a parent chooses to achieve this, is of course up to them.
I also think there are some serious implications from the attachment method in terms of women’s rights. Given that women have struggled for years to be seen as equals in society, I’m not sure it’s right that a movement of women are implying other women are bad mothers if they HAVE to go out to work (or heaven forbid CHOOSE) to support their children. It must be a real ‘privilege’ to be able to stay at home and be at the beck and call of their child all day.
I think the most important point of equal opportunity, womens rights, feminism etc, is choice. To be denied choice based purely on gender, whether that be male or female, is unacceptable in my opinion. Personally, I did what works for me, and while that may be different from what works for others, I support a persons right to choose what is right for them. I can see what you mean, that this kind of mindset could send the womens movement backwards and consider once again, that a womans role is in the home. I would hope society in general is smart enough to recognize that is should never be about what a woman, or man for that matter, is expected to do, but rather, that they always have the choice to do things as they see fit.
In an ideal world, it would be lovely to see families supported in this, and see society accept very young children in the work place. For a lot of women, whether it's a matter of having to work, or choosing to, I can pretty much guarantee every woman feels the pangs of guilt about it. They feel the pain of separation from their babies and while they realize it is what they want or have to do, there are still many aspects of it they would rather not have to endure.
For the record, I absolutely acknowledge the privilege I had in being able to stay at home with my children. There were times throughout those years where I had to work part time, where I had to work evening shifts to make ends meet. There were many(probably most of it really) where there were really lean times and we worried about how we were gonna make the rent. We very much did without a LOT while our children were young. We didn't drive a flash car, we didn't eat out very much, we stuck to a pretty simple and natural diet and didn't buy a lot of convenience food. I rotated my very small wardrobe and didn't buy myself new clothes once a month. Having four children, two of each sex, was good in that a lot of their clothes could be handed down. We didn't use disposable nappies or formula feed ( a massive expense) We kept our bills down by hanging out washing rather than using a dryer, we had a wood fire to heat the house and we stretched every dollar to its limits. And there were many many times where I lay awake worrying about finances and wishing for lottery wins, but looking back, I have no regrets about it. I loved that time in my life and wouldn't trade it for anything.
.......Right now, I'm tired. All I needed to say has been said, mostly in post #303. I'd like to add that bringing up Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is definitely not necessary and I certainly don't see the connexion. It is legal to breastfeed and most people don't have a problem with it. It's a few people who do. Forty years after MLK's death black people are still not treated equally and racism is still very much alive. I cannot believe someone would actually compare the fight the civil rights movement had to fight with this issue.
I'm okay with fighting for your rights to breastfeed... but saying this is the same fight MLK fought is absurd.
Well, I'm off to bed.
So it's ok for MLK to fight for civil rights but it's not ok for women to continue fighting for women's rights? Is that it? Seems to me that the rights of women as a movement have been going on a whole lot longer than civil rights.
100+ years after women were FINALLY given the right to vote and 40 odd years after the women's liberation movement we still don't have equal work for equal pay, women and children are still poorer than men and women are still being vilified in public for breastfeeding because it makes others uncomfortable. NOT unsimilar to Rosa Parkes making a whole bunch of people uncomfortable on a bus for sitting in the wrong section. :rolleyes: The parallels are there and I'm quite sure MLK wouldn't have any problem seeing them. That you find it absurd is rather sad really but the topic for another thread I think.
Frantically screaming babies (you know...the hungry ones...) are something else all kinds of people freak out about.
Can't that mother do "something??"
Uhm...Yeah... But...well she needs to find someplace that people find "more acceptable."
Would a Food Court be appropriate? A place where everyone else is eating?
And while this mom who is probably running on minimal sleep and is tired and worn -the -f out like many moms are... listens to her baby scream and gets dirty looks from people because of it...her frustration tolerance runs low as the baby grows more and more hungry, irritable and difficult to console. Not the best combo!!!
Hungry babies need to eat. Simple as that. They are BABIES!
Seems like a lot of people expect a lot from others.
I think there is a Seinfeld episode about this... excellent.
I get very uncomfortable when my sister breast feeds. Does this mean that I hate women and/or am sexist?
No I don't think so.
But if you expected her to jump through hoops in order to make you comfortable while she's just trying to feed your niece or nephew then I'd expect her to tell you to get over it!
That's pretty much what I'd be telling my brother.
I'm ridiculously scheduled...I LOVE LOVE LOVE having a schedule....ahhhh yeah organizing is my life But I gotta say...this sounds ridiculous to me. And yeah...I don't have a baby, but if I did, I would expect that I would at times have to throw my beloved schedule out the window to meet the needs of my child.
