BS: Breastfeeding In Public

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 31 Mar 14 - 09:16 AM

Good gracious! Haven't looked at this thread for a while, but whatever has been going on? Talk about losing the thread. This was an innocent topic I put forward in all humility, wondering what others' opinions might be, about a REAL situation reported in the paper (and two or three others I'd noticed over the last few weeks) and some people appear to have veered off into yet another vituperative row. So many threads on Mudcat end up like this - such a pity!

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 Mar 14 - 09:12 PM

What in the name of Christ is this supposed to be about? Are you in league with the dreaded Sage-stalker or summat? What has all this got to do with me?

Mr. Shaw, you're the playground bully and I am, at times, the playground monitor. If you don't like getting time out then stop picking on others.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 30 Mar 14 - 08:19 PM

Yes, exactly. No political stance at all from us, either. Kids were being breastfed. They got fed when they needed feeding, wherever they/ we were at the time. No posing, no politics, no unpleasantness. End of.

Seems to be the same for daughter's friends. They just get on with it and no-one says owt!

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Mar 14 - 07:56 PM

So just how common is this situation?

Dunno, but we breastfed both ours, back in the late 70s/early 80s, without the merest regard for what anyone might have thought, without the slightest thought about whether we were being "political". As I recall, it was one hundred percent about feeding the nippers in question when they needed feeding. I can scarcely believe the sheer twattery I'm reading here about what a bloody complicated issue it's supposed to be, what an "emotional battlefield" it is or how militant women ostentatiously whip their nipple into a baby's gob in order to make a political point. Bugger off!

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Mar 14 - 07:43 PM

Steve Shaw, the point at which the thread really went off topic was the point at which you jumped on, and started riding, the misuse of a word which slipped in because of an unnoticed spell-check fluke.

"The breast-milk Nazis are in process of taking it over...."

Thread drift happens. No reasonable person is going to get wound up because some thread drift happens. But what in hell is the sense behind attacking someone who happens to post something back on the original topic...and what kind of mind would justify calling anyone here a "breast-milk Nazi" ?

What in the name of Christ is this supposed to be about? Are you in league with the dreaded Sage-stalker or summat? What has all this got to do with me?

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Greg F.
Date: 30 Mar 14 - 07:02 PM

Amen, Rob. Nicely done.

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 30 Mar 14 - 06:58 PM

I've come to this one late, and, getting it back on topic, I wonder just how much of a "problem" this really is, in terms of people complaining or being upset by it?

My wife breastfed all 3 of ours, very often in public, between 27 and 22 years ago, the last one often when the other 2 were with here, so not always possible to be very discreet.

She was never, in all that time, given any snidey glances (that either of us noticed), had any comments made, nor was she ever asked by the staff of a cafe, restaurant or other establishment to take herself off out of sight, or to the toilets.

Her sister did the same from 30-25 years ago with her 4, again without ever having any comments made.

Our daughters don't have kids yet but some of their friends do. Again, most of them feed them in public, or at friends' houses, without any comments at all. I did a quick poll of YD's babied-up friends (about 6 of them) after reading this thread and none of them can recall a single instance so far when they had comments made, or noticed dirty glances.

So just how common is this situation? Sounds to me as if there's a mountain being made out of a molehil, and that the number of cases is probably very small, but because of the relative rarity, tend to get publicised?

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Greg F.
Date: 30 Mar 14 - 06:15 PM

Start here, Ake: 28 Mar 14 - 11:32 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: akenaton
Date: 30 Mar 14 - 05:01 PM

Greg, I don't really understand the point you are trying to make, could you please explain?
Is it to promote the use of milk products, rather than encourage women to BF....If so why?...Who are the breast milk "Nazis"?

I honestly don't understand what you are trying to say.

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Greg F.
Date: 30 Mar 14 - 04:46 PM

someone who happens to post something back on the original topic

And that person would be....?

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: frogprince
Date: 30 Mar 14 - 04:19 PM

"~M~, this thread hasn't been about "breast-feeding in public" (which I also have no problem with if done discreetly, like anything else of an essentially private nature done in public) for quite some time."

Steve Shaw, the point at which the thread really went off topic was the point at which you jumped on, and started riding, the misuse of a word which slipped in because of an unnoticed spell-check fluke.

"The breast-milk Nazis are in process of taking it over...."

Thread drift happens. No reasonable person is going to get wound up because some thread drift happens. But what in hell is the sense behind attacking someone who happens to post something back on the original topic...and what kind of mind would justify calling anyone here a "breast-milk Nazi" ?

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Mar 14 - 01:39 PM

I avow that I was breast fed, or so I was told by seven independent witnesses, all of whom I also avow saw it happen. I still--almost 70 years later--like breasts.

To any lawyers out there, if my mother had died filthy rich, would I have had a case to grieve loss of focus in life's more fundamental moments and sue her for at least half her fortune?

Your friend,

Stitz R Us

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 30 Mar 14 - 01:03 PM

So where is family life under sustained attack?

By whom, why and when?

