Mother sues for £20k for being discouraged from bf while the wave machine was on

[sizeofalentil]

Daily Mirror link to the story here.

I'm totally for breastfeeding wherever and whenever, but I wouldn't want to eat my sandwiches in a swimming pool - they are so germy, like a human soup, so not sure a swimming pool with a wave machine on would be the best place to bf. Plus, obviously in this case there was the waves.

I realise that getting out of the water, especially if she had other kids, with a hungry baby would be a massive faff, but wouldn't the wave machine splash the baby and make it choke?

Serious question: AIBU to think this? Is bf in a swimming pool a done thing? Genuinely curious.

perhaps she was jumping up and down singing "I'm a breast feeding lactavist." To the tune of Bat out of hell.

This is going to go around in my head all day .

Math, my point wasn't that train lady & pool lady were in any way similar, quite the opposite in fact.

My point was that due to people like pool lady being overly vocal and militant:
"don't you dare offer a bf woman a seat or somewhere more comfortable! It's discrimination! I will get angry & make a fuss! I may sue!"
This will mean that people will stop offering for fear of offence or legal action.

That means that train lady & countless others like her who are too shy or insecure to ask for a seat etc while feeding are going to be ignored and not offered these things.

Doesn't sound like a win for mothers to me.
Breast or bottle.

Was someone stamping and screaming? Must check the article..
From the article:
"Eyewitnesses described seeing the mother-of-two shouting at a manager, who was trying to diffuse the row, before she stormed off to the changing rooms."

It doesn't matter if anyone is personally offended or insulted. Being offended and being discriminated against are two separate things.
I was responding to this comment that you made.
No-one has a right to cause a breastfeeding woman discomfort or upset or embarrassment while she is breastfeeding, be it by unkind remarks or by 'offering her a chair' in a place other than the exact spot she has chosen to breastfeed.
I'm glad it doesn't matter if she was upset by the comment. The offer of a chair close by, in the same public space, was not discrimination.
She wasn't told not to breastfeed, she wasn't told to leave, she wasn't told to cover up, she wasn't told she was upsetting anyone else, she wasn't told she had to hide away. Any of those things would be discrimination. She was simply offered a chair next to the pool where there was no possibility of the baby being covered by a wave.

She was simply offered a chair next to the pool where there was no possibility of the baby being covered by a wave.

Yes, but you don't know any of that do you? Unless you were there at the time, you don't know if "offer" is the right word for what the lifeguard did, or whether the chair was "next" to the pool or somewhere else. Or if there was any likelihood of the baby being 'covered by a wave'. You've made all that up, or inferred it from a newspaper article written with its own bias by someone who wasn't there either.

If the case goes to court, then there will be evidence brought. Anyone on this thread who thinks they know exactly what happened is mistaken, unless they were the lifeguard or the woman (and either of those may also be mistaken about the other).

So it's really silly to get all het up about either the woman or the "lifeguard" being "wrong". We can all perfectly well imagine how the situation could have unfolded to meet either of those cases (and depending on our personal experience or prejudices, we may prefer to slant it one way or the other). To deny the possibility of things having unfolded the other way is blinkered. Until the judgment.

I somehow doubt this will ever get anywhere near a courtroom and that her £20k claim will be dropped.

In the meantime, I will ignore Math's advice and if I see a mum breastfeeding whilst standing or sitting somewhere uncomfortable and I am in a position to offer her a chair, I will most definitely do so, even if she has to move a short distance from where she was. I do not believe that is in any way discriminatory.

^My point was that due to people like pool lady being overly vocal and militant:
"don't you dare offer a bf woman a seat or somewhere more comfortable! It's discrimination! I will get angry & make a fuss! I may sue!"^
This will mean that people will stop offering for fear of offence or legal action.

Only if people are stupid enough not to realise that an agent of a business, at work in that business and representing the management of that business, and members of the general public going about their daily lives are two completely different animals.

Do you think people are that stupid?

Do you really have so much difficulty understanding what discrimination means and what entities the term applies to?

(Douze points though, for 'I may get angry & make a fuss! I may sue!' )

Do you really have so much difficulty understanding what discrimination means and what entities the term applies to

you really seem to.

I mean really really seem to

LT, this particular pool had a section where the woman could have sat among other pool patrons, not in a chair off to the side, where, to loosely quote the brochure (because I can't be arsed to C&P it any more for people who are determined to ignore it) she could have sat with her baby in so much safety that the section is described as a zone where parents can sit and watch small children play and this being the case, she and her baby were in absolutely no danger of being affected by the waves.

For all we know, she was already sitting in that zone when she was 'offered a chair'.

No matter what sort of silly spin you try to put on this, sitting in a chair at the side is not the same thing as sitting in the pool among other patrons.

Jason, feelings of umbrage have nothing whatsoever to do with the fact of discrimination. Some people are so conditioned to being treated as a separate class of people that they accept it without any feelings of upset. Discrimination has still been committed however.