Neither I nor the person I quoted said there wouldn't be times when you'd have to throw they schedule out the window. We were simply saying that there is a level of planning involved when you leave the house with a baby/small child. Sure, even best laid plans have a way of not working out. And we both supported the idea of being allowed to breast feed in public. I was just saying that if I could plan around it and avoid having to do it while shopping in a store or something, I would make the best effort to.
Well, some babies by the time they're three or four months old, have something that vaguely resembles a schedule. What needs to be considered here though, is that babies grow at an astonishing rate, and their needs change, sometimes daily. You would probably find most mothers, when they are planning to go out somewhere, will try to time things so the baby feeds before she leaves, and won't need another till they get home again. Alas, as they say, the best laid plans...... One thing needs to be remembered, a breast feeding baby behaves very differently to a bottle feeding one. And even today, with all the education surrounding breast feeding and its benefits, people still expect a breast fed baby to get on a schedule the way a formula fed one does. It just does not happen. Breast milk is much easier for a baby to digest, it doesn't sit in the stomach for very long, so they feed much more frequently. Formula on the other hand, sits heavy in the stomach for longer periods, so the baby feels full for longer. The whole four hourly feeding regime, I thought, went out years ago. Demand feeding is promoted in every health setting as the optimum way to successfully breast feed an infant. This basically means, when the baby demands it, you supply it. When you start trying to apply the rules of bottle feeding to breast feeding, this is where you run into problems and women start to believe they don't have enough milk. In part this is true, because the signals their body is getting is that she only needs to produce milk every four hours, when in fact that baby needs it much more often than that, so the baby cries or doesn't thrive and the whole situation is then set up to fail.
for putting this in words that others can understand!!! I wanted to respond to the several posts about "schedules", but it just got to be too long and rambling...
Take care.
I still want you all to "take care"--I am just damn tired of typing it.
this is my issue with it- the planning thing. Sure, I think people should have the right to do it if they need to, but people feed their babies on a schedule. It seems like you'd want to AVOID having to do it while shopping or something. If I were doing it, I'd think I'd view it as a more private thing, but I guess that's me.
The one issue I did have a problem with was the woman who was taking the medical boards and wanted to have her test time extended so she could pump breast milk. I do have a big problem with that. She knew she was having a baby, she knew she was talking the medical boards, so could have waited to take the boards or waited to have a baby if it was planned. I don't think she won her case, which is good. I don't think that would have been fair to the other test takers who planned their lives more accordingly, or made sacrifices, or to people who had health concerns that may have needed extended breaks.
I'm sorry, not having a go but aren't you the person that was having trouble getting out of bed to go to the gym in the morning and sleeping through 2 alarm clocks?
Are you saying it's ok that you were unable to adhere to a schedule or meet the planning requirements you'd set up for yourself in a day but that babies and their mothers should be held to a higher standard?
Neither I nor the person I quoted said there wouldn't be times when you'd have to throw they schedule out the window. We were simply saying that there is a level of planning involved when you leave the house with a baby/small child. Sure, even best laid plans have a way of not working out. And we both supported the idea of being allowed to breast feed in public. I was just saying that if I could plan around it and avoid having to do it while shopping in a store or something, I would make the best effort to.
It's just the whole expectation that women should plan their lives and their babies down to the minute. Yeah...it's great to plan to have a baby for a time that may be more ideal (if such a thing exists)...but planning isn't always an option and doesn't always work out even if it is. Usually one thing happens after another in life and I don't think it's always possible to "plan your life accordingly." Sorry if that's a bit off topic.
I've never breast fed but I've been around plenty of women that have and boy is it a minefield a lot of the time.
There's the whole breast is best vs bottle debate.
The demand feed vs regulated feed debate.
There's the "it's natural and you should just be able to do it easily" thing that a lot of women have to endure and any failure of the baby to thrive is seen as a failure by the woman.
There's the milk coming in at all kinds of inappropriate moments, drenching clothing and I'm sure highly uncomfortable and embarrassing.
