Who knew there would two nurse-ins in one week...
A Grand Rapids woman says she was told to stop breastfeeding her baby at the Kent County Clerk's Office. That sparked a protest by other mothers.
It's a movement of sorts. Calling themselves "Lactivists", local moms spent their lunch hour Thursday breastfeeding on Calder Plaza in downtown Grand Rapids. "We want to make it public. We want people to know it's okay to nurse in public," said nursing mother Julie Nietling.
This "nurse-in" was prompted by a situation Nietling says was inexcusable. Jennifer Seif was at the Kent County Clerk's Office applying for her baby's birth certificate when she began breastfeeding. Seif says County Clerk Mary Hollinrake asked her to cover up or leave.
"Nobody has the right to tell me how I can feed my baby and when he's hungry. I have to feed him," Seif told 24 Hour News 8.
I love these women. But I wonder why it seems that 'lactivism' gets more coverage than other kinds of activism done by women. Is it because being active about being a mom is ok, but protesting outside a pharmacy that won't give you birth control isn't?
UPDATE: The NY Times has a couple of letters to the editor on this. Have to love this guy: "It may be true that 'babies are born to be breast-fed,' as a lactivist's sign said, but does that mean it must be done in my presence?"
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Why do lactivists get a lot of coverage? I think it's pretty simple: breasts are sexy and babies are cute. Covering nurse-ins means you can write about breasts and have cute baby pictures in the same article, creating broad appeal.
I, myself, was confounded by the words of this NY Times letter-writer:
As a resolution, I propose a technique that has passed the test of time and is used by modest nursing women the world over: Before you put baby to breast among non-intimates, drape a blanket or a scarf over your shoulder and the baby's head. Then there's nothing to see.
Sure. Nothing to see, until a small hand emerges, grabs the blanket and tosses it on the floor. Then a baby head looks up with an expression that clearly says: Why the heck did you put that thing on my head?
In my experience, covering-up anything but a quite young baby results in more total exposure than the standard technique: Position baby for action, lift shirt out of the way of lunging baby, sit back. A nice loose T-shirt drapes over the sides of the breast behind the nipple, pretty much preventing breast viewing by anyone unless they're leaning over your shoulder. In any case, I've never heard of anyone being attacked and killed by an exposed breast.
The use of the word "modest" is such a giveway. Women are expected to treat their breasts like the sex objects our culture has labeled them, even when they are being used as nature intended to nourish babies. Remember that only sluts aren't modest! So don't be a slut; cover that boob so nobody has to worry that they're gonna get a hard-on watching a baby feed and start to worry about what that means about them...
attacked and killed by an exposed breast...hmmm..that gives me an idea for a campy horror film...a gigantic, lactating breast...rampaging through downtown areas, squirting milk and crushing people..
Giant rampaging breasts shoot half-and-half. The cream immobilizes the victims, the milk drowns them.
My preferred nursing method once my babies got past the earliest months was to have them completely under my shirt. I wore loose shirts that would easily come down over their head and upper body. It was like a little private haven for them. Every baby had different preferences, but both of mine seemed to like that method and there was absolutely no way that any breast was being exposed.
But you know what? People still had a problem with it. When they saw that huge bulge under my shirt that was obviously my baby's head, they knew that breastfeeding was taking place, and they couldn't deal with it. People will talk about breast exposure as the issue, but the truth is that it's the mere idea of a baby sucking a woman's breast that they don't want to be confronted with.
Someone suggested once that the proper "covering" a nursing mother should have at the ready is a supply of paper bags so that anyone who is disturbed by the sight of breastfeeding can put one over their own head until the baby has finished eating.