In the meantime, I will ignore Math's advice and if I see a mum breastfeeding whilst standing or sitting somewhere uncomfortable and I am in a position to offer her a chair, I will most definitely do so, even if she has to move a short distance from where she was. I do not believe that is in any way discriminatory.
And you are very welcome to do so unless you are an employee of a business and acting in that capacity, in which case you may very well bring a lawsuit upon your employer .

You risk offending the mother of course, by your assumption that she is incapable of seeing the chair and using it if she wants to. But heyho.

Seriously folks, what parts of the words 'business', 'employee', 'agent', 'business premises', and 'public facility' do we not understand here?

too shy or insecure

Lord, what delicate flowers we seem to think women are...

If the complainant was so proud of who she is and what she does why has she locked her social media profiles down and removed posts. Maybe it's because she's a spineless bully who has a loud mouth and knows she is an unreasonable person. I suspect her character will be called into question if this goes into court and her bullying ways will work against her.

...unless of course they are too militant. That sort of woman lets all the rest of us down.

It's perfectly acceptable to be a woman who depends on the kindness of strangers but woe betide a woman who doesn't need a chair, or one who knows she has a right not to get up from where she is and accept the 'offer' of one, or of a separate room.

Women seem to walk a fine line here.

I was a very shy and insecure breastfeeder to the point where I wouldn't do it in public.

Sorry about that.

Maybe it's because she has found people are stalking her, Peggy?

People might have had a peek at her Twitter 2 weeks ago when the story appeared but apart from this thread it's all gone a bit quiet.

Jason, feelings of umbrage have nothing whatsoever to do with the fact of discrimination. Some people are so conditioned to being treated as a separate class of people that they accept it without any feelings of upset. Discrimination has still been committed however.

No discrimination of any form has been commited by offering someone a chair in the intrest of possible safety / comfort.

She was well withing her rights to say no chair thanks. It's very sad you think this way.

what are you not understanding?

Do you think that, really, Peggy?

Would you be in support of using the alleged character of a victim against him, or her, in court?

Seriously folks, what parts of the words 'business', 'employee', 'agent', 'business premises', and 'public facility' do we not understand here?

we understand it perfectly Math, it's everyone else, they are all against us.

Remember when David Icke was on wogan and the public ralised he was um... not make sense this is the same. Same kind of conspiracy where everyone else is wrong and you (and me old buddy old pal) are right.

I hate it when chair are offered as much as i hate the royal family being lizard people.

ould you be in support of using the alleged character of a victim against him, or her, in court?

There is no victim. There is an extremist and a life guard who was doing his job.

The chair was separate from the other patrons of the pool, Jason, and as I have stated several times now, this particular pool has a place where she and her baby could sit in perfect safety in the water among the other patrons and their babies and small children.

It is a zone apparently designed for parents, babies and small children to sit if they so wish, and it is clearly described as such in the brochure. The only place the lifeguard could have directed her without discriminating against her was that section.

Anywhere else and she is effectively being told she cannot breastfeed in the pool amongst the other patrons, even though it has a zone where safety is not a concern.

Although if the reports in that paper are true then the manager got verbally abused.

As a visually impaired breastfeeding mother who happens to be quite shy, I would be very grateful for an employee to let me know where there was a chair available that I was incapable of seeing.

If I saw a woman standing or sitting somewhere uncomfortable whilst breastfeeding, as an employee I would assume that she was not aware that there was somewhere comfortable that she could sit and make the offer.

math

Of course I understand the difference between a member of the public and an employee (who represents the organisation they work for), but if an action is deemed so serious by someone that they seek damages against an organisation, you can't blame an individual for being concerned about the legal ramifications for themselves if they did something similar!

What you appear to be saying is the act of offering a breast-feeding mother would be acting entirely reasonable if carried out by an individual, but suddenly, if that same individual did the same thing as an employee, this reasonable act suddenly becomes so appalling that a lawsuit could reasonably be filed? What bizarre double-standards!

Ok now I really think math is the woman. She has continued protesting all week and has come up with answers that were not even in the article. She seems to have inside information

That's just typical of you Logical thinking putting the needs and wellbeing of someone before thoughts of no exsistant discrimination.

The chair was separate from the other patrons of the pool, Jason, and as I have stated several times now, this particular pool has a place where she and her baby could sit in perfect safety in the water among the other patrons and their babies and small children.The only place the lifeguard could have directed her without discriminating against her was that section.

As i have stated several times before you don't acturally know who was where, How do you know the chair was separate from the other patrons of the pool?

For all you know the chair was at the edge of this shallow section. She could have been in the shallow section all alone and the other people were at the pool side with their children wationg for the waves to stop.
The shallow section might have been overcrowded...

You have to make a whole bunch of stuff up to make this in anyway discrimination.