Not to mention some of the hideously painful blood blisters I've seen some women endure because bubs is a gnasher. :eek:
There's the complete change of lifestyle that a new baby brings, lack of sleep, hormonal changes from the pregnancy and birth, post natal depression, it goes on and on. That some women are able to negotiate all these things as well as the well meaning advice from bloody near on everybody around them, and somehow make it out of the house to go do something normal like shopping, well it amazes me. After they've packed enough extra crap as if they're going on holiday for a week, just to get the bub through a day. Well to get through all that and discover bubs in hungry right now and people are getting irritated because they can't stop their hungry baby crying, so they juggle the stroller, the screaming baby, the maternity bra, somehow manage to get the baby latched on to their breast and there are still more people with their comments about appropriateness and bitching because they're offended??????????????????? No wonder more women don't want to have kids. Frankly that a woman is out of the house at all with her baby is a minor miracle a lot of the time. Imagine being in that circumstance and embarrassed but baby needs a feed, or so exhausted or stressed that their "flop out" technique is up for question and criticism, their lack of a suitable "blanket" while they feed is the source of "discomfort" for others?????????????????????? :rolleyes:
Breastfeeding Mums, I'll say it again. I take my hat of to you and whatever you wanna do, wherever, HOWEVER, you wanna feed you baby is fine by me. Oh and for the record if I ever come across one of these "uncomfortable" "modesty" types who feel the need to criticize you in my presence while you breast feed in public, rest assured I'm more than happy to move them along for you and I will.
Well said!
People just need to give these poor women a break.
It's just the whole expectation that women should plan their lives and their babies down to the minute. Yeah...it's great to plan to have a baby for a time that may be more ideal (if such a thing exists)...but planning isn't always an option and doesn't always work out even if it is. Usually one thing happens after another in life and I don't think it's always possible to "plan your life accordingly." Sorry if that's a bit off topic.
Haha...You mean like even if you have an "on schedule" child (which in itself is absurd considering how they grow and change almost daily.... ) But IF YOU DID.
OK...So..you feed them and plan to leave the house at 10 am. But at 9:58 the kid has a crazy poopie. So you fix that all up and then you realize it has started raining and you have to organize the rain gear for the kid. Then it spits up. Then the dog gets out. Then you realize you don't have much gas in the car. And as you're leaving your boss calls with an important question. So even though the kid ate at 9 and her "schedule" indicates she shouldn't be hungry til 12:30... You actually don't hit the road til almost 11. Then there's traffic and you can't find a parking spot. Then the stupid stroller sicks when you are trying to open it.
By the time you get into the store...you know...where you figured you'd be by 10:20...well...Now it's 11:45. You figure...OK...get in some quick shopping...AFTER ALL THIS. You figure the kid can probably hold off til like 12:45...15 minutes after its "scheduled" (hehe) time so you SHOULD be ok.
But guess what...Baby has other ideas and gets hungry 15 minutes later...1/2 hour before "normal" time. Now it's NOON. You just got to the damn store. You have clothes in your hands. You see a nice comfy mini couch in the woman's department. What do you do?
Me? I'd sit my worn out ass down on the little couch and feed my kid.
Haha...You mean like even if you have an "on schedule" child (which in itself is absurd considering how they grow and change almost daily.... ) But IF YOU DID.
OK...So..you feed them and plan to leave the house at 10 am. But at 9:58 the kid has a crazy poopie. So you fix that all up and then you realize it has started raining and you have to organize the rain gear for the kid. Then it spits up. Then the dog gets out. Then you realize you don't have much gas in the car. And as you're leaving your boss calls with an important question. So even though the kid ate at 9 and her "schedule" indicates she shouldn't be hungry til 12:30... You actually don't hit the road til almost 11. Then there's traffic and you can't find a parking spot. Then the stupid stroller sicks when you are trying to open it.
By the time you get into the store...you know...where you figured you'd be by 10:20...well...Now it's 11:45. You figure...OK...get in some quick shopping...AFTER ALL THIS. You figure the kid can probably hold off til like 12:45...15 minutes after its "scheduled" (hehe) time so you SHOULD be ok.
But guess what...Baby has other ideas and gets hungry 15 minutes later...1/2 hour before "normal" time. Now it's NOON. You just got to the damn store. You have clothes in your hands. You see a nice comfy mini couch in the woman's department. What do you do?
Me? I'd sit my worn out ass down on the little couch and feed my kid.
Yes! That's exactly what I mean. I'm exhausted just from reading that! Hats off to moms...even the ones who can't keep to a schedule
Neither I nor the person I quoted said there wouldn't be times when you'd have to throw they schedule out the window. We were simply saying that there is a level of planning involved when you leave the house with a baby/small child. Sure, even best laid plans have a way of not working out. And we both supported the idea of being allowed to breast feed in public. I was just saying that if I could plan around it and avoid having to do it while shopping in a store or something, I would make the best effort to.
Don't you think women do make their best efforts to plan?
