Defending breastfeeding

This week is World Breastfeeding Week. First, let me say that while I fully, completely support breastfeeding, I am not a lactivist. As long as your baby is healthy and nourished, I don't care if you feed formula or breast milk, or a combination of the two. I understand that not everyone can nurse their baby, or pump enough milk to meet the baby's needs. There is no reason at all to judge a mother for feeding her baby, either with breast or bottle. This, and any other post I write about breastfeeding, is not an anti-formula post.

There. Now, back to the good stuff.

I read and shared this post on Facebook yesterday. It is undoubtedly the best post about nursing in public that I've ever read. And surprisingly, it was written by a man. But he nails it. First, there is this opening:

Grow up, and stop being a child.  Stop being a stupid, churlish, simpering, nimrod, and accept the fact that women feed babies with their boobies.

And this:

Because, you do realize, that you are asking mothers NOT to feed their babies, don’t you? Which is ironic, because you are probably the same person who would also call for a woman’s summary execution if she let her child go hungry.

And definitely this:

Ohhhhh … It makes you uncomfortable.  It makes you … uncomfortable.  Because you are the one exposing a part of your body, that has been sexualized and vilified (insanely, at the same time), in a public area to provide sustenance for your offspring.  Because you are the one summoning the courage to get over the stigmas and social mores that scream at you not to do it, even though your baby is crying from hunger.

And all the paragraphs in between. Seriously, read his post. 

Coincidentally, today was a nurse-in at a local Chick-fil-a restaurant. Yesterday a mother nursing her baby was (illegally) asked to stop because another patron complained about the fact that her children could see.