Make up your minds!Follow

I don't care how nice a public restroom is. It's still a public place where people come to do their business. I don't like going into them to do my *own* business, and I sure as hell would have never fed my baby in one.

When I was breastfeeding, we stayed home a lot. Not because I was breastfeeding, but because it's a lot of trouble taking out a baby that young.

LOL Breast feed where you want, show as much or as little as you dare! ****, boobs are a fact of life almost half of the population has them, and the other 50% wish they had some!
I am more disgsuted by seeing the crack of some guys ***, while I am eating than a baby breast feeding! There is nothing beneficial or attractive about "plumbers butt"!

Way to go Delta, already having financial woes, now insult nursing mothers during the family travel season!

Whether its pristine or squalid, the fact remains that no one should feel obligated, or that they have to nurse their child in an area that is specifically used for many people to relieve ones self of fecal matter and urine.

Edited, Nov 21st 2006 7:07pm by DSD

For that matter, it's also used to wash your hands and check your hair in the mirror. If I were you, I'd stay away from the fecal matter & urine portions of the room and stand by the hand-washing and hair-checking part. But unless you're rubbing fecal matter and urine on your nipples, I don't see how the environment really matters to the tyke. I've been in plenty of bathrooms that were probably more hygenic than the coach seats on an airplane.

Is the issue here the environment in regards to the child or just being upset that you have to be in a bathroom? Again, I don't personally care if you whip out your bosoms during High Mass but the idea of being in a bathroom keeps being stressed in this thread as if it's akin to being locked in a dungeon or thrown into a septic tank.

Frankly, yes, for some women, it feels that way.

Let's face it, unless you're in a really swanky establishment (the kinda place with bathroom attendants and/or a lounge) most public restrooms are not all that pleasant to be in. You go in there, you do your business, and you get out. 9 times out of 10, a public restroom going to smell either like urine or (if you're lucky) harsh chemical cleasers. They're going to have bad flickering flourescent lights. They're not going to offer any seating other than on the toilet. The stalls (except for the handicapped stall) are going to be cramped and difficult to manuever in. It's not a place you want to be spending a lot of time in, and even if your baby doesn't actually come into contact with the toilets/counters/stalls/walls, it's going to feel unsanitary.

And yet we have people asking mothers to interrupt their activities, such as eating lunch in the company of friends and family, to go spend 20-30 minutes isolated in there because uptight, warped people have a hang-up about boobs when they're not being displayed as a turn-on. They're asked to isolate themselves as though they're doing something wrong, and they're asked to do so in a place where you normally go to perform bodily functions that are associated with filth. The implication then, is that breastfeeding is "filthy."

So, yeah, it's a bit of an oubliette and women are perfectly right in feeling resentment for being asked to go there when they're not doing anything "filthy" at all.

I'm aware of what a public bathroom looks like. I've actually been in a few. And I still don't think it's such a horror. But, meh, that's just me.

If you say so. I would rather be polite and assume no one wants has to deal with my kid-issues but me, and refrain from judging why that may be. I excuse myself, and if they don't mind, they'll let me know. If they say nothing, then I've avoided an awkward situation all-around, and bully for no one having to feel bad about it.


Edited, Nov 21st 2006 9:36pm by Atomicflea

this isnt necessarily going to be the case when you are out in public with a nursing child. I highly doubt you will be at a luncheon meeting with business reps when the need to nurse is immediate. If you are with people, most likely they will be friends and family and you will have prior knowledge to how their thoughts lie. Being polite for people who are strangers in a public place for me, would be to go find a quiet corner. If thats not enough for them, when Im out of the way then tough cookies. Respect goes both ways.

And Joph, you can defend a public bathroom as a fine place to nurse a child, but the majority of mothers out there will wholeheartedly disagree with you, myself included. It doesnt sound like anything we who have been there done that can change your perspective, just as your opinion will not change any of ours. A bathroom, especially a public one, is nto a place a woman should have to go because others have a hang up on boobs. Again, respect here is give and take. One group can not expect the other to make all the sacrifices and have each side be happy. Im willing to respect others hang ups by nursing discreetly so long as no one tries to force me to feed my baby in an area I deem inappropriate or potentially unhealthy when he needs to be fed.


It is a hang up on the boobs too, there is no other reason for such a controverse discussion. If we were talking about a woman feeding her child by bottle, this conversation would have ended after the third post and everyone thinking the airplane company was nuts. But throw in the slight chance that someone may see (in honesty here less than you would at the beach) boob skin, then all hell breaks loose.

Edited, Nov 21st 2006 10:50pm by DSD

I'm not saying it's a "fine" place but it's not really worse than any other. Unless you have a specific argument that it's unhealthy for the child, the sole problem with it lies in your displeasure at being there. In which case it is a "fine" place to nurse a child -- it's just a place you don't like.

How would it even be possible to see anything with her sitting at a window seat with her husband beside her? Have you seen how tightly packed in those seats are?

This will be a fun one for the courts and the lawyers.

I never asked, but I did feel it was polite to announce that I would be...so that they could avert their eyes before the boob came out (not that they would have seen anything anyway, it's not like I ran around topless).

Nexa

I never asked, but I did feel it was polite to announce that I would be...so that they could avert their eyes before the boob came out

I'm tired and dyslexic and I read that as "before the Bob came out" about 19 times so henceforth on the very rare occasion I might find to refer to your mammaries, I will call them Bob and um..Chuckie. Yes, Chuckie. Chuckie is the fun loving one with a heart of gold.