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Upstate NY Babies
Unpopular Opinion :)
Ok so...this whole BFing in Target thing. And I guess the whole "lactivist" movement in general....annoys me. But just because these moms are dumb. They wonder why breastfeeding in public is made into a big deal...when they are the worst offenders. They are obviously wanting media attention for this, but don't they realize that this just sensationalizes NIP and makes it gawkworthy??? Just relax, nurse you baby wherever you feel like it and shut up about it. If you don't make it a big deal, no one else will either. I had people staring at me a few times and I didn't run home to blog about it. I smiled and went about my day with my family. Oh- and to the original target issue...really??? Just because you have the right to NIP means you can plop yourself and your crap wherever you please? Um, no lady.
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Re: Unpopular Opinion :)
And this I completely agree with.
Oh, ya, I think nurse-ins are dumb. If people need to go bombard a specific location with any issue, it would actually make more sense to space it out so that 1 person goes every day to make it look more like a normal event and have people deal with it that way.
My only nursing issue was when I needed to nurse dd when she was about 1 yr old at a combo tru/bru. Specifically since it was a combo with bru, I thought they should have a room or something to nurse. They didn't, so I asked if I could borrow a folding chair from their breakroom and use that in their bathroom. I pump at work on a folding chair in a bathroom, so to me it isn't that bad. But when the employee told me why don't I just sit on the toilet, I was pissed. I wrote to corporate, and got a canned sucky response that addressed nothing. I never heard from anyone beyond that. And I haven't been back since. If I can't find a toy on amazon, target, or walmart, I would buy from them online as a last resort. I even made dh cancel our bru/tru credit card and when they asked why he told them I was boycotting them haha.
I wait for the day to unleash on someone if they complain about me NIP.
I will agree and disagree with your UO. I agree that you should just NIP and go about your business and you will prob be left alone.
I am iffy about lady in target who plopped herself down to nurse near a display. 1. What if there was no other place to nurse in Target - no place to sit or something. I guess she is ok to sit there. If there was a starbucks or something there, well, she prob could have found a better place to sit. Also, if she sat right in the middle of an aisle, I find no problem with an employee asking her to move to safety/cart sake, but not to move simply because she is NIP
I disagree that people will always leave you alone. Some people are uncouth and rude.
I dont frown on the lactivist movement. I actually wish more people were vocal about breastfeeding in general. I have had a lot of nursing issues with O, and I wish there was more support, info, education, LCs etc out there. Also, I think NIP shouldnt be this crazy taboo thing, when teenagers show more skin than nursing moms do.
I nUrsed C in the middle of a few airports and on the airplane. With that being said people can be nasty. And give awful looks.
I do think if you are going to NIP do it and go on with your day. However people do bee to be respectful to a nursing mother. I think more time needs to be spent educating the public rather than a nurse in, but that's only my opinion.
I love that the same people who find breast feeding gross are the ones gawking at scantly clad women.
Ok, I read thru the link and some of the attached links. I don't really get why she sat on the floor in the clothing area near the fitting rooms. It's not like there is tons of room between clothing racks as it is, and I do find it weird to park yourself right there. I don't know why she wouldn't have gone and sat on a bench in the fitting room to begin with.
She is right that legally she can nurse there. But why would you want to? There are benches in the fitting rooms that she herself said she was near, and there are usually benches by the pharmacy and customer service area as well. Not to mention many targets have a food/coffee area too.
And I don't get the whole "he was completely covered by the blanket" and the statement that an employee told her something about getting a ticket for indecent exposure. Those 2 situations do not match up.
I did most of my "public" nursing out of the way or in my car. Only once I think I had to nurse truly in public, and it was at a Chilis, and I did use a crochet blanket to mostly cover. The only person that could probably tell was the waitress, bc otherwise she was low enough that you couldn't really tell. With ds, I will probably just have to nurse in public more often simply bc we will be out doing stuff with dd. I really dislike normal nursing covers, but that may be bc I really had to watch what I was doing with dd. Maybe ds will latch better. I will also probably do the 2 layer thing instead of just having on a tshirt and pulling it up if I know I will be nip.
