This summer marks the second year that women can breastfeed in public in the great state of Kansas without fear of reprimand, harassment or arrest for indecent exposure.
This makes me want to whip out my jugs in a downtown park while I pretend to breastfeed a baby that I’ve borrowed from one of my mom friends and scream, “Woo-hoo! That’s right! Suck it, baby! And eff you mutha-fuckas who don’t like it! Breastfeeding is my legal right!” And then I’d slam a football into the ground and do a victory dance.
Okay, not really. And I say “borrowed baby” because my child is simply too old to pass as a breastfeeder anymore.
But whenever I do happen to think about the fact that breastfeeding not only protected, but sanctioned by law in my home state, it makes me darn happy. Big shit-eating grin from ear-to-ear happy. In fact, right after the bill passed in the Kansas senate, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) issued business cards explaining the new law that breastfeeding moms could carry with them and give to anyone who might give them a hard time while feeding their hungry child in a public place. And even though I was no longer breastfeeding my own child by that time, I wanted to get a whole stack ‘o’ those cards and hand them out willy-nilly to everyone I met, with said shit-eating-grin plastered all over my goofy, goofy face.
Kansas’ breastfeeding law is due in large part to one brave woman by the name of Amy Swan who hails from my hometown of Lawrence. Amy was yelled at by a man while breastfeeding her baby in 2004 in a local gym. The story goes that he objected to Amy showing her “parts” while his son was in the room. Rather than coming to her aid, the gym’s staff sided with the alleged asshat who yelled at her. Ironically enough, she was breastfeeding in the gym’s NURSERY.
Instead of slinking away and grumbling to her friends, however, which is exactly how I would have handled the situation, Amy fought for two years to make public breastfeeding a protected act in Kansas. When she couldn’t get anywhere with our city government, she didn’t give up; she went over their heads to the state government. By this point, there were many people on the positive side of the public breastfeeding law bandwagon, so Amy ended up having lots of help and support in her quest.
Kansas law now reads that a woman may “breastfeed her baby anywhere she has the right to be.” The bill also amended a previous bill to allow a mother who is breastfeeding her child to postpone jury duty until she’s no longer breastfeeding.
In my book, Amy Swan rocks. She rocks hard.
Interestingly enough, the issue of breastfeeding knocked another one of my heroes down a notch, at least in my mind. Though I almost always agree with comedian and political pundit Bill Maher, his sneering assessment of public breastfeeding is this:
“Look, there's no principle at work here other than being too lazy to plan ahead or cover up. It's not fighting for a right, it's fighting for the spotlight you surely will get when you go all Janet Jackson on everyone and get to drink in the oohs and ahhs from the other customers because ‘You made a baby!’… something a dog could do."
Yowza. Where to start?
First off, since about 96.4 percent of all American women have some sort of fairly serious neurosis about their own bodies, it seems unlikely that after packing on somewhere between 25 and 60 pounds and having had one’s entire torso stretched out like a giant pig’s bladder that said woman would suddenly be thrilled to expose that body to the world.
See, the whole breastfeeding in public dilemma starts waaaay back in the delivery room when you’re spread-eagle in the stirrups for somewhere between nine and 36 hours and no less than eleven people you’ve never seen in your freaking life wander in and out of the room while your vajayjay has become the velvety centerpiece of your lovely, mood-lit birthing suite. It’s in these hours that the deep, shameful embarrassment of your body that you’ve nurtured since the sixth grade, that very American, very Puritan sensibility that certain body parts are to remained covered at all times, is absolutely knocked on its ass.
Then, the baby comes and your body ceases to be your own. The baby has you trapped at the house, 24 hours a day. Friends and family come to visit the new baby, which has a heroin-like affect on many people, especially grandparents. When the baby wants to eat, the friends and family invariably say “Oh, go ahead and feed her here! I don’t mind!” while they grin and gape at your ta-tas-turned dispensers-of-life.
Breastfeeding is the “green” movement of parenting. It’s being so encouraged, so talked-up and so le-leche-leagued at every hospital and birthing center in the country, that to give your baby formula is likened to giving the little bugger cyanide. When I had my kid a few years ago, there was also lots of controversy about “nipple confusion!” which made us all afraid to give our babies a pacifier or a bottle. So the very frightened, very tired, very confused new mom is often scared shitless to give her baby anything but the boob, and if your kid is like mine, she won’t take a bottle, even if you’ve been un-“lazy” enough to pump some breast milk ahead of time and put it in one. (As one smiling nurse said to me, “Why would they take a bottle? A nipple is so soft and warm!)
