Last week, my SIL phoned to ask me, if I would like to meet her for a coffee in the town. Lovely said I.
We were sitting in the cafe for approximately 20 minutes when this woman and her husband started feverishly discussing me. I was breastfeeding my four week old baby. The woman kept looking at me whilst muttering away at the husband.
I'm new to this whole breastfeeding malarky and tbh I'm still a little self conscious about doing this publicly. Its silly, irrational I know. Anyway, after 35 minutes of this intense scrutiny, I blew a fuse and asked her what her "bloody problem" was. She sat there mouth agape and momentarily flummoxed. After this brief silence, she squared up to me, commenting that there was a "time and place for that sort of thing" (breastfeeding). I said "theres nothing unnatural about what I'm doing", to which she responded that "urinating" is also natural but "this doesnt entitle" me to make an "exhibition" of myself in public. She mentioned that she used to go into the public conveniences when feeding her brood, so she failed to see why I couldn't make that compromise too. I truly lost it at this point and told her to go and drink her fucking tea in the lavatory.
At this point, the manager (an old friend of mine) intercepted and asked the "woman" if she and her husband would like a table elsewhere. This didn't go down too well, and seething with rage she asked for her bill and left.
I was being as discreet as possible. Little more than the upper part of my breast was visible. What would she have preferred? A crying baby? I can't believe such cosseted, narrow minded people still exist in this day and age. Im still shaken up by it. I had really hoped to continue breastfeeding for as long as possible but am now questioning the reality of this.