To be so upset and angry because of complaint about my friend breastfeeding?

[memoo]

My friend and work colleague had a DD 6 months ago. We both work in a primary school.

Several weeks ago my friend visited her old reception class in school. The class topic has been 'Growing' ang the reception teacher thought it would be nice for my friend to bring her DD in during the lesson where they would be talking about babies.

I've just had a phone call from my friend and I'm really angry at what she told me.

Apparently at the end of the lesson in school my friend needed to feed her DD and so sat quietly in the reading corner away from the children while she BF.

Friend had a call from the head on Friday telling her that a parent has complained about her BF'ing in front of the children

This parent said that her DS had said he had seen Mrs "boobies" and had been a bit giggley about it.

The head is being lovely and only spoke to my friend about purely to let her know what has happen and as far as I know this parent has been put in her place.

I am just so shocked that this parent could do this. I know the parent in question and the more I think about it I#m getting more and more angry!!!!

WRT people objecting to breastfeeding in own home - I had a friend who visited when dd was 2 weeks old. Came with a large group of friends, including her dh. I started feeding dd (rarely stopped in early days ) and she dragged her husband out because she said it wasn't appropriate for him to be in the room when I was feeding.

Made me feel great, I can tell you.

As it has every time since when she or another friend have said how a) women breastfeeding puts them off their food, b) there's a time and place for feeding.

My own take on it is that that time and place is wherever and whenever the baby is hungry.

Yay Tiktok

Spelling-it-out-for-you-session coming up, Flocci and Gunnerbean:

It is ridiculous for me to expect posters like you to keep your opinions private on a talkboard.

It is ridiculous for you to expect breastfeeding mothers to keep their breastfeeding private.

Both stances are ridiculous.

Geddit????

F&Z;

i know women should be allowed to b/f wherever they want....but reality is...it makes alot of people feel uncomfortable.

no matter how many "rights" women have...somethings never change......point i was trying to make on the feminist book thread

(sorry for my ott reply to you on that thread)

daftpunk - that's depressing....no matter how many rights women have, it will always be the case that 'a lot' of people will feel uncomfortable if someone bf in the same room. And this will never change?

How ridiculous. As well as depressing.

I am a feminist, and I see the right of women to bf wherever and whenever as part of my feminism.

It is easy for me to envisage a time when only a few ignorant twats would disagree with this right.

In fact, I think we are in this time now. It actually is only a few ignorant twats who object to bf anywhere, any time.

Daftpunk: Well if people feel uncomfortable that is their problem. They can't expect people to leave public spaces because of it. People do a lot of things in public that make me feel uncomfortable (none of which have the health benefits of breastfeeding) and i would never ask them to leave that space unless they were actually endangering someone.

Flocci, whilst I admire you for continuing the debate, I have no respect whatsoever for your ill founded views. You seem unable to articulate exactly what the problem is, other than you would not be there to pre-warn your Dc of the impending breast feed and that there was a better place available. Can you explain exactly what it is that you find so offensive? Because really, try as I might, I really can't see you POV at all.

What a groover Mr Thunder sounds.

These threads are interesting, mostly because it is quite fascinating to watch people like Flocci and Gunner back themselves into a corner.

Bless you Flocci for missing Tiktok's point in such spectacular fashion.

MrsJammi, I think your explanation to your giggling nephew was fab!

I couldn't agree more with the person who said that its the people with the really negative attitudes to breastfeeding that made her more nervous about BFing her own DC, this is exactly how I feel.

As I said in my OP, I never managed to BF my first 2 DC beyond the first few days because I basically had no idea how to do it.

I couldn't latch them on properly and so got to the point where bfing became too painful.

I think the main reason I couldn't latch them on was because I had never seen anyone else do it. I had no idea where to begin.

Maybe if I had grown up surrounded by women openly breastfeeding then BFing my own DC would have been so natural to me that I wouldn't have struggled at all.

It could be argued that the prudish attitude to breastfeeing in public impacted on my own ability to BF which basically means I didn't give my DC the best start in life that they deserve

Is a groover a compliment lol?

tiktok;

i am a feminist...i'm also a realist.

Oh yes!

Did she take the cake?
What did you say after she left?
How did/does it make yuo feel about her now?

moondog, ever so sorry for shocking you with my Very Rude Language.

Note to Flocci and Gunnerbean - there's that pesky irony and sarcasm again!!

Hang on a second Daftpunk. You are actually perpetuating the attitudes that you are being "realist" about. So it is not as though you are simply observing attitudes - you are promoting them. That is pretty depressing when you could actually make a difference in that respect.

She did take the cake actually which made me laugh.Though it was really good cake I must say, dp made it too.

I just told him that I loved him even more for that, and that he did the right thing. My friend was delighted too.

We see considerably less of her now, She proved that she's a rude idiot. And she still thinks she was in the right.

daftpunk - I am a realist to. I am realistic that only a few daft (see what I did there????) people actually feel uncomfortable about seeing bf.

And anyway, I don't care if they do. They have no business expecting to be accommodated by women going somewhere 'private' so they don't have to see.

What is a realist feminist? I believe in womens rights but realistically, women are 2nd class citizens?

Bollocks to that.

Not unreasonable to be angry and upset I don't think.

Do think your friend was being naive though if she didn't consider that something like this might happen. Sadly.

"i know women should be allowed to b/f wherever they want....but reality is...it makes alot of people feel uncomfortable."

Lots of things make some people uncomfortable, doesn't mean they should get to decide whats ok though, does it?
Um-married women having babies make my nan uncomfortable, as do gay people, protestants marrying catholics, people who don't go to church, and men with beards. Should all of those people hide away too?

If my breastfeeding in public makes you uncomfortable, why don't you drape yourself in a blanket or a muslin square, cos I sure as hell won't be!

Chaya5738;

fighting for womens rights in the workplace ..equal pay/conditions..etc

putting an end to violence against women (most of which happens in the home) ....all these things are more important to me than b/f in public.