Well this I don't think they should have this as an actual policy. I think if the woman wants to sit on a bench or chair somewhere that should be ok. But yes, I don't think they should sit in aisles on the floor, both for themselves and other shoppers who want to get by.
I agree for the most part. I think most nurse-ins are organized based on partial and incorrect information. Like the town that supposedly banned breastfeeding, but in reality it was part of a town bill that was intended to protect breastfeeding by excluding the town nudity law for women nursing children under 2. I can see some people objecting to the age limit, but the entire intension of the law was to protect nursing mothers. Instead of checking the facts, news sources or even the actually law they were so quick to protest, everyone just read the blogs written off the information from other blogs for of incorrect and misleading information. It all happened so fast no one even had a chance to prove the real intent of the law before angry nursing mothers descended on the town in protest. Same thing with the big AppleBee's nurse-in protest, it was ONE employee who chose to handle a situation poorly. He wasn't representing the entire company. Employees are people, who hasn't made a mistake at their job, the employee should have been punished, corrected and better educated. Taking it out on the entire chain of restaurants was over the top.
As for the Target thing, I hadn't heard about it before today and really don't know much about it. I googled but just found some info on a couple blogs, but they just make some claims against Target and don't really present any real facts like what the policy is, exactly what the employees said both at the store or on the customer service line. Just says she was harassed and humiliated. What I also don't understand about what I read, was why on Earth was she sitting on the floor in a store feeding her baby when she was right next to the fitting room where there are places to sit that isn't the floor? I wouldn't sit on the floor of a public place to eat so why would I feed a baby on the floor?? I know the baby wasn't of the floor but it still seems like an odd thing to do. I wouldn't look twice at someone walking around or sitting nursing a baby but I would definitely look twice at anyone sitting on the floor in a store and wonder why on Earth would they sit be sitting on the floor. I wonder if she was looking to be noticed, not that it was OK for the employees to question her BFing but to question why she was just sitting on the floor next to the jeans is to be expected.
While I am 100% for supporting BFing, nurse-ins just are not the answer. They don't educate people, they just further divide people. How many people out there hear about this and say, "Gee, I wish I had breastfed my baby and be like them" I bet a lot more people are out there hearing or seeing this thinking "Boy I am glad I bottle fed!"
Ehh, I agree with your other statement - I said the same thing about why was she even sitting on the floor anyway. But nursing being equated to having food and drink in the clothing area is a stretch. No one would say anything if the mom was pushing a cart around while their kid had a bottle, and those leak too.
Yeah, that is true. I was reaching for another arguement. I think I stretched it too far. I agree, if she was sitting in a seat near the pharmacy or food area I would have an issue with the employees asking her to move.
I think part of the point is that stuff like this constantly happens, and breastfeeding in public is protected under the law. Is it odd that she plopped herself on the floor to breastfeed? Sure. But it's legal, and she's allowed to do it, and Target cannot tell her she has to do it somewhere else. I'm sure stores don't educate their employees about these policies, and so you end up having overzealous employees harassing women about it. What attracts more attention- a woman sitting there breastfeeding her kid, or having multiple employees surround a woman breastfeeding asking her to go elsewhere?
I just read a story on ABC's website about it, and the comments were awful, all about how women should either use bottles or stay home and saying it's gross, etc. To us, this stuff seems silly. But many people find NIP in public disgusting and think it's just fine to harass women who do it. I've never been giving a hard time about it, although I do have friends who have. I don't think it's as uncommon as we think.
Actually, I doubt this is true. I have not read the law. But I am positive it doesn't say you have the right to nurse wherever you want...it probably says "within the laws or safety rules of the establishment you are in, etc." You probably don't have the right to park your car on a sidewalk to nurse, kwim? I definitley don't think ANYONE has the right to do anything anywhere they want...but the whole OMG i neeeeeeeedddd to feeeeeeeeedddd my bbbbbbbbbbaaaaabbbbbbyyyyyyyyy.....reason is so annoying. No one is saying you should starve your baby. Some idiot employee got mad because you wouldn't move to a better location and said rude things. Now lets go on the news and get millions of people rolling their eyes at us instead of just sitting on a darn bench somewhere. If she sat in the eatery not one single person would have said anything. Sure, she'd get looks...but if more people did that - WITHOUT the drama - people would stop looking.
