Just one word: "bitty" Personally, I don't have any problem with breast feeding or public nudity. The benefits of breast feeding vastly outweigh the discomfort other people may feel by seeing it happen. If other people are uncomfortable, that's their problem, not the mother's. I have to put up with people chewing gum, spitting, swearing and listening to their MP3 players too loud. I find those habits more disturbing and annoying, but I don't do anything about it. And the only problem I have with nudists is that they all tend to be old, overweight and fugly.
I have no problem whatsoever with breast feeding babies People that continue to breast feed their children when they are toddlers though is beyond me. By that time (in my view) its counter productive to the childs natural way of growing up, they get onto solids at a later date and thus don't get the variation in taste and flavours that they should be getting. Which causes them to be stunted in terms of "real world" skills.
I have a rather weird stance on it. If it's an out doors, (outside) public like a park or beach I'm not all that pro on it, don't ask me why cause I'm not really sure myself. but that said I'm not going to raise the issue if i ever see it. However if it's a covered public i don't mind. Even if i's as public as a mall or restraint. Like i said its a really weird stance.
There was a program on Channel 4 a couple of months ago all about children who were still breastfed at late ages. I didn't watch it (it just feels too "yeuch" to me), but there were kids on it still being fed at age 8 or 10. And the excuses that the parents came forward with were apparently absurd. Aside from the taste aspect, I'd like to see what it does to these kids later on in life in terms of social development.
It was just an example, over simplified I'd admit, that is why I clarified it with: "Just because there is a majority, doesn't mean it's absolute. The masses can still be wrong." Get what I was aiming for here? Even though i recognise it is still an opinion, just because the masses, by opinion, say it's wrong to breast feed in public, it doesn't necessarily mean that consensus is absolute i.e. correct; they still can be wrong.
I simply don't want to see it - I don't care if it's natural, better for the mother & baby or whatever. Ban it (in public)!
but as people we have free will, if you dont want to see it look at somthing else, turn your head away, close your eyes, run away like a maniac screaming 'NOT THE MILK' or some such absurd statement. it doesnt damage people to see it, people generaly dont like to look at ugly people ether but they are still allowed on the street, but then again you dont have to look at them but you choose to. its the mothers choise to feed their baby like that and its your choise to look at it and think 'thats disgusting' so look away and think of somthing else that doesnt disgust you. seems rather simple to me really
I should point out for anyone not aware, that unless I'm quite embarresingly mistaken, the law in the UK now fully supports nursing mothers, and it's against the law for shop owners or resteraunters to ask them to move somewhere private or cease doing it. It'd be intresting to see if your views change if/when you have children of your own RTT.
RTT has breasts? Well, that's a shocker.. Back on topic..It's not that the mother is banned, it's just being polite, people don't want to watch your kid suck on your boobies in the street.
There is a difference between something being somewhere Ramble, and choosing to watch it. Homeless people lie in alleyways, it doesn't mean we watch them People are perfectly capable of ignoring things they would rather not see, I would prefer we just excercised some maturity about that fact and got on with doing whatever we were doing before some lady got her tit out to give her kid some food.
Personally, I have never seen a mother breast feed a baby on the street. The only place I have seen it happen is at a playground where the mother is looking after her other kids. In a restaurant I disagree with it personally, especially if the mother doesn't make any attempt to hide it, I have had a friend who saw a mother completely take her top off before feeding which is weird to me.
Breast feeding is often very discrete, a mother will just plug the baby on and to be honest, you will only really notice if you are staring... It would be very interesting as to how peoples opinions change as they have kids of their own. Basically, it is a natural thing that has to happen and mothers are rarely so blatant as to take off their tops - do you think that all of these mothers do it so that you can stare at her boobs? No, they are doing it for their child to eat, so every one - get over it...
We live in a sexually (and in many other ways) immature society. The sad fact is that people can't separate the biological function of breasts from their sexual connotation. However, just because the majority (or perhaps, just a vocal minority) feels iffy about breast feeding in public, does not make it unhealthy or wrong. Just because it offends some hypocritical "social mores/values/standards" does not make it unhealthy, or wrong. I mean, really. We shake our head in incredulity at the burkas of Muslim women. "See how repressed those Muslims are", we say. "See how they can't handle the sight of a woman's bare skin". Meanwhile we sexualise women, and even little girls to perverse levels. Fashion dictates they wear high heels, expose their midrif, wear short skirts and crop tops. Lads' mags show women exposed in various provocative states of undress. We just love those candid paparazzi beach shots of topless starlets. We sit glued to the TV, watching Big Brother and eagerly waiting for some housemates to get it off (with each other or with a bottle). And, of course, we have the eponimous Page 3 Girl getting her baps out for the good ol' British public. Which, after having spent some tittilating moments studying the photo, turns around and squarely condems a breast feeding mother for exposing hers. Give me a break. You know what I think? I think people object to breast feeding the way they object to hard-core porn. But it is not because of moral considerations. You see, the soft-core porn of lads' mags or tabloids is considered acceptable; you get to see some nice, (almost) naked girl seductively looking at you with frightened-yet-excited, or provocatively suggestive doe eyes. As she barely clutches her most flimsy underwear or just about manages to cover her modesty in other ways (but not too much), the look on her face says: "You could have me...". The male public likes that. But hard-core porn is different: there, the girl is already squarely involved in a sexual act with a man or a device. "Sorry," the image says, "somebody/something is already having me. You are not required". The male specator is excluded from the fantasy. With breast feeding it's the same thing. There's a woman exposing her breast, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with male sexual fantasy. It is purely a functional, biological and nurturing act between mother and baby. The male spectator feels excluded (let's face it, I hear very few women object to breast feeding in public). If the woman was deliberately flashing her tits for the enjoyment of the male audience, she might get a few cheers of encouragement. But this has nothing to do with men, and they feel left out. Another reason for objecting is that breast feeding can sort of ruin the fantasy in other ways; many women's breasts look much more prozaic in real life than they do on attractive airbrushed young models. Many men don't want to know. They want the fantasy, not as-a-matter-of-fact reality. They have never grown beyond the stage of school boys, playing footy, drinking and fantasising over girls in school uniform, and they get grossed out by the reality of a breast's biological function. The rest? Well, they are just sexually repressed Brits. Benny Hill is as riskee as it gets for them; pretty girls in short skirts being chased accross the screen by an old lech. Yeah, people with sound norms and values alright...
I find it strange that people are acutally find it a disturbing act. I don't care if it is in a resteraunt, cinema or anyother public place, if your baby needs food whip it out and give it food. TBH I would be to busy enjoying my meal, film or whatever else I would be doing.
I reckon that we, the SD Bit-techers here, should go political and set up our own party. The SDBT. I lot of what I hear here is so much more in tune with common sense and in general also possess an above average IQ and understanding of the working world, we'd be a force to be reckoned with. Shame the rest of the public will just see us a nerdy geeks and assume we sit all day unwashed in front of our computers spouting D&D rubbish. It's the world we live in, and that world is ruled by the the unintelligent masses. The people who are intelligent enough to know better are the ones who are too busy working on more important issues like raising a good, grounded family and paving stones for their families future to care less about inconsequential issues such as whether breast feeding in public should be banned or not. That is the way I see it anyway.
If it can be done discretely, then I don't mind it. When it's not done discretely, people will look and stare, and then everyone becomes a little uncomfortable. A while back, a parents' magazine showed a large side-boob on the cover with a baby nearby, and a LOT of people protested over it. A lot of women complained because they didn't want their husbands looking at it, or they had caught their husbands staring at it.