Haha...You mean like even if you have an "on schedule" child (which in itself is absurd considering how they grow and change almost daily.... ) But IF YOU DID.
OK...So..you feed them and plan to leave the house at 10 am. But at 9:58 the kid has a crazy poopie. So you fix that all up and then you realize it has started raining and you have to organize the rain gear for the kid. Then it spits up. Then the dog gets out. Then you realize you don't have much gas in the car. And as you're leaving your boss calls with an important question. So even though the kid ate at 9 and her "schedule" indicates she shouldn't be hungry til 12:30... You actually don't hit the road til almost 11. Then there's traffic and you can't find a parking spot. Then the stupid stroller sicks when you are trying to open it.
By the time you get into the store...you know...where you figured you'd be by 10:20...well...Now it's 11:45. You figure...OK...get in some quick shopping...AFTER ALL THIS. You figure the kid can probably hold off til like 12:45...15 minutes after its "scheduled" (hehe) time so you SHOULD be ok.
But guess what...Baby has other ideas and gets hungry 15 minutes later...1/2 hour before "normal" time. Now it's NOON. You just got to the damn store. You have clothes in your hands. You see a nice comfy mini couch in the woman's department. What do you do?
Me? I'd sit my worn out ass down on the little couch and feed my kid.
Boss? Breastfeeding woman? Work? How dare she?
... and the will to show I will always be better than before.
Frantically screaming babies (you know...the hungry ones...) are something else all kinds of people freak out about.
Can't that mother do "something??"
Uhm...Yeah... But...well she needs to find someplace that people find "more acceptable."
Would a Food Court be appropriate? A place where everyone else is eating?
And while this mom who is probably running on minimal sleep and is tired and worn -the -f out like many moms are... listens to her baby scream and gets dirty looks from people because of it...her frustration tolerance runs low as the baby grows more and more hungry, irritable and difficult to console. Not the best combo!!!
Hungry babies need to eat. Simple as that. They are BABIES!
Seems like a lot of people expect a lot from others.
I think this is a very important point. Why do so many people feel the need to judge how others (namely women, in the threads I frequent) should be carrying on with their lives? Don't people realize that these moms are doing the best they can? Even if there were room for criticism (and I'm not saying there is), why focus on the things we think they should do better or more to OUR liking? Why don't we instead focus our energy on supporting those who have the hardest jobs in the world - bearing and raising the next generation of people? How is making them feel bad for not meeting some abstract discretion standards productive in any way?
Read Animal's posts and don't be snide with me just because I have the audacity to go to bed at 2.30am with no further desire to spoon feed you because you're having a comprehension problem and want to turn the whole thing into a rant against feminism. If it's good enough for you to give up at bedtime it's good enough for me.
I read his posts. All of them. He never said what you claim he did. If you think he did, you are the one with a comprehension problem.
Who said you did? But you seem to think that mutual respect involves a blanket for some women.
Nope, I never in this entire thread mentioned a blanket. Read your post again, and see who was talking about a "a whole new set of rules and regulations."
WHY should women take anybody else's feelings into consideration when they're breastfeeding?
Why should anyone care about anyone else's feelings. I've read quite a few times here that some women received dirty looks and unkind comments. People don't have to care about that mother's feelings either. They have a right to voice their opinion.
But besides that there's still the issue of private property. The owner of a bar, restaurant, store... has a right to decide what is acceptable in his store. If he doesn't want people comming in topless he has a right to tell them to wear a shirt or leave. The same goes for breastfeeding. This person's livelihood depends on his business and his customers. If his customers complain he can say it's his property and he decides what is allowed and what is not, but he could very well risk losing a few customers if he allows the mother to stay. He could of course offer her to go somewhere more quiet, away from the dining guests... But no, some of you, I don't know where you stand anymore, feel there's no need for compromise, that others' rights can be trampled on... and I don't agree with that.
I don't think breastfeeding mothers have the right to trespass. So why should they take other people's feelings into consideration, well, first of all, you might be on their property and you might actually be costing the owner money because of your breastfeeding (well, because of people who cannot stand breastfeeding).
And I happen to think a little respect and consideration of other people goes a long way, always.
I'm not really understanding why you've dragged scb into this and labelled her a feminist (like it's a bad thing :rolleyes:) and clearly misrepresented her level of compassion for others except perhaps you were frustrated that you weren't going to be able to continue misconstruing what I was saying, calling me stupid and generally sprouting off at me because I had gone to bed.
I think scb and I already worked this out. When I called you stupid, I believe there was a smiley next to it, which as we both know, means it's humourous.
