Public Nursing: Ranting on the Cover Up

I don't usually "rant" on here but today..oh why not?

Let's talk about Public Nursing. (Yes, I said nursing. The term "breastfeeding" is one of my peeves.) There's so much controversy over such a non-controversial topic that it almost isn't worth my time to type this. Yet, I will because it needs to be said.. again.

There is nothing wrong with nursing in public. At the risk of ticking off some readers, I'll go as far as to say that I'd be more ashamed to have my child seen in public with a bottle. It's true. If I were seen loading my child with plastics, hormones and chemicals, I'd just want to crawl in a hole and hide. To ask a woman to leave the room, cover herself or ..and this one is just disgusting.. go in the bathroom to nurse, does nothing more than show one's stupidity and disrespect for the wonderful art of nursing that God himself (substitute the word GOD with NATURE if you don't believe in God) gave to mothers and their babies.

Covering Up: I'll concede the tiniest bit on this. If you as the mother aren't comfortable--then sure.. go ahead.. use a blanket as long as it doesn't irritate baby. However, I will not. Why? Because it defeats a main purpose of nursing: eye to eye contact. That special time when baby just lies there adoring mom and, of course, mom adoring baby. There is a reason nature allows them to see only a certain distance which happens to be the distance from breast to mom's eyes. It's a natural way of bonding them together. Besides, most babies won't tolerate the cover-up. They will pull the blanket off as most nursing moms are well-aware. They're not comfortable having things over their heads (a survival instinct) and want to see mom's face and share that tender moment.

"I don't want to see the mom's boob!" Are you kidding me??? Have you actually ever seen a child nurse? You can't see anything! They're head covers the breast. In order for you to see the breast, the child would need a see-thru head. Now I'll venture to say that if the child's head is see-thru, then you're really not going to be thinking so much about mom's breast as you are about the fact that the head of the child is transparent. So let's get over it.

Why should a baby or child feel embarrassed and ashamed for eating? Does this even make sense? The baby's natural instinct is to be in mom's arms, to be at mom's breast, skin-to-skin. All mammal's do it. Do you tell your dog or cat to go hide? Do we freak when we see Shamu nurse a baby? No. But a human do what a human is designed to do??!!! Uh-oh! No! We can't have that!

In 1900, it was "indiscreet" for a woman's ankle to show but she could sit on the front row at the theatre nursing her child with no questions asked. Now we have girls walking around in hip-huggers and belly shirts; thongs, sex on tv, porn..but we freak out when a woman nurses a child? What is WRONG with this?!

The next time you decide you want to make a nursing mom feel sinful.. think about what things you do, watch or listen to as entertainment; what you wear to the beach (or stare at on the beach) and then talk to me about it. I'm not making a judgement regarding those things; just a point.