Feeling sad/hurt about breastfeeding

[Flingmoo]

Fuck them all, everyone out there who has expressed sympathy with the Farage's point of view on this whole debate. Sorry to make another thread on this issue but I've got to the point where I'm not just angry about it but actually feeling quite hurt. It makes me realise what a significant portion of society see me, a breastfeeding woman as , at best, a second class citizen, and at worst, disgusting.

I'm not usually that precious and I know I shouldn't give a fuck what these people think. But it feels very personal now. To me, it was just hilariously stupid when people compared breastfeeding to urination, but now I'm hearing this everywhere I look, it seems like I should feel ashamed to feed my baby in public.

I don't even know what I'm getting at on this thread. Bleh. I guess I want someone to tell me how I can direct my emotional response to this issue in a more productive and less wussy way. Without being called "breastapo" (a term which should go in the same bin as "feminazis" IMHO...)

Sorry, I feel really pathetic for making this thread. I am really beaten down.

There's four asterisks between the 'Well' and the 'you' in that quote but they didn;t appear with copy and paste!

oh god this just makes me so sad. I am infinitely more uncomfortable breastfeeding in public at the moment, it almosts feels like people are rating my ability to be discrete/ostentatious.

its all so fucking sad.

fortunately my lovely bottle-refusing baby doesn't give a shit where we are. when she's hungry, she's hungry, so she gets fed.

Honestly? I've never BF thinking “Got a problem with this? Well you.” Until all this rubbish in the news came about!

I'm also deeply depressed by it, but I think it could be partly because Brits have a problem with BFing due to our prudishness about nudity. Other western countries seem to be more relaxed about nudity (I'm thinking nudity being natural on beaches and changing rooms), whereas here if someone is naked we don't know where to look because we've been brought up with the idea that bodies should be hidden because they're sexual.

Seriously - in the communal changing rooms, a boy (about 10-12 years old) covered an unrelated little girl's eyes because my very young ds was naked in the shower! The girl's mother told him it was ok, that she had a brother and to stop it and he said "I just don't think its right that children should see something like that!" I still shower ds in the same way, but I feel icky about it now and I hate that I do. :(

If we were more used to seeing naked bodies in a non-sexual way then I think there'd be less of an issue.

I think BFing is the same - people are afraid that they'll see breast/nipple - they don't realise that 99% of the time you don't see anything as the baby's head is in the way.

This ongoing media "debate" on BF keeps me coming back to this brilliant quote from Mark Twain:

“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”

Essentially this is what we are dealing with.

www.facebook.com/DrMichaelMosley/photos/a.512775732068725.126803.122093147803654/917444404935187/?type=1&theater

Can you lot see this?

BeCool I am getting that quote printed and sticking it on my wall. It is brilliant.

OP, good luck with your volunteering.

I have two DDs, only 16mo apart in age. I fed the first til 9mo and the second til 11mo. Both of them kind of went off it at each of those ages (I think my supply was affected by getting knocked up with DD2 which did for DD1's feeding). I miss it - and I do get a bit misty when I see a mum breastfeeding. It's such a lovely, precious thing to witness. Remember what BeCool quoted and keep on with what you're doing. Enjoy this time - I do miss those baby cuddles....and I'm NOT having another one!

I do like Dr Mosely, good on him, I need one of those baby hats!

I agree and feel sad virtually every day that members of my family are embarrassed of me bf. really dreading .christmas for example. It is so wrong.

I feel really passionately about this and have contemplated giving up my current career and starting a social enterprise with the aim of changing attitudes towards bf, education of the next generations, making it commonplace. I am a bf peer supporter but would like to do something more on the campaigning side than peer support. But I need to focus my aim into some actual action points.

I thought about starting a bf centre / cafe

However does this just perpetuate the idea that bf should be in it's own separate space which is the opposite of what we want? But the fact is this would need to finance itself somehow.

Does anyone have any ideas ? I'm being vague I know. I want to do something, but needs to interest people

I find that Express quote interesting, (after a fashion) because what they're describing isn't breastfeeding as a weapon, it's aggressive-defensive bfing. I did feel like that sometimes when I breastfed in public, of course we all would when we're brought up in a culture that sees women's bodies as existing for male pleasure. It can be very nervewracking getting your boobs out in public, especially if, as so many of us have, we've suffered from male sexual harassment in the past.

Hang in there op. Just wanted to say, we're with you.

With my first my 'look' said. 'I'm breastfeeding here because it is the right thing to do for my baby and he has a right to eat here, but please don't notice me'. I faffed all over the shop trying to avoid the teeniest bit of flesh being seen and looked at EVERYONE to check they weren't staring at me or being offended. It ended up often being quite a drama.

With my second I don't think I had any kind of look at all and seemed to be able to breastfeed the baby whilst tucked under my arm, texting with one hand and holding a cuppa with the others. Sometimes the baby would unlatch and it would take a couple of seconds for me to put down my accessories and re-latch or cover up. I never even looked to see who was bothered by this.

With my 3rd it was as above but I was accomplished enough to feed on the bottom step of a double decker bus, talking to the bank manager, in a lifeboat and whilst receiving communion and NOONE EVER noticed at all.

I think Glosswitch has the best analysis of this debacle that I have read.
www.newstatesman.com/society/2014/12/why-bodily-functions-are-feminist-issue

To Quote:

"Changes in sexual mores have allowed us to pretend that women are no longer under enormous pressure to be “ladylike”. However, being ladylike and being chaste are not the same thing. If anything, the more flesh we are permitted to have on show, the greater the pressure upon us to make said flesh hairless, unscented and perspiration-free. "
....
"Breastfeeding is neither disgusting nor unhygienic; it does, however, create at least one scenario in which it is clear that a woman is her body, inhabiting it as a functioning organism rather than presenting it to the world as a façade. I imagine that’s why, to the likes of Jeremy Clarkson, it really is as repulsive as public urination. It’s as close as a woman – and not just any woman, a mother, of all people – gets to dropping the act and being more than just an object beneath the male gaze (and what a shame that to do this, she first needs the excuse of nourishing another human being).

Female bodies don’t just exist to be looked at; they leak, smell, make involuntary noises, and what’s more, if they do all that then it’s also likely that they think and feel. But a woman having thoughts and feelings won’t do. Best put her in the corner so no one can see."

I absolutely know how you feel op. After things I have read and heard about over the last couple of weeks I am very, very sad and also worried for my two dds. I want them to grow up knowing that breastfeeding is normal and wonderful and not shameful and disgusting.

I breastfed my dd1 for two years and 6 months so far for my dd2. I am overseas in a country where mostly no one bats an eyelid if you breastfeed and it is actively encouraged. I am coming back to the Uk for Christmas and am bizarrely worried about feeding in public despite me doing it for two years with no issues. I'm very sad that some people see it as unnatural or that it she'd be hidden. Makes me very, very angry!

What really needs to happen is for breastfeeding in public to be presented in soaps as routine - not as a big ishoo storyline but totally incidental and matter-of-course. There are obvious logistical problems but they're not insurmountable.

We've got a long way to go for that. Even cebeebies changed the details of a Rosie & Tim episode. A neighbour has a new baby. On tv it's bottle fed. In the books it's breastfeed.
Big big fail for the bbc there. Totally not fulfilling their public broadcasting role.