Thursday, May 19, 2011
Um, seriously?
So a suburb of Atlanta has made it illegal to breastfeed a child older than 2, in an attempt to curb public nudity throughout the city. I have lots of things to say about this. First, doesn't the city council have more important things to deal with? Second, how is breastfeeding a child equated with being nude in public? I mean seriously. Why are Americans so flipping prudish? Why is a breast such a horrific thing to see, especially when it is being used to feed a child? I so prefer Canada and Europe when it comes to things like this. Bear was 18 months when we traveled in Italy at Christmas, and he was still nursing. In fact, I let him nurse whenever and wherever he wanted while we were traveling because we were often off-schedule. I nursed him at the Colloseum, I nursed him outside the Duomo of the Florence Cathedral, I nursed him sitting behind Michelangelo's David, and I even nursed him in the Vatican Museum twice, not to mention on the train, in the airport, in the lobby of every hotel we stayed at, and almost every restaurant we were in. I did my best to be discreet because I'm not comfortable having strangers see my breast. But Bear was interested in looking at things, so he often lifted the cover so he could look around. On several occasions, as I struggled to keep us the cover over us, people came over to us and pulled the cover away, so they could get a good look at Bear. I was told over and over again how beautiful he was, and no one said anything about me nursing in public. Why can't more Americans treat breastfeeding like this--as a beautiful thing between a mother and child?
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4 comments:
Agreed. What a completely absurd law. A friend of mine blogged about it this morning...
Answer to #1: because if they did focus on the more important things, good thing might actually get done. (Little jaded with our own local gov't right now, even though I don't live in Atl.) and why is ir children over 2? Is it not nudity if it's a younger child? Seems a little weird to me. Not to mention that once again a woman's body is not her own but something governed by law. Ok, I won't rant on your blog :)
I find the age really interesting. It seems as though the council is tacitly acknowledging the American Association of Pediatricians recommendation that all children be breastfed until the age of 2. If they are going to acknowledge that, even tacitly, then the law is even more absurd, at least in my mind.
I have to say,this did not surprise me. Atlanta is not a very family-friendly or kid-friendly place. I've got 657 stories. I have no idea why people are like this. I think southern culture crossed with African-American culture and the fact that breastfeeding is so completely not the norm all contributes to the fact that most women don't breastfeed in that town--I was the only one on the entire floor who was breastfeeding when I had Kizzy; I had a lactation consultant to myself!--and since people don't see it often, they feel entitled to criticize it when they do.
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