WWYD/Is it unreasonable to tell a breastfeeding mother she is awesome?

[gymNgin]

Is it unreasonable because you wouldn't say the same thing to a FF mother? I wouldn't because IMO FF is seen as the norm and FF mothers don't seem to get negative comments. Also BF mother wasn't looking worried or like she needed reassurance. Though you never know some women are good at putting on a front.

Anyway...

I saw a mother breastfeeding her child today on a sofa in the foyer of the local leisure centre. There was my daughter (8) sat on the sofa opposite (not sure if she noticed as her head was in a book) and an older man on the adjoining sofa. It was hot so she was just wearing a vest top. She pulled it down and latched her baby on. I rarely breastfed in public and when I did I had special breastfeeding tops and a muslin to hopefully cover up any accidental exposure. ( I wasn't worried about accidental exposure but was worried of other people's opinion of it.) I just thought her way of doing it was totally natural and awesome. I wanted to say it to her and I wanted to say it to my daughter but I felt uncomfortable pointing it out.

Should I have pointed it out to my daughter? I know she's only 8 and she does know that boobies make milk for babies (when she's asked why women have boobs) but I haven't mentioned it for a while. Should I have said anything?

Making a song and dance about it doesn't normalise it

No one is singing or dancing. They're saying well done.

In a world where tits splayed across adverts for beer are accepted, but women are still (illegally) kicked out of places for using them to give their child their lunch, we always need to tell people they're doing a good thing when they feed in public. And I agree with the OP, once the half a dozen or so occasions where (usually old ladies) have said something positive to me for feeding in public, it's really lifted me and boosted my confidence.

I think we can all agree that BF in public is something that's no one else business than the mothers, so why would people object to someone reinforcing that?

I think you had good intentions, but were overthinking it. The best way to normalise something is just to treat it as normal and not make a big deal out of it.

If you’d seen her tying up her shoelaces, you wouldn’t have told her she was awesome for not using Velcro, would you? And nobody would feel the need to tell her she was doing it wrong, as in some of the posts above.

It would be great if breastfeeding in public could be seen by everybody as just such a non-issue one day.

I used a muslin to avoid showing my boobs to anyone around. Perhaps you could have offered her some advice instead.

Is the 'advice' you think this woman needed to cover up? Because in that case I think it's you who shouldn't be talking to breastfeeding mothers.

As I said upthread I think telling her she's awesome is over the top, but some of these comments are also ridiculous. They remind me of children who say that 'it's not faaaaaair' if anyone else gets praise and they don't. Saying that breastfeeding publicly is good isn't saying formula feeders are bad - no one mentioned formula feeders. It wasn't part of the conversation. It's not about you.

And no one seems to do this with other bits of parenting, except feeding and childcare. If I say that I think single mothers are amazing women with partners don't take offence. If I say that women with children with special needs are heroes then women with children with no special needs aren't up in arms. If I say I think it's great to take your children swimming that isn't taken as meaning that parents who don't take their children swimming are selfish and negligent! But if you praise either breastfeeding or working mothers then it's suddenly taken as a deliberate assault on FF/SAHM.

Why would you tell her she’s an awesome mother? Were you stalking her over a long period to evaluate how good she is in the other areas of parenting? How do you know she’s not a drunk who beats the child or ignores it most of the time? How can you be deemed an ‘awesome parent’ based on a two min snapshot? I’m sure there were plenty of two minute snapshots which showed Rosemary West to be an awesome mum. If you had seen Rosemary’s West breastfeeding would you have given her a parenting gold star?

"If I say that women with children with special needs are heroes then women with children with no special needs aren't up in arms."

As a women with a child with sn I think a random person making comments like that is patronising.

I have to be honest but I really dont believe FF mums get nagtive comments. Maybe from family but not strangers. I just dont believe it. Its what the overwhelming majority do in this country!

negative!*

I have to be honest but I really dont believe FF mums get nagtive comments. Maybe from family but not strangers. I just dont believe it. Its what the overwhelming majority do in this country

I promise you I have even when it was breastmilk in the bottle. However, all the negativity has been from HCP, NCT or breastfeeding mums.

I’ve never had a negative comment when breastfeeding but I have been made to feel very uncomfortable about it. So my conclusion is that you can’t win, whatever you do, with some people!

Sorry, sockwomble, I can see how my post could have come across as patronising - to be clear those aren't things I do say, and I agree it would be patronising to go up to mums and say them. My point is just that other, uninvolved people wouldn't take deep offence if I did.

Funny isn't it? In most other situations if a women said they received negative comments that made them feel hurt, or upset, or awkward over a perfectly valid and fine parenting choice most people woukd offer sympathy and agree that there was no need for the comments.

As soon as someone says they were made to feel shit because they were ff it's all "well that's your problem to work through" or, even worse, "don't believe you".

Enough people say on these threads that they were made to feel crap because they were ff. Maybe it's time to start believing it?

Someone said on one of the other threads - and I think this is a really good point - that part of the problem is that breastfeeding rates are so localised, because they vary so much by class, age and region. So one woman might live in an area where everyone seems to bf, and another in an area where no one does, and the experience of each sounds implausible to the other.

Plus we notice things that upset us, and which touch on issues that are on our minds. When I was struggling to stay pregnant AIBU seemed to be full of posts about nasty jealous infertile bitches and threads about how if they couldn't just be happy for women who got pregnant at the drop of a hat they didn't deserve children anyway. When I was in late pregnancy it felt like it was full of posts about how anyone who didn't have an elective c section was an idiot who was going to end up with a destroyed vagina. Now I have a tiny baby it feels like it's full of stuff about infant feeding and a lot of it feels very off-putting to me as someone trying to bf. But I'm sure the ratio of those topics has remained constant, it's what jumps out at me that's changed - and I'd have read those threads differently if I hadn't had trouble having a baby, if I'd had a C-section or if I was currently formula feeding, because we all read through the filter of our own experiences and preoccupations.