I am new to lactnet and I have not figured it all out yet but I wanted to share this article.
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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 qu rt of skim milk, I noticed the strang
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.
A ragtag and agitated army of men, women and house pets closed in, taunting, hissing
and generally behaving badly:
"You're uptight, insensitive, misogynist!" they accused.
And, worst of all: "So uncool."
I collapsed, overcome with a feeling of misplaced guilt.
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.
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Charles Winokoor is the business writer for the Taunton Daily Gazette.
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