Quote:
Originally Posted by PhoenixAlive
Okay, let's look at the legality of this issue. It is within a woman's legal right to feed her child. A store or restaurant owner can be sued if they force her to leave. This is because a person's right can only be disregarded if what they are doing infringes on another person's right to a higher degree. So how is a woman breastfeeding infringing on a restaurant patron's legal rights?
|
Really? I'm not saying that you're incorrect but I'd be interested to see the statutory basis or precedent for this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PhoenixAlive
Our friends were far too immature to be left with our daughter alone... But as I said before, babies eat every two hours. Its hard to feed your baby, get ready to go, drop of the baby at a friend or relative's house, go out for dinner, then come back and pick up the baby, then go home and feed the baby all in a two hour time-frame. It is just unreasonable for a woman to have to do that as opposed to feeding her baby where she is. It is much easier for you to avert your eyes or move to a different table if it bugs you than for the mother to change her whole schedule just because you are uncomfortable with seeing her feed her baby.
|
This seems like a rather selfish view, it expects other people to fit their lives around you. I've yet to see the schedule which involves going to a restaurant with your kid. If you need to breast feed then don't go, it's that simple. Most people here have no issue with it in most public places, but they realise that there is a common courtesy of not doing it in certain very formal places. If I were a woman, I wouldn't breast feed at dinner with the queen for example. Not to mention that "don't look" is easier said than done in a situation like that. It's an activity that draws the eye and often the sort of people who will decide to breast feed in that situation are the agressive "yeah look at me, so what?"
You have to make sacrifices when you have a kid and if that means not going to a restaurant for 6 months then so be it. You can't take your child clubbing and expect them to turn the music down for you, after all the baby needs sleep and the music might be waking it up, and shouldn't take a teething child to a cinema and you can't expect a restaurant to rearrange their clientele just for you because you're putting them off their food. There are just certain things you don't do if you have manners or etiquette and getting your breasts out in a top restaurant for whatever reason is one of them.
If you're not into using a bottle milk/formula, getting a babysitter, hiring a wetnurse, staying at home or going to a lower quality eating estalishment where that sort of thing would be allowed then tough.
I can only see a problem with breast feeding in rather exceptional circumstances but those circumstances do exist.