Just when I was thinking the world was mine. Just when I’m thinking all the world can breastfeed freely in public…. I saw a piece on Good Morning America covering the topic and they were emphasizing a spot in the movie, Breastmilk, with the man who is uncomfortable with women nursing in public. Then it hits me! We still have a lot of work to do to make breastfeeding normal and commonplace. Here is the link to the ABC news blog in which the story is covered.http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/does-breastfeeding-men-uncomfortable-203913874–abc-news-parenting.html
They’re actually talking about the documentary by Ricki Lake and Dana Ben-Ari and they’ve chosen to focus on the husband who confesses his embarrassment about seeing women, even his own wife, nursing in public. Ricki Lake was quoted, “I believe this film will start an important conversation about how we can better support all new mothers, whether they breastfeed or not, and evolve to a place where breastfeeding is not so politically charged.”
I agree this is raising some good public discussion. The comments section on ABCs blog shows some interesting ideas from the general public. Many people are supportive and just ask that mothers be modest or discreet about it. The people that have a hard time separating the sexuality of the breast from feeding an infant seem to be the ones who are embarrassed by it the most and would rather it be done in private or completely covered up. I agree with Mother of two and Café Mom contributor, Sasha Brown-Worsham, who breastfed both of her children. She can only hope, as quoted in ABC’s blog, “The more that women do breastfeed in public, and are able to do that, the better because it normalizes the situation,” she explained. “I’m just going to keep on doing what I’m doing and feel happy and blessed that in this very supportive community that we live in, in the Hudson Valley of NY, that I have not yet had any confrontation about my public breastfeeding. Let’s keep supporting each other and educate those who are confused about feeding babies”.