Public Breastfeeding, Why Not?
Nobody likes missing Prof. Kim’s lecture for any reason. The classroom was packed to the rafters, dead silence as Prof. Kim makes an exposé on “Ubiquitous Government.” Then a baby coughed, another cough, followed by intermittent bouts of cries, heads with malevolent eyes turned towards Tricia demanding without speaking that she take her baby out of the lecture hall.
She grabbed her baby who was by then seriously wailing, walked half way thro…ugh the hall, then stopped suddenly and made a U-turn to her seat. As about 30 something starring pair of eyes followed her to her seat, she stunned them by whipping out her breast in a swift and started breastfeeding her baby. Amusingly, her baby stopped crying and was scratching her head and raising her tiny legs as she feeds.
Meanwhile as the lecture continued, a lady brought Tricia a handkerchief to cover the exposed part of her boobs. She tried it and soon realized that the fabric was also covering her baby’s head too. She politely declined the offer.
The debate of whether mothers should breastfeed their young ones in public has been an ongoing one and I am seriously bemused by it. The primary function of the breast is to feed children. The fact that we have over-sexualized the female breast is just terrible. I say female specifically because male breasts are not privy to this same treatment in our society.
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Could it be that it is because the breasts are inherently erogenous? But so is the neck, ear lobes, inner thighs and even toes, breasts are not sex organs that we should weigh mothers down with unnecessary pressures.
I am not by any means promoting indecency, but since I don’t eat with a blanket covering my food or my head, neither should a baby be subjected to such simply because some folks feel that their perverted sensibilities are violated by the feeding of a hungry baby in a totally normal way.
Written by Young Ozogwu. Twitter: @youngies
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