Letters to the Editor
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@SB4609 and Juliebird
It's nice to see some reasoned debate occurring on the Broadsheet! SB you say pretty much exactly what I think but in a way that is miles more eloquent then I could ever manage, and Juliebird, I totally see where you're coming from and from the sounds of things nursed in a "discreet manner" (I love that term by the way, it's so genteel it kills me!)
Since we seem to have latched on to my initial situation of nursing in Church (which actually did happen by the way)..I still insist that sitting on the aisle (which any parent of kids under 2 should do anyways) and ducking out into the foyer is the most polite thing to do...spend anytime in a church and you'll see parents taking fussy babies out there all the time. Someone earlier said anywhere it's okay to eat a sandwich is also okay to nurse - well I'd say that Mass would be one of those places you shouldn't eat a sandwich :)
One last point though, I think maybe more serious than any tut-tutting one may get while nursing in public, is the scorn a mother receives from other women if she feeds an infant formula. My sister (a full on sleeve-tattooed, last name keeping, de Beauvouir reading, di Franco listening feminist) stopped nursing after two months because as she said she "hated feeling like a goddam cow". She found the looks of disgust she'd receive from other women when she gave her infant son a bottle in public soul crushing. It was pretty sad actually.
Anyways,
thanks for the awesome dialogue here!