And yes, I do consider feminism a bad thing. It used to be imperative, now it's become an ugly caricature of what it used to be.
Just don't try to tell me that these other examples are acceptable if inadvertant boobage during breast feeding is not. THAT right there is the issue as far as I'm concerned.
Well, I never did tell you that, did I?
No and I never said you did, but you keep coming back to your interpretation of discretion and as far as I can see I don't agree with you on that and I don't see any reason why I can't say I don't agree.
Well, I never defined discretion and in fact most of the time I even used the quantifier 'little'.
I did say there should be no punishment for women breastfeeding, that it is normal, legal and women have every right to do it even if you disagree with it and that is part of the mutual respect I was talking about. Nowhere did I mention a blanket.
You can disagree with me, sure. But note that whatever definition you have in your mind about discretion is yours, not mine. You wrongly concluded that I feel that discretion involves a blanket. So, by all means, disagree with your own fabrications of what I said.
So it's ok for MLK to fight for civil rights but it's not ok for women to continue fighting for women's rights? Is that it? Seems to me that the rights of women as a movement have been going on a whole lot longer than civil rights.
You mean the right to breastfeed that is already established?
But perhaps you missed this little part of the post you quoted:
"I'm okay with fighting for your rights to breastfeed"
That you find it absurd is rather sad really but the topic for another thread I think.
You think there's a parallel, I don't. I think it's entirely different.
If a black man without a shirt walks into a restaurant and the owner says he has to wear a shirt or leave, is that racism?
Frantically screaming babies (you know...the hungry ones...) are something else all kinds of people freak out about.
Can't that mother do "something??"
Uhm...Yeah... But...well she needs to find someplace that people find "more acceptable."
Would a Food Court be appropriate? A place where everyone else is eating?
And while this mom who is probably running on minimal sleep and is tired and worn -the -f out like many moms are... listens to her baby scream and gets dirty looks from people because of it...her frustration tolerance runs low as the baby grows more and more hungry, irritable and difficult to console. Not the best combo!!!
Hungry babies need to eat. Simple as that. They are BABIES!
Seems like a lot of people expect a lot from others.
People do expect a lot from others, breastfeeding moms are no exception.
I think this is a very important point. Why do so many people feel the need to judge how others (namely women, in the threads I frequent) should be carrying on with their lives? Don't people realize that these moms are doing the best they can? Even if there were room for criticism (and I'm not saying there is), why focus on the things we think they should do better or more to OUR liking? Why don't we instead focus our energy on supporting those who have the hardest jobs in the world - bearing and raising the next generation of people? How is making them feel bad for not meeting some abstract discretion standards productive in any way?
Perhaps some of the people in that restaurant are mothers themselves, who just happen to have one little moment of peace, away from the screams and demands of her own children, a moment to herself.
Perhaps there people with children in the restaurant who don't want their children to see your breast. Yet, you don't want to compromise and find a place more private or cover up. You said we should encourage breastfeeding and look at it as something beautiful. Well, you have no right to tell these parents how to raise their children. The parents can avert their eyes, but they don't control the eyes of their children. A restaurant owner does have the right to tell you to cover up, especially after he recieved complaints.
I think most mothers would welcome a little privacy, but you make it sounds like offering privacy is an insult. Perhaps when someone tells a mother there's a private room somewhere they are doing it because they want to help the mother with her difficult job and want to spare her the dirty looks and comments. And by doing so perhaps they also want to respect the wishes of the single mom who finally got a moment of peace to herself and just want to enjoy her meal.
People do expect a lot from others, breastfeeding moms are no exception.
Perhaps some of the people in that restaurant are mothers themselves, who just happen to have one little moment of peace, away from the screams and demands of her own children, a moment to herself.
Perhaps there people with children in the restaurant who don't want their children to see your breast. Yet, you don't want to compromise and find a place more private or cover up. You said we should encourage breastfeeding and look at it as something beautiful. Well, you have no right to tell these parents how to raise their children. The parents can avert their eyes, but they don't control the eyes of their children. A restaurant owner does have the right to tell you to cover up, especially after he recieved complaints.
and no one has the right to tell me as a breastfeeding mother how to bring up my child either collin. so i guess we find ourselves at an impasse.
