Asked to stop breastfeeding

[MsCoco]

Recently we went on holiday to a caravan park down by the south coast. The caravan park is really aimed at families - a petting farm, soft play, kids shows etc. We were in the swimming pool area - there’s a kiddy splash pool and a toddler swimming pool, the whole place is filled with young families. We’re playing in the toddler pool and my youngest DD needs a feed, she’s 6 weeks old, so I exit the pool and sit on the side to feed her whilst watching DH and our other children play.

I’m breastfeeding and a lifeguard comes over to me and tells me I have to stop, I’m not allowed to feed and I have to go to the changing rooms to do that. I was a bit taken aback and just said ok and stopped feeding, and he then went over to another lifeguard and said ‘I’ve told her’.

I’m genuinely interested to hear thoughts - was I wrong to breastfeed in this scenario? I was very discreet, and felt quite embarrassed to be told off. Why would they have this policy?

Oh god FML that people still think like this. No child should be 'not aware' of the way human beings (and all mammals) feed small babies. Why celebrate and preserve ignorance of such a totally mundane fact of life?

Performative feeding, oh god almighty. What, she's doing cartwheels whilst feeding? A striptease? FFS.

This is the society we live in? Well women in Afghanistan live in a society where they get beaten in the street of they don't cover themselves from head to toe. Maybe they should just submit, you know, given it's the society they live in. You don't actually have to accept things about your society that are regressive, oppressive, and illegal.

@herewegoroundthebastardbush my mother in law is in Afghanistan currently. I can assure you she's not covered head to toe and has not been beaten 😂😂 and GASP guess what! She's just visited her sisters school where she teaches! Gasp not everything the media tells you is true. So shut up bringing Afghanistan into it.

@herewegoroundthebastardbush you know fuck all about the reality of most Afghan women In Afghanistan.

The narrative (as told in the OP) is that a breastfeeding woman was approached by a male and told not to breastfeed by the pool but to go into the changing roomy.

I don’t care who told him to do it. I would find that distressing had it happened to me.

And given that the whole event was contra to the Equality Act’s protection of breastfeeding women the whole event was sexist / misogynistic by definition.

I think in the same way we weigh up optimal hygiene (not using the pool at all) vs having some fun (using the pool and trying not to think too much about it), we should weigh up the actual risks to ourselves if a baby does get a bit of posset in the pool (minimal risk either of it happening at all or doing any harm if it did) vs the very real chilling effect of breastfeeding women being harassed and excluded from public spaces and eventually giving up because it makes breastfeeding too inconvenient/upsetting, thus depriving that baby of optimal nutrition and health and that mother/baby dyad of the most wonderful bonding opportunity. Increasing the perception of women yet to become mothers/make their feeding choices that breastfeeding is unacceptable/dirt/inconvenient and not even trying to feed.

Basically I think the lack of breastfeeding in the UK is a far bigger public health issue than a little bit of posset in a pool, and I am against anything that makes breastfeeding more difficult for women in that context.

Well all i can say is that is astoundingly convenient. And of course entirely unverifiable.

As a general rule people don't take their babies to work. Not for hygiene reasons, but because it is difficult to concentrate and work properly. Oh, the herrings, how red they are.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/03/afghanistan-un-experts-say-20-years-progress-women-and-girls-rights-erased#:~:text=Today%2C%20Afghanistan's%20women%20and%20girls,living%20in%20prison%20like%20conditions.

No doubt the above is all total bollocks because emz's MIL says so.

No thought for anyone else then? I didn't think so.

I smell a whiff of bull.

Would you prefer to be sprayed with piss or breastmilk? Because if you're in a pool you've already accepted the piss.

Not unless they are MPs.

https://news.sky.com/story/breastfeeding-to-be-allowed-in-house-of-commons-chamber-11922132

Attention seekers or those who can't possibly make their baby wait for a split second.

@herewegoroundthebastardbush because it doesn't fit your narrative it must be be bull right.

You know nothing

@ginandtonicwithlimes because it doesn't align with what your views of women in Afghanistan are? I can happily verify everything but why would I show my families pictures to strangers. One thing Afghan women like is their privacy and have shame.

Personally I think this is a bit bonkers. Not the bf in the Commons thing (as I say, fully support a women to breastfeed anywhere she and her baby are), but the baby at work thing. But equally, it would be pretty difficult for an MP to take a year off on mat leave as it's not a role that can be covered per se (as it is that individual specifically who was elected), so unless we're going to exclude childbearing-age women from politics, specific accommodations must be made. Not sure the same could be said about a catering assistant in a school or a bakery as per the 'industrial kitchen' example.

So the OHCHR knows nothing?

I'm not saying everything is completely bullshit but it's not the reality for every single afghan women like I said, my husbands auntie is a teacher. Yes the youngest daughter isn't allowed to attend school anymore unfortunately but the eldest all have jobs as they completed their university and there is still opportunities just of course the country isn't heading in a good direction and everyone is making most of what little there is available as of this moment.

But my family there are not covered in burqas

I don't think I said 'every single woman in afghanistan' did I. I spoke generically about women in Afghanistan who are, systematically, oppressed. Argue against that if you like but it's true. Likewise in Iran, where women can still attend school and even work in government, but are still also beaten in the street by self-styled morality police. Something doesn't have to be universal to be true.

Also I can't believe you describe a girl being deprived of education because she is a girl as 'unfortunate'. It's not 'unfortunate', it's abominable.

I also never mentioned burqas.

Personally, I wouldn’t breastfeed (or eat or drink) by the side of any public pool. Ugh. The chlorine, the piss, the spit, the manky feet, no, just no. But hey, if you were comfortable there, they should have let you be.

99 times out of 100, the baby being fed should take priority. Cafes, trains, queuing in shops, even walking down the street if you fancy it.

But because we say there is a very small number of places where it isn’t appropriate to do it immediately rather than taking a minute to find a more suitable space, for hygiene reasons rather than public offence - then we are nasty misogynists who want to impose a patriarchal system on breastfeeding mothers in order to enjoy their oppression and suck up to the menz.

It’s frankly demented and shows their beliefs in breastfeeding aren’t actually about infant feeding, and making it a routine part of life (after all, every other routine thing has limits as well), but about enjoying brow beating anyone who disagrees in order to appear the most vocal ‘feminist’ and ‘advocate of women’. Forgetting the people they’re being downright rude and nasty to are also women.

It will do nothing for their cause.

I agree.