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Greg F.
Date: 30 Mar 14 - 12:22 PM

~M~, this thread hasn't been about "breast-feeding in public" (which I also have no problem with if done discreetly, like anything else of an essentially private nature done in public) for quite some time.

The breast-milk Nazis are in process of taking it over.....

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Mar 14 - 11:57 AM

Can perfectly well be both, Greg. They are in no way mutually exclusive categories.

~M~

This without prejudice to my views on the topic, which are entirely in approval of ladies who wish to breastfeed in public, an activity which doesn't bother me in the slightest.

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Greg F.
Date: 30 Mar 14 - 10:34 AM

...it's wicked...to try and replace breastfeeding with formula...,

So its a religious rather than an economic issue, then?

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Greg F.
Date: 30 Mar 14 - 10:20 AM

Your remark is irrelevant, Greg F. Did you have something to contribute?

Your objection is nugatory, Sage. Its not my fault if you cannot see the obvious relevance.

Do you have something to contribute?

By the way, you seem to be following me around and making snide comments......

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: akenaton
Date: 30 Mar 14 - 05:15 AM

As SRS said earlier, it is a complicated issue, some mother are unable to BF, others are unwilling to do so for cosmetic reasons. There is no doubt that BF is emotionally beneficial for mother and baby, but if mothers are unwilling or unable I'm afraid milk powder is the only resort.

The point I was trying to make about the emotional benefits and family bonding, was largely ignored, but in a society where family life is under sustained attack, it is important to keep these bonds between mother and child intact and that means more than just filling baby's belly.
Time should e made to give meaning and value to the NURTURING of children, an old fashioned word, but a procedure which is rapidly and sadly being lost in modern society.

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Mar 14 - 10:26 PM

Companies have all sorts of ways of operating. I won't paint them all with the same brush, and the introduction of Nestle and Gerber wasn't introducing every corporation in the world. We were talking about nursing babies and I segued into feeding small children.

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Mar 14 - 09:28 PM

Unfortunately, Greg's contribution is entirely relevant.

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Mar 14 - 08:38 PM

Your remark is irrelevant, Greg F. Did you have something to contribute?

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Greg F.
Date: 29 Mar 14 - 06:43 PM

All these companies are interested in is enormous profits,

All ALL companies - particularly the mulltinationals - are interested in are enormous profits. That's unregulated capitalism, pure & simple, as was demonstrated 100 years ago in the Gilded Age & has been largely forgotten since.

This is news?

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 29 Mar 14 - 06:04 PM

'a multi-million dollar racket' - quite agree, SRS. All these companies are interested in is enormous profits, not the welfare of babies. Regarding developing countries, it's wicked and disastrous to try and replace breastfeeding with formula. I've seen African mums chewing food for their weaned toddlers, and transferring it from their mouth to the child's. Breast is always best, but I feel I must add that if a mum cannot for some reason breastfeed, she mustn't be made to feel guilty. Finally I think it's criminal for formula companies to court new mums with publicity, offers and attention at a time when they're vulnerable and adjusting to baby routine, body changes, tiredness and stress.

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Mar 14 - 11:32 PM

Directly linked with nursing is the whole issue of when and what to feed small children. Just as Nestle was a problem with their formula policies (providing formula to third world women who had no clean water to mix it and who would thin it so it would last longer, and their own milk supply would dry up in the meantime) the babyfood companies like Gerber want to sell mothers on the idea that their pablum (a generic usage in this case, for sloppy awful ground up food) is what a baby needs. I had someone call with a survey (the hospitals give out all of the information of new mothers to the baby product companies - you are overwhelmed with calls and coupons and samples) about babyfood. There was a popular ad showing a baby climbing up to a place at the table where there was a steak, potato, and vegetables on a plate, with the question along the lines of "you wouldn't feed this to your baby. . . " My response to the naive caller was that of course I would feed normal table food to my baby. I had a food grinder and I mixed breast milk with the new food so there was a sameness to it and after a while it didn't need mil added. We gradually introduced new normal REAL food to the kids in this way. The only babyfood they ever ate was the boxed oatmeal, and that was only until I started grinding up the Quaker oats instead.

Supplements, formula and babyfood are such a racket. A multi-million dollar racket. As the saying goes, the breast is best. And then, for smart parents, comes real food, without the segue to the mashed sweetened pasteurized junk that comes in expensive little jars. Anthropologists speculate that the gesture of the kiss began with mothers chewing food and then giving small amounts of it to their baby's mouth. I know, for modern cultures it seems gross, but it makes perfect sense if you think about it for very long.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Mar 14 - 08:19 PM

It would appear the thread has been lost; however, I shall make an attempt to get things back on track.

Gentlemen, the only way we're going to have a running thread about tits (and a few side issues) is to talk about them. Please put your phones away and get with the program.

John Farquharson the Fifth, Esq.

PS Even Playtex couldn't support breastfeeding more than me.

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: JennieG
Date: 28 Mar 14 - 04:54 PM

Seems so, doesn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Mar 14 - 04:43 PM

We're finished discussing breast feeding then?

