<p><a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061121/ap_on_re_us/breast_feeding_protests[/url]”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061121/ap_on_re_us/breast_feeding_protests</a></p>
<p>I was extremely discreet with baby #1. I hid in the car and in ladies’ rooms, and when we visited the grandparents, I nursed the baby in the bedroom.</p>
<p>Then baby #2 came along when #1 was three years old. And I realized that it wouldn’t be possible to be discreet without unreasonably restricting the older child’s life. Three-year-olds don’t take kindly to sitting quietly for 20 minutes in the car when they expected to be doing something interesting. And ladies’ rooms were out of the question. (A public bathroom is a dandy play area for a three-year-old. Ooh, look. Running water! Paper towels! Trash cans! Machines that you bang and air comes out! Doors that end a foot off the ground and you can crawl under them and scare people! What fun!) </p>
<p>I nursed #2 on benches in shopping malls, at the beach, at playgrounds, in the nursery school corridor, in the dentist’s office, in my in-laws’ living room, and on one memorable occasion, on a total stranger’s front lawn during the Memorial Day parade. What was I supposed to do, tell the older child that we would have to leave in the middle of the parade because his little sister was hungry? And no, I didn’t use a blanket. What baby over the age of a month or two is willing to have its head buried under a blanket?</p>
<p>Breastfeeding is normal. Breasts are normal. Let’s all get over it.</p>
<p>
This is what bugs me. The flight attendant was thinking of the other passengers. The mom wasn’t. Not everyone is comfortable with breasts exposed. A discreet cloth or blanket should be used if you are around strangers whose comfort level you aren’t aware of. I am not at all bothered by breastfeeding in public & I’ve been around women who make no effort to cover up. But it is uncomfortable & awkward for many.</p>
<p>Breasts & breastfeeding are normal, yes. So is a John Thomas. So is urination. So is flossing your teeth. So is clipping your toenails. Not everyone wants to have these natural, normal moments or body parts shared with the world. Don’t go hide in a filthy bathroom. Just exercise discretion & everyone is happy.</p>
<p>A lot of babies won’t tolerate being covered up like that. I’ve read in other accounts that the woman was in the back row, next to the window, with her husband sitting on the aisle. It’s unclear who could see her, outside of family and the stewardess. They had been stuck on the plane for three hours. At that point, I would have wanted to feed my kid more than I would have wanted to spare a flight attendant’s virgin eyes.</p>
<p>Nowadays no one is wandering the aisles on planes for exercise. It’s not allowed. I can’t imagine who was offended by the breastfeeding other than the flight attendant. Breast feeding is a normal function. If you are offended by it then look away. What’s next? A Burkha?</p>
<p>LOL. Recently, I was on a 12 hour flight, sitting across from a woman with a 10 month old baby. The baby fussed and cried for 9 of the 12 hours and the mom must have stuck her raw nipple in the baby’s mouth about 152 times. By the 5th hour, the mom lost all modesty and the blanket was tossed aside.</p>
<p>By crikey, I did find myself wishing the earth mother had taught her child to self-sooth with a thumb or (God forbid!) a pacifier. Or, failing that, I was wickedly thinking that perhaps sleeping pills were not the best natural medicine to pop as the plane took off.</p>
<p>My uncle is an anesthesiologist and has been one for several decades. He told my mom and dad to give me (when I was a baby) some Tylenol before long plane flights. I’m no worse for wear and my parents received many smiles from weary and surprised travelers</p>
<p>hey, its a booby that mom is using to feed a baby, we need to get over ourselves</p>
<p>No,you’re wrong. There is somebody out there somewhere that has never seen a naked breast and that person must be shielded, no matter the cost.</p>
<p>When does the FCC get involved?</p>
<p>Dadguy, you’re being sarcastic, right? Sorry, these boards get way too serious sometimes</p>
<p>Having breastfed six kids for many years, I have fed my children in all kinds of public places. There is nothing wrong with public breastfeeding, and no one should be offended by or critical of this nurturing and necessary act.</p>
<p>That said, I always made every effort to be discreet in public. Believe it or not, I never mastered the blanket dealio! It just never worked for me. But there are ways to discreetly breastfeed without exposing your entire breast–in fact without exposing much at ALL, and I tried to do that out of respect for those who were not as comfortable about this as I was. It got to the point that my <em>DH</em> didn’t even realize when I was feeding the baby in a restaurant or other public place! </p>
<p>There was an entire generation (my mother’s) which was told that formula was as nutritious as breast milk (and much more “convenient”), and many of those chose to bottlefeed as a result. People of that generation may not be as accustomed to breast exposure as those raised in a different generation.</p>
<p>To me, breastfeeding is a beautiful, natural, and NECESSARY act. IMHO, it is done a grave disservice by the “lactivists” who try to make it a political statement by working to offend as many people as possible in order to prove a point. This will only polarize and lead to diminishing returns in the “public breastfeeding war.”</p>
<p>I don’t know all the details of what happened on the airplane, but regardless, I cannot see anyone’s being removed from a flight for refusing a blanket. That seems extreme. I’d have probably taken the blanket and then let it slip silently to the floor as soon as the fight attendant turned her back. ;)</p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>the FCC guy with the Janet J boob may run for president</p>
<p>if the flight attendant was offended by a mother feeding her child- I wonder how she deals with drunks- sexual harrasing passengers, passengers who feel entitled to …move their seat/to get up when the seat belt light is on/who are disruptive to others by their behavior- any host of things you deal with when you are dealing with the public on a regular basis.