And while nobody should ever take a baby to a movie, sometimes mommy has to periodically venture out to a restaurant or horrifying postpartum antics may ensue. But there’s one more wrinkle in the scenario: You never, ever know when a breastfed baby is going to need to eat. And ‘need’ is the operative word here. You can feed him at home before you go to the restaurant and he can need to eat again as soon as you step inside the door of the place. And, as every breastfeeding mother knows, a breastfed baby MUST be fed on demand. If you don’t feed that little tumor within the first couple of minutes of when she starts to fidget, she’ll go directly into fire truck mode. As far as “covering up” goes, some babies will let you put a blanket over them while others simply won’t. There’s not a mom I know, though, who doesn’t at least attempt to pull her blouse down over as much of her breast as she can.
Amber Fraley is a cynical yet goofy 30-something stay at home mom living in the college town of Lawrence, Kan., a politically blue dot in the reddest of all Midwestern states. (Go 'Hawks!) Fraley created the monthly alternative publication The Lawrencian, of which she was the publisher and editor-in-chief for three-and-a-half years. Now she spends her days keeping house badly, playing make believe with her equally goofy young daughter and freelance writing.
Though she is sometimes frustrated with the backwards politics in her home state, she loves Kansas dearly and can't seem to leave. Damn it!
Amber whats her name is also a poor excuse for a lady. She should have her mouth washed out with soap and water. If she can't express herself in the Queen's English then please keep her scatalogical references to herself, along with her distorted sense of presumptious right to display her body where and when she wants or her squaller wants. She's a sicko!
by
Archie (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1273 comments)
on Saturday, July 26, 2008 at 10:56:10 PM
Look, Mr. Stq, I assume you mean "breeder" to be "straight girl". For your information, I have lots of gay friends. I completely support gay marriage and the right for gay couples to adopt children. So gays can be breeders too.
As for the rest of the neaderthals out there, look, you better get used to public breastfeeding. Virtually every doctor, nurse, midwife, birthing center and hospital is pushing breastfeeding. It's the healthiest form of food for a baby and believe me, in the coming years you WILL see more of it.
by
Amber Fraley (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 4 comments)
on Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 11:16:58 AM
Thank you Amber, this was totally hilarious! 30 years ago I was traveling by plane from Texas to New York, a pretty long flight. When I got my seat assignment from the agent, I asked if he might put me next to a woman passenger, since I would be breastfeeding my baby, and I'd be more comfortable with that. The young, male agent looked at me horrified, and said, “you can’t do THAT on a plane!”
To which I smiled sweetly, and said, “well, she’ll probably cry through the whole flight, then. I’m sure the other passengers will love that.”
To think that babies should be able to nurse on demand, what radical thinking!
I’m so glad to hear about the legal support.
(People like your first commenter don’t actually have to read the article if they don’t want to! Reminds me of the gal who wrote in to Ann Landers to ask, “What can I do to stop all the pornography on the VCR?”)
by
Meryl Ann Butler (47 articles, 51 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 412 comments)
on Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 9:33:37 PM
A lot of the problem stemmed from baby formula manufacturers telling Mothers their milk was nutritionally inadequate and their product was what they needed. Good old fashioned greed.
You can tell that toad Bill Maher he's just jealous because that's something he can't do. Either that or one of his parents was a dog. If he can't take a joke, he's no comedian!
by
Dave Kisor (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 155 comments)
on Monday, July 28, 2008 at 12:50:07 AM
WOW, Americans sure have one hell of a hang up with women's boobs.
Firstly they idolise them, the bigger the better, but when they get used for what they were meant to be used, the hypocrits come to the fore. WOW, what is it with these people ?
I have a simple insight to their problem, I firmly belive ever such hypocrit was DENIED the pleasure of being breastfed when they were babies, thus they now wish to deprive others of the pleasure they missed out on themselves, in other words, they're simply jealous as all git out. Poor babies.
by
Eddy Schmid (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 207 comments)
on Monday, July 28, 2008 at 2:05:41 AM
...please ignore the cob-suppositoried simps and English Queens who flutter ineffectually about your wham-bam take-no-prisoners prose!
Such linguistic lightweights dress their text in Hello-Dolly drag and bring on blights like "solutions" and the "verbing" of perfectly good nouns like "impact" and "leverage." I have dealt with these semantic sycophants and their attempts to prop up the pompous for most of my professional life.
As to feeding babies, Ms. Waldo is a strong Germanic girl who breast-fed both our urchins... now two troublesome teens. She would tip her horned helmet to brave women like to Ms. Swan... and I pity the fool who would have bothered my Brunhilde while she fed our once-wee bairns!
Thanks for the mammaries!
by
waldopaper (11 articles, 3 quicklinks, 25 diaries, 430 comments)
on Monday, July 28, 2008 at 8:59:07 AM
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