Hi Lactnetters:
        Wanted to let you in on our conversation re: pubLic
breastfeeding.  (my face is STILL red over that typo!)

> On Wed, 20 Aug 1997, Anne Robb wrote:
>
> Margie,
        I LOVED the way you put this!!! I will ask your permission
to use this way of looking at bfing as a normal socially acceptable
bodily function!!!

         Anne E. Robb, MAT, LLLL
        Off on a Tangent, Oregon, USA
        mailto:[log in to unmask]
>
> Anne:   Please use whatever you need.  I was quoting someone else at the
> beginning, just added something else I had heard.
>       I also thought about the marginally socially acceptable bodily
> functions...like coughing, sneezing, crying babies, vomiting,
> blowing one's nose...these are acceptable in an emergency, but if
> continued, should be taken elsewhere.
>       Does BF belong in this category?
>       What do you think?
>
> Margie in WPB
>
> Ohh good question! You should pose this to the list if you haven't already!!
> I think there is probably a continuum like blowing one's nose if done
> disceetly or coughing if it isn't disturbing a movie, are acceptable for
> longer than say a crying baby and vomiting well um, that's just awful for
> everyone involved! Perhaps the "digestive" processes are less acceptable? hmmm.
>
> But breastfeeding as long as it's discreet (and while I'd love to see a
> society that doesn't even need these qualifications, bare skin does draw
> attention and is seen as sexual regardless of it's true purpose) -- no bare
> shoulders, blouses totally undone from the top down kind of thing, I mean
> most people won't realize a baby is eating until they notice the baby is
> wiggling around and not asleep... hmmm. And I think, like the recent
> editorialist who was upset at the idea of laws to allow "women disrobing" in
> MacDonald's to breastfeed, most people don't realize you CAN breastfeed
> without disrobing -- in many cases without even exposing anything at all...
>
> I can see where people would think that one human sucking fluid out of
> another human in public is disgusting -- but most people find that even baby
> poop (especially bfed baby poop) is WAY more tolerable in public than adult
> or even child... so one would think that by virtue of the fact a baby is
> involved makes it more okay -- a baby spitting up is no big deal, an adult,
> EEEKKKK, but then again since the mother is also involved... who are they
> grossed out by? the baby or the mother? the mother!
>
> This gives my psychology BA a shake out of it's mothballs... interesting
> human behavior!
>
> "things that make me say, hmmmm"
> Anne E. Robb, MAT, LLLL
> Off on a Tangent, Oregon, USA
> mailto:[log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>