I think most mothers would welcome a little privacy, but you make it sounds like offering privacy is an insult. Perhaps when someone tells a mother there's a private room somewhere they are doing it because they want to help the mother with her difficult job and want to spare her the dirty looks and comments. And by doing so perhaps they also want to respect the wishes of the single mom who finally got a moment of peace to herself and just want to enjoy her meal.
you dont get it do you collin. a brestfeeding mothers primary and only concern now that i think about it is feeding her child. shes not particularly interested in what others think of what she is doing. she is feeding her child just as those other parents are feeding theres. tis only the modus operandi that differs. and if parents cant answer a question about breastfeeding then they seriously need to reevaluate their skills.
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Comments
Thanks.
This is the part that really upsets me.
I've never breast fed but I've been around plenty of women that have and boy is it a minefield a lot of the time.
There's the whole breast is best vs bottle debate.
The demand feed vs regulated feed debate.
There's the "it's natural and you should just be able to do it easily" thing that a lot of women have to endure and any failure of the baby to thrive is seen as a failure by the woman.
There's the milk coming in at all kinds of inappropriate moments, drenching clothing and I'm sure highly uncomfortable and embarrassing.
Not to mention some of the hideously painful blood blisters I've seen some women endure because bubs is a gnasher. :eek:
There's the complete change of lifestyle that a new baby brings, lack of sleep, hormonal changes from the pregnancy and birth, post natal depression, it goes on and on. That some women are able to negotiate all these things as well as the well meaning advice from bloody near on everybody around them, and somehow make it out of the house to go do something normal like shopping, well it amazes me. After they've packed enough extra crap as if they're going on holiday for a week, just to get the bub through a day. Well to get through all that and discover bubs in hungry right now and people are getting irritated because they can't stop their hungry baby crying, so they juggle the stroller, the screaming baby, the maternity bra, somehow manage to get the baby latched on to their breast and there are still more people with their comments about appropriateness and bitching because they're offended??????????????????? No wonder more women don't want to have kids. Frankly that a woman is out of the house at all with her baby is a minor miracle a lot of the time. Imagine being in that circumstance and embarrassed but baby needs a feed, or so exhausted or stressed that their "flop out" technique is up for question and criticism, their lack of a suitable "blanket" while they feed is the source of "discomfort" for others?????????????????????? :rolleyes:
Breastfeeding Mums, I'll say it again. I take my hat of to you and whatever you wanna do, wherever, HOWEVER, you wanna feed you baby is fine by me.
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I don't have any kids, but I witnessed my mom raise my brother and breastfeed him, and then as an adult I nannied a small baby- he was on a schedule for eating. I can see there being emergency-type situations, but I don't think it should be an ordinary occurance to have to feed while you're shopping in a store. and as I said it sounds like something one would avoid having to do if they could.
"What a stupid lamb."
"What a sick, masochistic lion."
I agree.
I just find it so frustrating that some people seem to think that others are responsible for their own discomfort. It's really simple if you don't like something or it makes you uncomfortable don't look and if you feel the need to criticize or look down on someone don't come bitching to me when your comments are unwelcome and the subject not responsive to your comments.
I'm glad they protested. Clearly a lot of education is still required that this is even an issue.
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Well, some babies by the time they're three or four months old, have something that vaguely resembles a schedule. What needs to be considered here though, is that babies grow at an astonishing rate, and their needs change, sometimes daily. You would probably find most mothers, when they are planning to go out somewhere, will try to time things so the baby feeds before she leaves, and won't need another till they get home again. Alas, as they say, the best laid plans...... One thing needs to be remembered, a breast feeding baby behaves very differently to a bottle feeding one. And even today, with all the education surrounding breast feeding and its benefits, people still expect a breast fed baby to get on a schedule the way a formula fed one does. It just does not happen. Breast milk is much easier for a baby to digest, it doesn't sit in the stomach for very long, so they feed much more frequently. Formula on the other hand, sits heavy in the stomach for longer periods, so the baby feels full for longer. The whole four hourly feeding regime, I thought, went out years ago. Demand feeding is promoted in every health setting as the optimum way to successfully breast feed an infant. This basically means, when the baby demands it, you supply it. When you start trying to apply the rules of bottle feeding to breast feeding, this is where you run into problems and women start to believe they don't have enough milk. In part this is true, because the signals their body is getting is that she only needs to produce milk every four hours, when in fact that baby needs it much more often than that, so the baby cries or doesn't thrive and the whole situation is then set up to fail.
I think the most important point of equal opportunity, womens rights, feminism etc, is choice. To be denied choice based purely on gender, whether that be male or female, is unacceptable in my opinion. Personally, I did what works for me, and while that may be different from what works for others, I support a persons right to choose what is right for them. I can see what you mean, that this kind of mindset could send the womens movement backwards and consider once again, that a womans role is in the home. I would hope society in general is smart enough to recognize that is should never be about what a woman, or man for that matter, is expected to do, but rather, that they always have the choice to do things as they see fit.
