Found the following:
"Making milk public controversy
By: Charles Winokoor, business writer
04/27/2007
So there I was grocery shopping the other day when, just as I reached for a
quart of skim milk, I noticed the strangest thing. Women - mothers, to be
exact - began dropping to the floor and breast-feeding their babies.
Hurrying out of the dairy section, I found myself surrounded by pet
supplies, but again was confronted with a surrealistic sight: Unsupervised
canines and tabbies relieving themselves willy nilly, and then sauntering
off to leave the mess for the night crew to clean up. Get out now, I told
myself, as the sweat trickled down my brow. And wouldn't you know it, just
as I scurried past the Health & Beauty aisle I spied a group of men, shirts
off, nonchalantly spraying and rolling their underarms with the deodorizer
of their choice. Decorum precludes me from detailing what I witnessed in the
place where they sell the Charmin. Knocking over a shopping cart with a
child's seat, I ran into the parking lot and headed for my car to make a
getaway. As I fumbled for my key, I realized it was too late; I was
surrounded.
Waking up in bed, I took stock of my nightmare. What in the world had
inspired my subconscious to unleash such nocturnal torment? Then it came to
me. It was nothing more mysterious than this week's story about a Hingham
mom who managed to cause a stir by breast-feeding her infant in the middle
of a store.
Last Friday, Brockton cardiologist Dr. Melissa Tracy, while shopping in the
South Hingham iParty store, dropped to the floor and began breast-feeding
her ostensibly starving 2-month-old child. "Rather than let him become
hysterical, I sat down on the floor and breast-fed him," Tracy told the
Boston Herald. What happened next, she said, caused her to feel humiliated.
The store manager, a regular Darth Vader it seems, had the gall to admonish
her. "He stood over me and said 'You can't do that here,' " she was quoted.
"I've never felt that badly before." Feeling emotionally scarred, Tracy did
the honorable and proper thing: She ratted out the iParty blue meanie to his
corporate superiors - who issued a knee-jerk, please-don't-hit-me mea culpa,
faster than CBS Radio and MSNBC gave Don Imus the bum's rush.
What she's failed to mention, either in print or on TV, is why she was so
compelled to plop to the floor instead of walking to the ladies room. Would
she have jeopardized her child's welfare, his very life, if she had simply
made the effort? Or was she more interested in making a point about who she
is and what she thinks she represents? During a TV interview, her husband
said in his native Germany breast-feeding in public is an accepted practice
and one that is "not vulgar."
Not vulgar for sure - but how about annoying? Not the act of breast-feeding,
mind you, but the behavior of well-educated parents who want to impose their
version of an enlightened society upon the rest of us, without regard to our
sensibilities. That sort of selfish, guerilla mentality is not just
inconsiderate to those of us backward Americans who are not used to seeing
babies suckling while we're shopping for party supplies or dog food, it's
also unfair to the companies whose employees are only trying to do the right
thing. Now, if any business - be it retail chain, a local independent store
or a car dealership - announces a policy explicitly allowing open
breast-feeding then that's their prerogative. But one also has to ponder how
this type of adult-baby behavior will eventually affect the child. No wonder
there's a legion of kids nowadays who have grown up thinking they're
extra-special, entitled and oh-so-superior; after all, it's been imbedded
into their id since they were fed mother's milk.
This whole silly episode reminds me, in a way, of the case of the "flying
imams," six religious Muslims who were removed from a flight last November
after they insisted on standing up in the plane for evening prayers. They
knew exactly what they were doing. They wanted publicity and they got it, in
spades. That's not to say the good doctor from Brockton intended, ahead of
time, to use her breast-feeding as a publicity stunt to teach the rest of us
a good lesson. From what I've read and heard, she comes across as a decent,
sincere individual.
What I do suggest to her and other mothers who act rashly, and then condemn
anyone who complains, is to grow up before your child does. And next time
you go shopping with your infant in your arms, try bringing along a baby
bottle.
Charles Winokoor is the business writer for the Taunton Daily Gazette.
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