/language police mode switch 'on'/

Can I ask everyone Watch Their Language when discussing camouflage items 
for breastfeeding babies?

I am perfectly supportive that some Mums feel the need for protection, 
from censure, or from feeling emotionally exposed and/or vulnerable 
whilst their baby feeds.  This is a personal thing, and many of us have 
gone through our own journey of feelings nervous-couldn't care less 
now-back to nervous as baby ages-back to don't care and I'm feeding my 
four year old in front of the Seat of Government..!

However, acknowledging that women feel vulnerable, threatened or 
emotionally exposed, is not the same as discussing 'cover up', 'modesty' 
or 'discreet'.  All of these phrases (and a few others) make an 
implication.  If you say a mother is 'covering up' then the opposite is 
'uncovered'.  Which implies it should be covered.  If you say 'modest' 
you imply mothers not doing as this mother is doing, are being 
immodest.  If you use 'discreet', you imply mothers not using that 
technique etc, are being indiscreet.

These are all very big sticks with which to beat ourselves, all the more 
pernicious, as they rise automatically to the tongue!

There are a few women who operate from religious or moral views on 
'modesty'.  There is no consensus on what this means.  Both the 
religious, and moral, stricture on what makes a modest, or immodest 
woman, change according the religion, the morals, and cultural tides.  A 
modest woman in one country, is an immodest one in another.  Therefore 
whilst I'm happy for any woman to self-define her own sense of 
'modesty'...  I refute absolutely any one's right to determine my own 
dress codes as either modest, or immodest. 

The majority of nursing mothers, I'd argue, are seeking camouflage not 
from any internal sense of such modesty, but from a feeling of emotional 
insecurity.  They do not want negative attention, or to run the risk of 
censure.  They feel emotionally vulnerable, and seek to feed their 
hungry babies without drawing censure down upon themselves.  Therefore 
they require some camouflage, to make them feel more secure in the light 
of other's perceived, or actual, hostility.  This is wonderfully 
highlighted by the fact that it's often wobbly bellies that most mothers 
really don't want to be seen by others! 

And by the fact that most of us find nursing in front of family, more 
troublesome and emotionally fraught, than nursing in front of 
strangers.  (Especially elderly male relatives.)

Let's name the dragon here - fear of being censured.  Fear of attack.  
Fear of being _thought_ of as immodest or brazen and thus drawing down 
someone's ire upon your baby as it feeds!  Most women want to protect 
the baby from 'unpleasantness' - that's the main fear in those early 
days of learning to nurse outside the domestic sphere.  And name the 
principle - camouflage to help a mother feel secure from such censure.  
And hopefully, we can also empower women to know that they will gain the 
confidence not to be afraid of the censure.  Feel empowered enough in 
their bodies, and their baby, that one look will quell any such 
censure!  We've discussed time and again in here, that the vast majority 
of 'thrown out for nursing' incidents take place when the baby and the 
mother are totally camouflaged.  It's the _thought_ of a nursing baby, 
that most often offends, not the visual reality. (The Apology Dance 
always starts with... "I was tucked away at the back of the room, with 
my back to the room, and a blanket over my baby's head..." meaning:  
"Please don't think I was being brazen when the nasty man told us to 
move, I wasn't.  I did everything I could to hide.")

So please, can we avoid the 'loaded' terms, of modesty, discretion, 
covering up etc, and stick with something body-neutral.  (I do 
understand 'cover up' was so written for the original post, to highlight 
the usage as not preferred - but the subsequent posts have developed 
on.)  I offer 'camouflage' as it does imply the need to use a device to 
prevent attack or censure.  I'm sure the bunch of brains and talent on 
this list, can come up with a few more good words!

/language police mode switch 'off'/

Morgan Gallagher

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