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Musket
Date: 28 Mar 14 - 03:19 PM

Heterophones untie!

(Always happen when you have two phones on your bloody desk.)

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Mar 14 - 02:54 PM

It's a phone that falls in love with another phone of similar ilk. I strongly believe that only phones of different ilk should fall in love, corded with cordless, cordless with mobile, etc. I once spotted a mobile on top of another mobile and they were were - ugh - exchanging intimate data! I immediately insisted that they carried out contact tracing - by bluetooth, of course.

Heterophones unite!

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Mar 14 - 02:45 PM

selecting a word which has a homophone

Uh-oh. Now you're for it Steve. Who are you calling a homophone?

:D tG

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Mar 14 - 02:45 PM

Keep digging, Steve. You'll find something of substance to discuss one of these day.

You started it by ignorantly correcting something that was already correct, a trait of Sailor Jack's that I cured a while ago. As for what I discuss, you'll find plenty of substance in plenty of my posts. Whether it's plenty of substance that you agree with is beside the point. Take an indigestion pill.

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Musket
Date: 28 Mar 14 - 01:29 PM

Top of the Class Bridge.

Keep this up and we shall have them using knives and forks correctly by the end of the term.

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 28 Mar 14 - 01:21 PM

In English it would be "aggrandising". The colonies, I gather, have become degenerate in this and other respects.

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Mar 14 - 12:36 PM

Keep digging, Steve. You'll find something of substance to discuss one of these day.

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Mar 14 - 12:16 PM

that would be aggrandizing, Mr. Shaw.

Not preferred that way this end, I fear. Stop taking lessons from Sailor Boy. It's bad enough that Joe's been at it.

As for discreet, etc., the beef is that there is a degree of ignorance involved in selecting a word which has a homophone that one did not realise existed. My advise is to always look stuff up in order to avoid the risk of attracting uncomplementary remarks. Its simple good practise. Yeah.

:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Mar 14 - 12:06 PM

Cynthia Ann Parker and her daughter Prairie Flower. After she was "rescued" from the Comanche tribe she lived with for decades. It was different back then. This is the most famous image of her.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Mar 14 - 12:06 PM

Actually, must agree that Steve overstated the matter there. "Discreet" a perfectly normal everyday word, Steve. What supposed to be "aggrandising" about it? What less grandiloquent synonym would you have preferred?

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Mar 14 - 11:32 AM

It was supposed to be discreet. The tyranny of spell-check - doesn't get the syntax, just the spelling.

There are none more vacuously pompous than those who select deliberately aggrandising words . . . that would be aggrandizing, Mr. Shaw.

;-D

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 28 Mar 14 - 05:44 AM

Overheard in Barnsley.

This disc reet ? It's got all o' Kate Rusby' songs on it, tha' knors.

I reckon one of our contributors turned up in drag on BBC Question Time last night. Amazing what you can convince yourself that respectable people think.

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Mar 14 - 04:09 AM

Well, you learn something new every day! Maybe it should be discrete and discreet?

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 28 Mar 14 - 04:06 AM

There's irony for you ....

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: akenaton
Date: 28 Mar 14 - 04:01 AM

I like your style, meself; your quotation was very apt and reflected my views perfectly.

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Mar 14 - 02:11 AM

Prefoundly greatful four you're felicitay-shuns!

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: meself
Date: 27 Mar 14 - 11:32 PM

"complement" ... indeed ....

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Mar 14 - 08:37 PM

Fer chrissake, Michael, you just beat me to it. There are none more vacuously pompous than those who select deliberately aggrandising words such as "discreet/discrete" who then choose the wrong one. I complement you on your erudite post. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 Mar 14 - 06:59 PM

Actually ['legendary pedant' hat, sorry], a discreet way.

'Discrete' means 'separate', not 'tactful'.

But I wholeheartedly endorse the sentiment...

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Mar 14 - 06:39 PM

People will still whinge about it no matter how discrete, Greg. There are some who just take offence at anything and enjoy complaining. Sad, but a fact of life.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Greg F.
Date: 27 Mar 14 - 06:25 PM

It can be done in public places in a discrete way.

AMEN! That's it in a nutshell.

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: JennieG
Date: 27 Mar 14 - 05:18 PM

Last week Himself and I were having our morning coffee in a favourite local café, sitting in one of the two front window tables.......a great spot for people watching, one sees some amazing sights in this town you know......when a small group of young folk passed by, smiling and laughing at each other, and firmly fastened to the breast of one young woman was her (at least I suppose it was her own) baby, suckling away.

Wonder if the kid was enjoying his/her milkshake on the run, or if he/she would would have preferred mum to sit down and shake it up less?

Subject: RE: BS: Breastfeeding In Public
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Mar 14 - 04:53 PM

I can't speak for the vast majority, no one can, but as a mom who nursed two, I wasn't about to be isolated from the world for all of the time I spent nursing. It can be done in public places in a discrete way.

I agree, great comeback, Musket!

SRS