I wonder why it makes me so uncomfortable, and I know I'm not the only one who feels like this, given that men and non mothers probably feel even more ill at ease when a woman does something we've been trained for decades not to do: pulls out her tits in public.
It sounds so silly, but yes, western culture is breast obsessed and generally puts breasts in the sexy category. There are no babies in that category. So when breast and baby collide, we feel uncomfortable. The cultural text is subverted, as a university lecturer would say.
I am being so ridiculous, especially since I breastfed my infant in public all the time. But then, my sisters would leap up in irritation and walk away whenever I breastfed, so I realised I was supposed to be feeding in a dark corner somewhere, not at the dining table. How inconvenient for me, especially when I'm in the middle of lunch.
It is a rare and special event to be in proximity to a breastfeeding mother, so I think one of the reasons I want to move away is that I actually want to stare and stare, and I know that's not allowed. I want to stare at the spectacle and strangeness of milk coming out of a breast, of a baby sucking on something that in my experience only lovers suck on, and of the happy picture of baby and breast colliding.
Because I am not permitted to really stare at this spectacle, I then move away because I am in close proximity to a taboo.
It is really ridiculous, knowing that the woman feels like a pariah, and also remembering what it was like to have everyone suddenly get up and leave when I breastfed. Lonely, yeah, especially when you have a newborn who feeds literally more than 50 per cent of the time. Am I supposed to sit alone in a quiet dark corner for 15 hours a day, every day, seven weeks? Would you like PND with that?
We need to change this funny culture and I don't know how to do it. Maybe we should cheer on women or even pay them every time they whip their tits out, because it is actually hard - socially, physically, biologically. It is so much easier to grab that bottle and continue chatting away with friends, fully clothed, and with no wet, sticky, floppy breasts and huge engorged nipples in the face of your friends and other people who are used to seeing you clothed. And would probably prefer it stayed that way.
We're not all open minded hippies, and there has to be some middle ground between the right of an infant to breast milk and the reality of mothers breastfeeding at work, at the shops and on the bus. I would suggest this matter falls directly at the heart of another larger issue, and that is the care of babies and mothers in public. I challenge any council member to step out with a baby and try changing them discreetly and comfortably in public. Nappy change facilities are few and far between and feeding rooms only really at shopping centres.
So I would say that to address this problem of mothers and babies continued marginalisation in public, councils need to create parenting spaces everywhere, several in every suburb, close to playgrounds and community centres, providing a quiet place to sit down, feed and change baby and find out about support services. Mothers and parents could meet up there, as the space would be like a cafe but without the coffee. Which you generally can;t drink while breastfeeding anyway. A lot of breastfeeding mothers will probably choose to breastfeed in these facilities if they are pleasant and not toilet like. It would be a small start to a more comfortable way of life for everyone.
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