I wonder why people chose jobs that “disrupt” their sensibilities?</p>
<p>Actually, I’m wondering if there may be more to this story than we are being told. Perhaps a discussion that elevated to a nasty verbal exchange preceded this woman’s family being put off of the flight?? I can’t imagine this being done because of public breastfeeding only…</p>
<p>b4nnd20,</p>
<p>Bless you, I was being sarcastic. That whole Janet Jackson thing made me realize how very real the prozac shortage in this country is. We darn near had a national meltdown over it.</p>
<p>berurah, there have been cases lately of people being put off planes or denied air travel for the most ridiculous things, so I don’t think it’s necessary to assume any facts not in evidence. A Hasidic Jew was put off a plane for praying recently. </p>
<p>Even the airline isn’t saying that the couple was argumentative, just that the woman refused a blanket when it was offered to her. I can’t think of any reason that the airline would cover it up if there was a verbal confrontation. Airlines usually include in their side of the story given to the press, if they think it happened. This is part of the reason that the couple that were kicked off because the man had his head in his girlfriend’s lap are facing up to 20 years in jail over it; the flight crew says they were argumentative.</p>
<p>Flight crews in general seem to be increasingly difficult to deal with - it’s almost as if they’re using the excuse of security as a reason to do as little work as possible, and, heaven help anyone who tries to disagree with them in any way. </p>
<p>Just last month I returned to Miami from San Diego via Newark, and I intentionally booked the window seat immediately behind first class for the San Diego to Newark leg, an overnight flight that I chose specifically so that I could sleep the entire flight, connect to Newark, and land in Miami in the morning, and work all the following day. </p>
<p>Unfortunately for me, coming out of San Diego, an 82 year old woman was in the aisle seat (and no one in the middle seat), and, she was flying to her sister’s funeral in Newark. This poor woman had so many needs. She needed help getting to the bathroom several times, and the flight attendants REFUSED to allow her to use the first class bathrooms, and she couldn’t walk to the rear of the plane un assisted, and, and she announced several times, she was incontinent. Long story short, I spent the entire flight cross country helping the woman to the bathroom all the way in the back of the plane, helping her to get her headphones to work so she could watch the movie, getting her something to eat, etc. It was horrible, every 30 minutes or so the woman had some new need or question. The flight attendents did NOTHING to help and allowed no departure from any rule. I went along, kept telling myself I might be 82 years old on a flight some day. Then, on the Newark to Miami leg, a group of young men sitting behind me - I guess they’d never been to Miami before and were very happy and excited - drank alcohol and laughed and basically partied the entire flight. By the time the plane landed in Miami I was physically ill from lack of sleep. </p>
<p>Then, just last week, coming out of Washington, the flight attendent took my laptop away from me for takeoff (bulk head seat). I told her I needed it back asap right after takeoff because I had to do some work, and, she promised to give it back to me. Several minutes airborne, she didn’t come back, and, I was in a window seat, with two gentlemen in the middle and aisle seats, sound asleep. It wasn’t possible to climb over the two gentlemen, and I didn’t want to wake them up, so, I used the call button for the flight attendent. She appeared and did give me back my laptop, but she gave me a really hard time about it. Why didn’t I get up and get it myself? I knew where it was, she said. “Ma’am, didn’t you see me put this away” - and so on. I tried to explain to her that I didn’t want to climb over the legs of the two gentlemen (twice), but, she was absolutely obnoxious about it. </p>
<p>Of course, one doesn’t dare argue with them - goodness knows it would really sort of mess things up to have the police waiting at the gate when the plane lands…</p>
<p>As far as breastfeeding on a plane, I honestly cannot see what is the big deal. So many people do so many personal things on planes, one more personal task isn’t even worthy of notice. I don’t care what my fellow passengers do as long as I can be left alone to sleep or work, whichever I need to do. If someone is doing something I’d rather not see, it’s a very easy matter to just simply not look at them.</p>
<p>When the lactivists storm the airports today, it seems that the airlines may rethink this particular action…</p>
<p>(and you ain’t seen nothing till you see the activism of a lactivist!)</p>
<p>I defy anyone to keep a child that age covered up while nursing. It would be a total distraction. I consider myself a lactivist and was an LLL leader and an extended nurser. I have read elsewhere that the mother was sitting next to the window with the husband next to her. If that actually was the case, then no one would have been able to see anything without making a real effort.</p>
<p>Oh, and I nursed all of mine in slings from tiny-babyhood, so no one ever even knew we were nursing, which was just my way and not right for everyone.</p>