Eating in Public

I never encountered any issues with breastfeeding in public. Now given the choice, certainly I would rather be at home or sitting in the car, but sometimes you can’t. Nursing on park bench, restaurant chair, or airplane seat is much more desirable than a toilet.


Last night, friends with a new baby were over for dinner and Baby was hungry. She kept asking her husband to bring her the baby to feed at the table. Her husband, at first, said “no” that she should nurse in the living room and not in front of my boys who, like she, were still finishing their dinner. I told him to stop being ridiculous. He consented and brought her Baby, even she asked me if I was sure this was okay. Uh…yeah...it’s okay….everybody’s got to eat.

L was about 2 ½ when H was born. L used to copy me when I nursed H, he would get a pillow, and his lovey and even a burp clothe, pull up his shirt and “nurse” his bear. Of course I took a picture that he would hate me for later!

We often had company during this time, mostly young single soldiers. I would always tell them, that it only made me uncomfortable if they were uncomfortable. They got used to it, evidently, they kept coming over. Who knows…that may have been why we had so much company? If you eat at D’s house you may get to see Mary’s breasts!

But the best “boob” story (sorry Mom!) comes from when L was just a baby. My brother’s wife had a baby just three months before L was born so that Easter we were both nursing. We commandeered my little brother JT’s “bachelor pad”. It was a small bedroom on the first floor of my parents’ house that JT (only one living with mom and dad at the time) had turned into a living room. It was perfect for nursing in, it was warm and quieter (holiday’s at mom and dad’s are LOUD!) JT once joked when he sat in there with my sister-in-law and I, “this was not exactly what I had in mind when I thought of breasts in my bachelor pad!”

If while I was a nursing mother, there had been a “nurse in” in my area I would have gone in a heartbeat. Is it just American’s that are so persnickety about this? It’s nipples, people, everyone has them. Men, too, can breastfeed after all. Seriously…look it up…they have all the required “equipment”!

At any rate, my friend now knows that she is welcome to breastfeed her baby in my house at any time and any place…and if someone doesn’t like it…they can go wait in the bathroom for her to finish.