Nursing in Public: the Non-Sexual Breast

There are an amazing number of personal opinions when it comes to nursing a child in public. Over the past few years I have read negative comment after comment about how nursing in public is wrong and gross, how women should cover themselves up or go into a public restroom or back out to their car to nurse. One comment I've recently heard was that women who nurse in public should be arrested for indecent exposure. Why is it that our society has such an aversion to a woman nursing her child in public?

From an early age our society teaches us that the woman's breast (and body, for that matter), is sexual. From music videos to photographs, womens breasts are put on display for viewing pleasure, and to many people, this is okay. Yet, when a woman is doing with her breast what nature intended her to do, there are people who deem this to be disgusting. Why is this so? If we weren't suppose to nurse our children, why then, do our breasts produce colostrum the moment we give birth, and whey then, do our breasts flow with milk a few days after our baby has come?

When I nurse my son in public, there is nothing sexual about it. I am not exposing my breast with the pure intention that others will see it. Personally, I am quite discreet, and yet, I have been given looks of disgust. Looks of disgust when these people can't even see my breast, and yet, understand that my son is feeding. Because I am feeding him at the breast, this is gross? I am giving my son the absolute best food I could ever give him at a young age, and I absolutely do not feel that I need to remove myself from any situation in order to feed him. If there is a baby in the middle of the mall being bottle fed, nobody would blink an eye, but if a mother is nourishing her child with the breast, many people tend to look the other way. The breast is not sexual here! It does the job of a bottle, only better!

It angers me that others would expect a nursing mother to feed her child in a public restroom or go into her car. I did this the first couple months of my son's life because of societal expectations. My infant son would cry because he was hungry and instead of allowing him to feed, I would walk into the nearest restroom, lock myself in a stall, and sit on the open toilet seat. How utterly ridiculous is this when it wouldn't even cross the mind of a mother giving her child a bottle? I find it to be very saddening that I even felt the need to do this.

At an early age, I wish our children would see a nursing mother, and be told what it is that she was doing. I wish this child would learn that this mother was providing her child with amazing nutrition. I wish this child would then grow to teach their children that there is nothing wrong with nursing, and absolutely nothing wrong with nursing in public. Maybe then new mothers wouldn't have to feel that they were being shunned into the nearest public bathroom.