To wonder why you wouldn't make a small effort to cover up whilst feeding?

[BonkToTheFinish]

Not in your own home or whatever else that is within comfort zone for you.

I’m talking restraunts, places to eat etc etc

I don’t really understand it. A good friend of mine liked a picture that I came across today titled “Not even trying to cover up in public anymore, most natural thing ever 👌❤️”

Picture is of said woman in a bit swankier than average place to eat, boob completely out without thought and baby isn’t covering it at all really.

You do NOT NOT NOT have to cover a baby’s head to be discrete. You don’t even have to wear specialist clothing, it’s very easy to be discrete without having to have the whole breast completely on show.

I wouldn’t just feed DS with a whole boob out, it isn’t necessary and although BF is natural, some people do feel uncomfortable about breasts and aren’t comfortable seeing one completely on show - It doesn’t mean they’d say anything and that’s because they’re polite.

Is it really necessary to have whole boob out like that? AIBU?

I can’t say I’ve seen many people doing it, SIL was feeding her newborn DS a few weeks back and I was shocked she was feeding. I couldn’t actually tell, and baby has a small latch issue.

I’ve only ever seen one other person in public being a bit too in your face about it. She had the whole thing out and wasn’t too bothered regarding her DC being on there etc. She had it out before he was even out of the pram from waking up. The breast was directing me in life, so it seemed, by its swinging

This "showing consideration" thing is almost exclusively aimed at women. We are conditioned to think of others, especially men, without much or any consideration being shown in return.

I find it poor that there are women on here joining in the "show consideration" and effectively telling mothers they have to put themselves and their baby last in case someone else has a knicker fit.

Maybe

*Who said Breast feeding prevents autism?!
*
Google it! It's been banded about by twats scientists as much as the Mmr theory.

May performance breastfeeding is now a thing, parallel to performance parenting

^ that's exactly what I was trying to point out! Why the big performance over it complete with photos.

It's illegal under abuse not to feed your children. So just feed them.

I agree Evil, it's just so fucked up. We are meant to be polite, and inoffensive, yet none is shown to us. Those tents are 😂😂😂, must be very restrictive for mother and baby. In the summer can get very hot for baby, overheating and all that. Plus covers restrict babies view, breathing. Why should mother and baby suffer for other people's delicate sensibilities.

Just read the entire thread and a couple of things popped out at me -

Men do sit in cafes (ok not restaurants generally) with their moobs out, in summer.

pandora your 11yo son has already been taught that boobs are sexual organs, not things to feed a baby. He is the generation that needs to be taught that they are not necessarily sexual, but normal.

Re the muslin over the head - I once watched a Muslim woman, top to toe in black, eat. She had to lift the veil thing away from her head to eat a forkful. It looked torturous, and NOT something I would want to do. But her choice. Don't do it to a baby.

Can someone explain what the ‘performance’ of a breastfeeding mother looks like please? Unless they’re standing on a table and belting out I KnowHim So Well whilst breastfeeding, then I can’t see why there’s a performance about it.

And why not take photos? What’s it to you if someone takes a picture of them feeding their child? Do you get as prissy when bottle feeders take pictures of themselves feeding their baby?

why the big performance

They're trying to normalise it so other new mothers aren't driven to ff (if they would rather bf) by worries about bf being socially unacceptable.

Well done them

I know, I was in Morrison's in the summer, and caught sight of this man totally topless, moons and hairy back on show to the world. Also queuing in Costa the same thing. Don't people find that off putting. I would. Yet that is completely fine, and a woman feeding her young with some boob on show, is off putting. What a fucked up country we live in.

I’m still waiting for an answer as to who and what we’re supposed to be considering?

And what actual part of breastfeeding publicly offends people? Serious question. It can’t be the breast skin because we see women in low cut tops all the time and presumably don’t get upset and tell them to cover up? I can’t be the nipple because we don’t get wound up at men’s nipples. So what is it?

It's not run for women and babies that's for sure Aeroflot

I’ll just leave this here

The performance is instead of just feeding baby - photographing it and creating a massive hoo hah over it.

Just feed your baby anyway you feel comfortable any way you want.

There's plenty of threads here about people sharing pictures of children's dinner etc on SM and most people say it's annoying or they ignore and move on as actually have a life.
It's no different.

It's food. It's necessary for survival. Get on with it without a bleeding fanfare!

No to be covered up and hot. Not being able to see. A baby is a living person not a toy, they have rights as well. Isent there information about not covering prams in summer because of overheating. Doesn't that also mean covering baby breastfeeding

What are they actually doing though you? You keep saying ‘hoo hah’ and ‘fanfare’ but what do you mean?

