Little known chick-lit writer had anti-bf rant in local rag

[Udderly]

www.herald.ie/opinion/columnists/marisa-mackle/marisa-mackle-breast-is-best-when-its-not-in-public-2508344.html

In reaction to the Miranda kerr pic. What a small minded woman. Anyone actually heard of her?

it's hard for people around not to stare

Oh, I sympathise.
I won't allow myself out in public because of my inability to control the direction of my own eyes.

what an ignorant twat

she has ishooooos, innit

and ooooh, this stuff makes me so mad! GGGrrrrrrrr!

Quite right. Babies are foul.

You are all being too harsh. It's not the general public's fault they are forced to stare and feel ill at ease at the sight of a mother feeding her baby.

Women in football? BF ing in public? What will they think of next?

I'm sorry Hippytrippy, I really didn't think of it like that... you are right, I should think of the general publics' feeling more often.

She's quite right, anyone bfing past the time limit of 2 weeks should sit in the cupboard under the stairs until they see sense

oops, sorry for the typos. I'm trying to type while feeding under a tent/tarpaulin/poncho/shawl combo on my sofa, just in case the postman walks past the window... cos I wouldn't want to offend him

So people breastfeed, and post pics of themselves breastfeeding, and breastfeed in a cafe, in order to make themselves look better than other mums?

Nothing to do with the baby needing to be fed and the mother not wanting to wear a poncho (WTF?) indoors or to go into the toilet.

They do it to draw attention to the fact they think they are "just all-round better".

This is an interesting new argument, and very revealing.

Silly woman.

I have pics of myself bfing on facebook and you can see less of my boobs in them than you can in pics of me in summer dresses.

Nice to see the SMA ad just to the right of the article

I haven't got the SMA advert, I've got Centre Parcs and sage independent midwives. Wonder why that is?

Where is .ie? It's not a British website is it? Or is it?

Think it is Eire, though I could be wrong.

TikTok - my best friend's mum told me she thought the only reason women bf in public is because it gives them the chance to show off. She is mad as a box of frogs though.

I don't think the "all round better" was entirely about bfing. I think Ms Chicklit was more making the point that "celebrity" mothers do nothing to help "ordinary" mothers who don't have armies of make-up artists, photographers and blah-di-blahs and who end up feeling rubbish as a result. It's unfortunate that such "celeb" mothers also have to bang on about bfing and natural birth too - I don't think they do anyone any favours, because they just set up an impossible standard. This particular celeb (who is she, anyway? I've never heard of her) may well have a 24-hour-a-day bfing expert to get her through the poor supply and mastitis and so on - but we'd never hear about that. If you look beyond the bfing, it wasn't such a bad article.

But I struggle to look beyond the BF ing bit.

Mittler the article is utter, utter crap.

She clearly thinks breastfeeding in public, or even showing a photograph of it, FFS, is to show off: " posting this photo seemed like attention-seeking".

Ishooes, much?

What an appalling piece of writing. It's actually badly-phrased too, cliched and hackneyed as hell. She's a professional writer, you say? Hmm.

I agree with her that it's an intimate pic that if it was me I would treasure but keep private, and also that glamorous shots and banging on about no pain relief do nothing to make the rest of us feel good about ourselves.

However what really bugs me is this author/columnists attitude to her friends. She is so unsupportive, surely she would get changed in front of her friend in a clothes shop or gym so whats wrong with bf. Some friend. Smacks of her own insecurities.

Yesterday I needed to feed by baby in a museum cafe. I tried to show as little flesh as poss. An older woman asked if I was bf and said good, it's the best way. Well nice to get positive reinforcement but what business is it of hers? I would rather she left me to it. The sooner bf is seen as something completely boring and ordinary the better.

Mittler, the article WAS all about breastfeeding!

And the sleb in question - well, so maybe she does have an army of lactation consultants behind her. Just as any person in the public eye has an invisible crew making it all possible. Does that mean that they shouldn't be photographed breastfeeding because they're too pretty? The photo was rather unusual, in fact, because it wasn't (blatantly) a 'look at meee! look at my baybeee!' glossy spread in Hello, but (I think) a genuinely candid snap taken at home and stuck on her blog. (no, I hadn't heard of her either! I know who her bloke is, though! )

As for the sad hack who wrote this uninformed piece of viputeration, I do hope her attention is brought to this thread...

Marisa Mackle, for example, is a twat.

crackfox

I feel sorry for the (ex) friend. Imagine being her and reading this old load of tosh.

Have you seen some of the other articles on there she has written? There is a particularly nice one slagging off single mums!

Funny that she resents people commenting on parenting in another column:

"It's easy to feel like a useless mother. Everyone tells you that you're doing everything wrong."

www.herald.ie/opinion/columnists/marisa-mackle/marisa-mackle-keep-one-step-ahead-of-those-interferers-2246477.html

Good to see that just six months later she is writing a column that shows how confident she is to tell other parents what they're doing wrong, breastfeeding in a cafe.

Wonder if her friend with the baby feels about her critical comments?

She will certainly recognise herself.

I hope she does read this thread!

She might even get a column out of it :) :) :)