It’s
no surprise to encounter misinformation about the push to remove
formula
marketing from hospitals. “Ban the Bags” campaigns to stop
manufacturers from distributing hospital gift bags have been painted as
anti-choice, anti-consumer, and even “dictatorial.” So it was hardly
shocking to hear a popular morning talk show claim that
some hospitals have decided to remove all access to formula for mothers
and babies in maternity wards. What was surprising was the choice to
follow the ensuing discussion about how society needs to let mothers
feed their babies however they choose with a discussion
about why mothers should not openly breastfeed in public.
Reaction
to a radical public breastfeeding movement? No, in fact, the
discussion
was based on one occasion in which one host witnessed a mother publicly
breastfeeding without a nursing cover. The subtle implication was that
the blame for such supposedly judgmental, anti-choice policies falls to
the breastfeeding community, and that the
breastfeeding community is represented by publicly breastfeeding
mothers.
Since
when is public breastfeeding a political statement? Why are mothers
who
find themselves out in public with a hungry baby necessarily aligning
themselves with any particular policy or philosophy? Aversion to seeing
nursing bosoms is not universal, as much of the rest of the world will
attest- including societies far more conservative
than ours. And certainly, open public breastfeeding has been used as a
political statement, usually in protests designed to secure that same
right. But the fact remains that open public breastfeeding is seen as
the alternative, statement-making, attention-grabbing
way to feed a baby in the US only because it’s not the mainstream way to
feed a baby.
Breastfeeding is a basic care
and caring act,
in the same category with holding a child’s
hand, kissing a baby, wiping a nose, and cutting a grape. All acts that
are repeated over and over again throughout the day. Acts that, by
their very ubiquity and banality, say everything and yet make no
particular statement at all. Like most acts of parenting,
breastfeeding has both an inherent messiness and a transcendent beauty.
To separate breastfeeding from other acts of mothering, and require it
to happen in secret or behind closed doors, is to make it into something
unusual, some part of parenting with which
we still can’t quite reconcile ourselves as a society. Likewise, to
make it into a statement- an act loaded with unintended meaning, is to
disempower breastfeeding mothers and rob them of their own voices. We
cannot fully enable breastfeeding without enabling
public breastfeeding- not just for logistical reasons (how many older
babies like their heads covered?), but as confirmation that we are ready
to accept it as a normal part of the human condition.
A
truly breastfeeding-friendly society would not devote its national
airwaves
to a discussion of one instance of public breastfeeding. Members of a
truly breastfeeding-friendly society would hardly notice any one
particular instance of public breastfeeding, because it would be
ubiquitous. Though enabling breastfeeding would mean everything,
breastfeeding itself would cease to mean one thing in particular. Like
other everyday acts, it would continue to mean everything, but say
nothing at all.