I don’t take ‘brelfies’ but I actually don’t mind at all people who do as they’re trying to normalise something that people try to stop by wielding their internalised misogyny and insinuating feeding a child is somehow obscene. A bit more noble than photographing your jacket potato

I am also wondering what is ‘too much’. The top of the breast (that may have been on show moments before BF began),? The nipple? Side boob? What exactly is the offensive part that women need to be ‘more considerate’ about?

YANBU. To pp about normalising breastfeeding.... going to the toilet/ farting/ nappy changing/ tooth brushing/ dressing etc is normal but we don’t do it in the middle of restaurants do we?

BF isn’t like-for-like with nappy changing/ using toilets/ dressing, etc. BF is like-for-like for eating a meal - which is EXACTLY what you do in the middle of a restaurant.

Cherry and Aeroflot, if I could "like" your posts, I would do.

going to the toilet/ farting/ nappy changing/ tooth brushing/ dressing etc is normal but we don’t do it in the middle of restaurants do we

Seriously, people who equate breastfeeding to defecating, urinating or farting have something seriously wrong with them. Please tell me that you can see the difference between feeding a baby and exposing your genitalia and producing something that is usually smelly and objectionable.

Why don't you pick on other "normal" functions like, oh, breathing, talking, eating and drinking? Guess what, the fact that something is normal really doesn't prevent it from being done in a restaurant.

Yes it’s funny how no one says “breathing is natural but we don’t do that in public”. They’re always sure to pick the ‘disgusting’ things aren’t they.

It really is the foulest of minds that equate a baby being nourished to defecation.

Jeremy Clarkson and Nigel Farage equated breastfeeding to urinating. I think that tells us all we need to know really

Cherry: "And what actual part of breastfeeding publicly offends people? Serious question. It can’t be the breast skin because we see women in low cut tops all the time and presumably don’t get upset and tell them to cover up? I can’t be the nipple because we don’t get wound up at men’s nipples."

I'm always interested in this. Sometimes people seem to be horrified by the sight of breast itself - someone earlier talked about breastfeeding breasts being ugly and covered in blue veins, to which all I can say is: speak for yourself.

But at other times it seems to be the substance of breastmilk that disgusts - see all the comparisons with urinating and defecating. It's as if people think there's something innately revolting about breastmilk because it's a bodily fluid.

It's fascinating, really. I am sure the great anthropologist Mary Douglas, author of Purity and Danger, who wrote a lot about differing notions of disgust in different societies, would have a lot to say about it.

But the important thing to remember is that this distaste is very culturally-specific. In different societies, and at different times, people regarded public breastfeeding with indifference: it was an ordinary, unremarkable thing to do. It's only in contemporary Western society, where we have come to regard breasts as innately sexual, that public breastfeeding has come to seem disgusting. What's interesting to me is that it's not the display of breasts in themselves that people find disgusting, but the display of breasts in the context of breastfeeding. After all, we see pictures of topless and nude women all over the place, and people aren't disgusted; if a topless woman (such as Erica Roe) runs onto a rugby pitch, people find it cheeky and amusing, not disgusting. So there is something about the fact that breasts are being used for the wrong purpose - not for sexual display, but for feeding a baby. That very much ties in with Mary Douglas's idea that dirt is "matter out of place": something only becomes disgusting when it is placed in the wrong context.

I don't now if anyone has posted this yet, but it's some historical images of breastfeeding that show how little anyone cared in the past about public breastfeeding. It demonstrates just how recently we have come to feel disgusted at the thought of women publicly feeding their babies. We imagine that people in the past were more prudish than we are today, but how wrong we are.

www.buzzfeed.com/southerndisposition/25-historical-images-that-normalize-breastfeeding-jlw6?utm_term=.osGwAYJgN#.qqMzPZD7x

I am pro breastfeeding, breastfed my first and intend to BF my second when she is born in December.
But I do think there is a culture of aggression around breastfeeding now, like “I’ll feed my baby wherever and however I want and if you don’t like it you can fuck off”.
Personally I tried to find somewhere nice and quiet and calm to sit as my baby was a nosy Parker and would gawp around and feed really badly if we were somewhere noisy and busy.
Also I never put a tent over myself but I did try and cover exposed skin so one top up, one down, or a cardi or Muslim draped over me. I don’t like seeing other people’s flesh on display ever, and I don’t like flashing mine about either.

But I do think there is a culture of aggression around breastfeeding now, like “I’ll feed my baby wherever and however I want and if you don’t like it you can fuck off”.

Yes but people aren’t saying this to randoms in the street. This attitude is in retaliation to people trying to police’s women’s bodies because they have the gall to use their breasts for something other than sexual entities.

I love the thought of draping a Muslim over you when feeding. Do you not find it a bit of a squash