In an ideal world, it would be lovely to see families supported in this, and see society accept very young children in the work place. For a lot of women, whether it's a matter of having to work, or choosing to, I can pretty much guarantee every woman feels the pangs of guilt about it. They feel the pain of separation from their babies and while they realize it is what they want or have to do, there are still many aspects of it they would rather not have to endure.
For the record, I absolutely acknowledge the privilege I had in being able to stay at home with my children. There were times throughout those years where I had to work part time, where I had to work evening shifts to make ends meet. There were many(probably most of it really) where there were really lean times and we worried about how we were gonna make the rent. We very much did without a LOT while our children were young. We didn't drive a flash car, we didn't eat out very much, we stuck to a pretty simple and natural diet and didn't buy a lot of convenience food. I rotated my very small wardrobe and didn't buy myself new clothes once a month. Having four children, two of each sex, was good in that a lot of their clothes could be handed down. We didn't use disposable nappies or formula feed ( a massive expense) We kept our bills down by hanging out washing rather than using a dryer, we had a wood fire to heat the house and we stretched every dollar to its limits. And there were many many times where I lay awake worrying about finances and wishing for lottery wins, but looking back, I have no regrets about it. I loved that time in my life and wouldn't trade it for anything.
i would say "BOOBS"!!!!!!
So it's ok for MLK to fight for civil rights but it's not ok for women to continue fighting for women's rights? Is that it? Seems to me that the rights of women as a movement have been going on a whole lot longer than civil rights.
100+ years after women were FINALLY given the right to vote and 40 odd years after the women's liberation movement we still don't have equal work for equal pay, women and children are still poorer than men and women are still being vilified in public for breastfeeding because it makes others uncomfortable. NOT unsimilar to Rosa Parkes making a whole bunch of people uncomfortable on a bus for sitting in the wrong section. :rolleyes: The parallels are there and I'm quite sure MLK wouldn't have any problem seeing them. That you find it absurd is rather sad really but the topic for another thread I think.
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Completely agree! Very well said.
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No I don't think so.
But if you expected her to jump through hoops in order to make you comfortable while she's just trying to feed your niece or nephew then I'd expect her to tell you to get over it!
That's pretty much what I'd be telling my brother.
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Neither I nor the person I quoted said there wouldn't be times when you'd have to throw they schedule out the window. We were simply saying that there is a level of planning involved when you leave the house with a baby/small child. Sure, even best laid plans have a way of not working out. And we both supported the idea of being allowed to breast feed in public. I was just saying that if I could plan around it and avoid having to do it while shopping in a store or something, I would make the best effort to.
for putting this in words that others can understand!!! I wanted to respond to the several posts about "schedules", but it just got to be too long and rambling...
Take care.
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I'm sorry, not having a go but aren't you the person that was having trouble getting out of bed to go to the gym in the morning and sleeping through 2 alarm clocks?
Are you saying it's ok that you were unable to adhere to a schedule or meet the planning requirements you'd set up for yourself in a day but that babies and their mothers should be held to a higher standard?
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hehe!!
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Well said!
People just need to give these poor women a break.
Haha...You mean like even if you have an "on schedule" child (which in itself is absurd considering how they grow and change almost daily.... ) But IF YOU DID.
OK...So..you feed them and plan to leave the house at 10 am. But at 9:58 the kid has a crazy poopie. So you fix that all up and then you realize it has started raining and you have to organize the rain gear for the kid. Then it spits up. Then the dog gets out. Then you realize you don't have much gas in the car. And as you're leaving your boss calls with an important question. So even though the kid ate at 9 and her "schedule" indicates she shouldn't be hungry til 12:30... You actually don't hit the road til almost 11. Then there's traffic and you can't find a parking spot. Then the stupid stroller sicks when you are trying to open it.
By the time you get into the store...you know...where you figured you'd be by 10:20...well...Now it's 11:45. You figure...OK...get in some quick shopping...AFTER ALL THIS. You figure the kid can probably hold off til like 12:45...15 minutes after its "scheduled" (hehe) time so you SHOULD be ok.
But guess what...Baby has other ideas and gets hungry 15 minutes later...1/2 hour before "normal" time. Now it's NOON. You just got to the damn store. You have clothes in your hands. You see a nice comfy mini couch in the woman's department. What do you do?
Me? I'd sit my worn out ass down on the little couch and feed my kid.