It does depend on your circle of friends/family...and where you nurse, obv. Both of DH's cousins wives were nursing right at Christmas with 40+ people there and no one cared. But i know in some familes that doesn't happen. And that is sad to me.
I looked up the law (it took about 5 seconds, don't think I sit here googling this all day!)
Sec. 165.002. RIGHT TO BREAST-FEED. A mother is entitled to breast-feed her baby in any location in which the mother is authorized to be.
So that handles the situation you're talking about, you're not normally authorized to park your car on a sidewalk, so you can't do it to breastfeed. However, you are authorized to be in the clothing section of a Target, so you are allowed to breastfeed there.
Again, the only reason there's an issue is because employees don't know the law. Maybe the nurse-ins will help raise awareness, although everything could be avoided if store managers took 5 seconds to read that one line of the law.
Haha, well I have a FB friend that sits and looks this stuff up all day so i should ask her. (she is the one that sparked this...AND she just put something else up about how mothers have to stand together to make FB allow nursing photos...like, doesn't she care about anything else!? hehe)
And sure - if that woman had the baby in a sling walking around - then fine. Nurse and yell it to the world! BUT...things change when you sit on the floor and plop your stuff down blocking an aisle. I'm sure people are NOT authorized to sit in aisles...if I were Target - I'd outline this specifically since they now probably have to do a whole "sensitivity training" thing.
I mean..this wasn't my original point...but whatever
It is true that the law allows women to breast feed where ever they are permited to be. However, go to any retail store and just sit cross legged on the floor next to your cart for about 20 minutes. See how long before an employee comes over to check on you and ask if you would like a more comfortable place to sit. See what happens when you refuse to move off the floor. I mean, I agree the second employee was wrong in what she said, but it is a mole hill, not a mountain here.
FYI- The person in question also used the term sitting indian style which is no longer widely used because some ppl find THAT offensive.
I debated going to the nurse in, but to be honest, I haven't had any trouble BFing in the targets I go to - usually on the bench by the dressing rooms w/o a cover since DS is huge
.
That being said, I understand why they had it - sometimes baby wants food NOW - she just made the best out of her situation & was humiliated. I mean - really, I'd be scared if 8 employees surrounded me... Was that necessary? They were giving her dirty looks - you think that was because she was sitting Indian style in an aisle? I doubt it! (BTW - 8 employees? I usually only see 1 or 2 at a time in targe). Then she called and they were not nice.
As for the nurse in concept - I still don't know... I didn't go today - didn't need anything from there. It'll be interesting to hear the result of it though. See if target officially apologizes to that lady (I think that's what she wants)
I think that some moms take the whole NIP thing and their right to do so way too far. It is their right to NIP and they should be able to, but I think it needs to be done respectfully. I saw a woman walking around in Wal-Mart 'breastfeeding" her child. She was holding her kid w/ her boob popped out, but her kid wasn't latched. She wasn't covered or anything either. If you are one of these moms, don't complain that people are staring or that they ask you to cover up.
I've had to NIP, but I always covered up and found a spot where no one was (usually my car, but I had a few emergencies when I was in a store). If a fitting room is available, go there or somewhere else private and out of the way.
Did you guys see that huge thing with the leaky boob on facebook a few months ago? A bunch of moms were posting bf pictures just to make a point? I kinda felt like that was on the extreme side too.
I agree that a lot of this 'solidarity' stuff is extreme. On the flip side though, how else can we change the way people think towards breastfeeding? I think parts of this country still have major taboos against it (obviously not here in CNY).
But I don't think anyone's mind will be changed with a leaky boob hanging in their face (except a baby!)