Legislating breastfeeding: why a supermodel and a coffee shop owner were both wrong
Aug 4, 2010 What's Going On
Two interesting, related and seemingly opposite things blew up on the internet in the past couple of days, both involving breastfeeding. Yesterday morning I saw a tweet from a coffee shop owner in Oklahoma (as retweeted by my friend Marinka):
I’m guessing he tweeted it as a joke, not realizing the shitstorm that would come his way. I jumped on him (and I wasn’t the only one):
He didn’t help his case at all when he followed the first tweet with this:
Which prompted me to tweet:
What was galling was that after it blew up he tried to defend it, sending an email to a local news station complaining that nobody was defending his rights as a business owner to decide what happens in his own store (the right to breastfeed in public is protected by law in Oklahoma). He seems to be missing the point that laws have to be made to legislate exactly this kind of thing, because without them you have businesses trying to ban black people, or women, or gays, or people who like musicals, or people who vote Republican, or people who go to church (OK, I’m pretty sure one of those isn’t protected, but should be).
If the owner of The Double Shot wants to sit in his own living room and invite people over for coffee and conversation, he can dictate whether or not boobs can be whipped out in his presence. But it’s not his living room, it’s a business, and when you throw your hat into that ring you give up certain rights, like the right to decide whom you can let into that business, such as a breastfeeding mother. His argument was misguided, his attitude was incredibly offensive, and it’s a wake-up call to any small business owner who wants to associate a twitter account with a business.
Then this morning, I woke up to Gisele Bundchen proclaiming that breastfeeding should be mandated by law for the first six months. My immediate reaction was that that was crazy, and potentially damaging to a mom who has maybe had to make the decision to use formula, and while breastfeeding is better formula isn’t necessarily bad, and in some cases it’s not even a lifestyle choice but a necessity to use formula, and it would be government overreaching, and…wait a minute, how come my gut reaction was so intensely against Gisele’s proposal, when just a couple days ago I was telling a coffee shop owner to shut up and obey the breastfeeding laws? If protecting the rights of women to breastfeed is good, wouldn’t a law making everyone breastfeed be a thousand times better? I mean, there’s absolutely no question that breastfeeding has many benefits over formula feeding, including cost, convenience, increased immune protection for the baby, increased calorie burning for the mom, decreased chance of obesity later in life for the child…so why not make moms do it?
Gisele backed off of her comment, which was leaked from an upcoming interview in Harper’s Bazaar UK. She’s since put a clarification on her blog that she wasn’t actually advocating a law, she was just expressing her opinion. I get it. She’s a huge star and everything she says in under scrutiny. That can’t be easy. But she’s got to realize that leading by example is a much better way. How many people did she inspire when she quit smoking? She set an example as a healthy-living pregnant woman that I would love to live up to (that picture of her above was taken mere months after she gave birth, so it looks like she’s doing something right!). Incentives to be better people will always work better that telling people what to do, especially when it comes to health.
We’re Americans, we’ve got a right to be 400lb diabetes-ridden chain smokers if we want to be. So make us not want to be! Show us more commercials about what happens to smokers’ lungs. Make cigarettes so expensive that people would rather spend their money on something else. Subsidize gym memberships and give tax credits for buying exercise equipment. Help make fresh food available in poor neighborhoods through Community Supported Agriculture programs, many of which accept food stamps. Give incentives for healthy living. The most I ever went to the gym in my life was when I had a health insurance plan that gave me a cash bonus if I worked out three times a week. I never did get that bonus, but I averaged twice a week for a couple of years, which I never would have done if I weren’t working towards that incentive.
And most of all, make it easy to do what’s best. Make it simple for women who’ve chosen breastfeeding to do it, wherever and whenever they need to. Help them be comfortable enough to feed their babies in coffee shops and malls and parks and stores, and mandate that businesses provide a safe, clean, private place for pumping (that isn’t a bathroom!). Make it illegal for business owners everywhere to kick breastfeeding mothers out because they can’t separate breasts and sex in their own minds.
Besides, I’m pretty sure that if Gisele Bundchen decided to breastfeed in The Double Shot coffee shop, you wouldn’t hear the owner complaining on twitter.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, and Momtourage.
Tags: breastfeeding, breastfeeding laws, Gisele Bundchen, The Double Shot
I’m all for multi-tasking, but this woman is a boob
Feb 28, 2009 News
I’m a big multi-tasker. I can make lunches while drying the uniform pants I fogot to wash last night while checking my email while talking on the phone. And there have been plenty of times when I had to feed my kids in the car. Microwaved bagels with butter are a big one for us. Or dry cereal in a baggie. Or a Happy Meal (but no ketchup – I draw the line at letting the kids open ketchup packets in the car). And, I’ve breastfed my kids in the car. Parked. With the car completely off. And even that made me nervous. I called Saturn once trying to find out if the airbag would go off if I was parked and somebody hit me (I was never able to get a clear answer on that, so I did it in the back seat when possible).
But never, ever, in my wildest dreams, on my most harried, late, crazy day, did it ever occur to me even once for a split second to breastfeed my baby while driving. But apparently Genine Compton of Ohio thought that this was an OK thing to do. With her other children in the minivan, and her baby on the steering wheel having breakfast, she drove to her kids’ school. Oh, and as if that weren’t enough, she was also talking on her cell phone.
Luckily for her kids, another driver saw her, and called the police: “I’m following right behind her right now on Far Hills Avenue,” the caller said as he spoke to a Kettering dispatcher in a recording of his non-emergency call that was released by police on Friday, Feb. 27.
“I tried to say something to her. She literally has the little girl on the steering wheel and I said, ‘I can’t believe you have that kid in your lap’ and she said, ‘You want to pop your titty out and breastfeed this kid?’ That’s what she said to me. I’m like, ‘You can feed your kid when you stop.’ It’s like wet out here. It’s full of traffic. It’s ridiculous. She’s got like three other kids in the car.”
Wow.
The cops were very quick to point out that the fact that she was breastfeeding had nothing to do with the fact that she has been charged with child endangerment and unlawfully restraining a child. They said that even if the child had just been on her lap, the charges would have been the same. I’m sure they’re trying to avoid protests from moms who think they can breastfeed their kids anywhere, anytime, no matter what the situation, no exceptions. But clearly this was not about breastfeeding, it’s about safety.
You have to take a test to get the license to drive the mini-van, so I have to assume there’s no question on that test asking whether or not it’s OK to breastfeed your baby while driving. I guess whoever made the test assumed that that was the kind of thing a person would just know, just like you know not to stick your hand in a pot of boiling water. I mean, when I took the test to get my learners permit, there were no questions like these: “True or False: You should not put cruise control on and climb into the backseat and take a nap while driving.” Or “True or False: If you are low on gas, you can fill your tank with chocolate milk.” There are just some things that should be assumed.
But no, apparently it is no longer safe to assume that drivers will instinctively know not to whip out their boobs and prop their kids up on their steering wheels and grab their cell phones and put it in drive. And if this woman is making such a huge, horrible, dangerous mistake on this issue, what are the odds that all of her other decisions are OK? She faces jail or a fine or both. I’m not sure her kids will be better off if she’s in jail, but maybe a big fine will make her think twice before doing something like that again.
Dumbass.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom
Breastfeeding while driving gets woman a ticket [Dayton Daily News]
Tags: breastfeeding, breastfeeding while driving, Genine Compton, Ohio
Salma Hayek’s do-gooder boobs
Feb 22, 2009 Amy in the Morning
Originally posted on Selfish Mom
Tags: breastfeeding, Salma Hayek, The Oscars