Don't you think women do make their best efforts to plan?
Boss? Breastfeeding woman? Work? How dare she?
wait for it.....
(o)(o)
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA EVERYBODY RUN!!!
I think this is a very important point. Why do so many people feel the need to judge how others (namely women, in the threads I frequent) should be carrying on with their lives? Don't people realize that these moms are doing the best they can? Even if there were room for criticism (and I'm not saying there is), why focus on the things we think they should do better or more to OUR liking? Why don't we instead focus our energy on supporting those who have the hardest jobs in the world - bearing and raising the next generation of people? How is making them feel bad for not meeting some abstract discretion standards productive in any way?
i'm offended!!! i'm reporting this post!!
Nice pasties!
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Cool.
naděje umírá poslední
I read his posts. All of them. He never said what you claim he did. If you think he did, you are the one with a comprehension problem.
Nope, I never in this entire thread mentioned a blanket. Read your post again, and see who was talking about a "a whole new set of rules and regulations."
Why should anyone care about anyone else's feelings. I've read quite a few times here that some women received dirty looks and unkind comments. People don't have to care about that mother's feelings either. They have a right to voice their opinion.
But besides that there's still the issue of private property. The owner of a bar, restaurant, store... has a right to decide what is acceptable in his store. If he doesn't want people comming in topless he has a right to tell them to wear a shirt or leave. The same goes for breastfeeding. This person's livelihood depends on his business and his customers. If his customers complain he can say it's his property and he decides what is allowed and what is not, but he could very well risk losing a few customers if he allows the mother to stay. He could of course offer her to go somewhere more quiet, away from the dining guests... But no, some of you, I don't know where you stand anymore, feel there's no need for compromise, that others' rights can be trampled on... and I don't agree with that.
I don't think breastfeeding mothers have the right to trespass. So why should they take other people's feelings into consideration, well, first of all, you might be on their property and you might actually be costing the owner money because of your breastfeeding (well, because of people who cannot stand breastfeeding).
And I happen to think a little respect and consideration of other people goes a long way, always.
I think scb and I already worked this out. When I called you stupid, I believe there was a smiley next to it, which as we both know, means it's humourous.
And yes, I do consider feminism a bad thing. It used to be imperative, now it's become an ugly caricature of what it used to be.
Well, I never did tell you that, did I?
Well, I never defined discretion and in fact most of the time I even used the quantifier 'little'.
I did say there should be no punishment for women breastfeeding, that it is normal, legal and women have every right to do it even if you disagree with it and that is part of the mutual respect I was talking about. Nowhere did I mention a blanket.
You can disagree with me, sure. But note that whatever definition you have in your mind about discretion is yours, not mine. You wrongly concluded that I feel that discretion involves a blanket. So, by all means, disagree with your own fabrications of what I said.
naděje umírá poslední
You mean the right to breastfeed that is already established?
But perhaps you missed this little part of the post you quoted:
"I'm okay with fighting for your rights to breastfeed"
You think there's a parallel, I don't. I think it's entirely different.
If a black man without a shirt walks into a restaurant and the owner says he has to wear a shirt or leave, is that racism?
naděje umírá poslední
People do expect a lot from others, breastfeeding moms are no exception.
Perhaps some of the people in that restaurant are mothers themselves, who just happen to have one little moment of peace, away from the screams and demands of her own children, a moment to herself.
Perhaps there people with children in the restaurant who don't want their children to see your breast. Yet, you don't want to compromise and find a place more private or cover up. You said we should encourage breastfeeding and look at it as something beautiful. Well, you have no right to tell these parents how to raise their children. The parents can avert their eyes, but they don't control the eyes of their children. A restaurant owner does have the right to tell you to cover up, especially after he recieved complaints.
I think most mothers would welcome a little privacy, but you make it sounds like offering privacy is an insult. Perhaps when someone tells a mother there's a private room somewhere they are doing it because they want to help the mother with her difficult job and want to spare her the dirty looks and comments. And by doing so perhaps they also want to respect the wishes of the single mom who finally got a moment of peace to herself and just want to enjoy her meal.
naděje umírá poslední
and no one has the right to tell me as a breastfeeding mother how to bring up my child either collin. so i guess we find ourselves at an impasse.
you dont get it do you collin. a brestfeeding mothers primary and only concern now that i think about it is feeding her child. shes not particularly interested in what others think of what she is doing. she is feeding her child just as those other parents are feeding theres. tis only the modus operandi that differs. and if parents cant answer a question about breastfeeding then they seriously need to reevaluate their skills.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say