NIP

ABC did a segment last night on how people would react to a breastfeeding mother being harrassed (by the cafe manager) for nursing at a cafe. Most people defended her right to feed the baby, with a few exceptions. The segment mentioned that only three US states do not legally protect mothers' right to breastfeed in public: Idaho, West Virginia, and my current home state, Nebraska.

At this point I have nursed just about everywhere - at the zoo, in restaurants, in grocery stores, at a playground, just about anywhere I've been in the last four months. Just yesterday I nursed in my booth at a restaurant, and by now I don't even really need a cover so I didn't use one. No one has ever said boo to me about it or even shot a funky glance my way (and I usually look around to make sure no one's getting their panties in a bunch), but it disturbs me to know that if anyone wanted to make me move or stop nursing, I have no law to back me up.

There is a principled argument to be made for public breastfeeding - I'm feeding my child, and there's nothing wrong with that - which of course I support completely. Then there's also a practical argument. Would you want to sit on a public toilet seat to feed your baby? I mean seriously, ew. As a public-germ-ophobe I can scarcely imagine a worse nightmare.

Nebraska, despite being a state that does not protect public breastfeeding, also does not offer mother's rooms to serve that function, or at least I've never seen any. Not that I would much appreciate being asked to use one anyway - yesterday when we sat down for lunch at the restaurant Miles was hungry and it took me less than 5 minutes to feed him and be done with it, without me ever getting up from my table or him ever crying. It's so simple. Why would I want to give up my table, trundle my baby and diaper bag off to some distant quarter to feed him, staring at a wall while hungry and thirsty myself?

I can assure you that when I'm nursing in public, cover or no cover, you can't see anything. By now Miles can latch himself so neither of us needs to actually see the boob. My shirt is sometimes pulled up a little in front (depending on what I'm wearing) so my midriff may be exposed, but Miles is a big baby and his body obscures the view. If you're totally staring at me the entire time, maybe you can catch a glimpse of nipple in the instant between him coming off and me pulling my shirt down, but if you can catch that, you were looking for it anyway!

I think some people are just disturbed by the idea that a woman is breastfeeding in the same room whether or not the view is explicit. I have a friend with whom we went out to brunch way back before I was ever pregnant, and he was so disgusted by the sight of a woman breastfeeding her child that he swore he'd never even go back to that restaurant. The whole idea of it offended him deeply. There was some irony, to me, in that this friend is a gay man and has to live with the fact that many people (in Nebraska particularly) find his committed relationship with his partner offensive to see. He is very averse to public displays of affection with his partner so I suppose he's very sensitive to any sort of public intimacy and there is some parallel there with breastfeeding... but still. I can't help but find his disgust pretty silly.

If I were out with that friend I'd defer to his sensibilities and try to find somewhere else to nurse, because he's my friend, but not in a bathroom! And I guess there is some inconsistency in the fact that I would defer to my friend and not a stranger, but ah well. That's a bit of hypocrisy I can live with.