BlogHer - Airline breastfeeding scandal concludes: Freedom Airlines apologizes... sort of - Comments

I am new at blogging but I

mikivikiniki — Sun, 06 May 2007 14:38:13 -0500

I am new at blogging but I wanted to point out that once out of a sense of modesty I had covered my daughter's head in public and was terribly ashamed when I lifted the blanket to see her hair so wet that it looked like I had just washed it and the sweat just pouring off her skin. No it was not an excessively hot day, it was of moderate temperature. I will not do this again just to spare those of you that could choose to decently look away instead of complaining because we that breastfeed choose not to impose extreme discomfort upon our poor innocent infants whom just want the right to eat their meals comfortably. If you think that it sounds comfortable to be so hot then by all means enjoy, if you choose to be a masochist that's your choice but my daughter can not choose for herself and I will not impose this discomfort just to please you or anyone, my daughter's best interest is all that I care for, not some stranger's, especially not some stranger whom is so rude as to look at something not meant for them. If it makes you uncomfortable then by all means you have the choice to look away- most of us are not exhibitionists and would prefer it that way. Don't ask an innocent infant to suffocate under a hot blanket and in case you aren't aware by the way, extreme heat is not good for a developing brain or for that matter anyone's brain- that's why it's so dangerous for anyone to have a high temperature.

I'm a very modest women who

SarahPlainandTall — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 07:47:11 -0600

I'm a very modest women who refuses to wear a cover when I nurse my baby. There is no need for one, my baby and my clothing covers my breast and if you wanted to see some skin- you would have to wedge your face under my elbow. (The fact that I do not show any skin when nursing is in no way an advisory to women who may show skin when nursing- it's just a fact I'm sharing)

So I'm really confused by jcdills attitude that we should all just do the world at large a favor and cover up our biological facts a little more carefully. Hmmm... does the scene of me sitting, babe in arms cause offense similar to a widening straining anus and gassy belch from below which leaves behind a steaming pile of turd for public appreciation? Hardly. I doubt the cute curls on the back of my baby's head resemble someone's dingleberry during defecation.

What is there to cover up? actually it's not the breast that they want covered, it's the whole act- we don't want to even know you are nursing a baby in there because the idea of the human milk transfer gives them the creeps. Many women wear shirts which show plenty of chest skin- and unless they were to nurse a baby- no one would ever DARE to offer them a blanket to "cover that up" because "you should respect other people's feelings" Yet women with much more modest clothing, showing no breast at all, are frequently offered shields which they can protect the world at large from the sight and knowledge of their offensive motherly duties.

So to get back to Jcdill's defecation analogy, and I'm sorry to even do it the lip service as Atena so clearly refuted that breastmilk is a beautiful live substance and not a waste product- but let's get to the cultural analogy and skip the biological one- because obviously Atena, we are living in a culture where many think that breastmilk is equal to shit. The breastfeeding cover is more akin to a burka type garment you could don before entering a public restroom, because we don't need to know you are full of crap, we don't need to be exposed to the graphic personal view of you meekly aiming yourself toward that little international symbol with a dress on knowing full well you are about to go dump a load. Spare us the scene and just don this hood so we don't have to cope with your pathetic human reality. You don't need to rub it in our face do you? Have some decency.

Now, if all over the nation you saw people putting a bag over their head before entering a public restroom- you'd understand that the bag over the head does not actually increase the privacy of the act of shitting- it only makes a big public display of how submissive you are to the convention that your own bodily function is shameful and embarrassing.

And so Jcdill, you can see how offering a nursing mother a blanket is insulting and a violation of her right to be unharassed. The blanket is not to cover the breast- it is to erase her, her child and and the beautiful role they play in the human cycle of life, from our worldview... An attitude which is very harmful when women and children could benefit so much more from a support which honors rather than marginalizes them.

The Front Porch Swing

breastfeeding mother or mile high club member

triza — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 21:09:22 -0600

You breastfed your sons until their first birthdays....um.. this lady was trying to breastfeed a 22 month old boy on her lap in a cramped airplane...

...Not that it's wrong or anything...lol...although if she covered his head, it would seem like she was getting freaky under the blanket with someone...

Your comment is inaccurate...

Atena — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 08:53:48 -0600

From a physiological standpoint you are quite incorrect. Breast milk is not a waste product like urine or feces. Those are leftover byproducts from digestion, metabolism, etc. There is not nearly as direct a ratio between how much food a woman consumes and how much milk she produces, precisely because making milk is a biological imperative that supersedes drawing solely from food intake. A woman's body will not suck the vitamins out of her to create feces. It will do that to create milk.

Breast milk is biologically more comparable to blood - it is a live substance (it contains functional white blood cells and immunoglobulins), that performs specific, important functions for the body. It is not a byproduct of another process, it exists for its own purposes - as really good food. It provides nutrition and supplements the immune system. Bodily waste does not have a primary function such as this.

Assumptions, Biases & Irrational Fantasies

My Life As a Radical Whore/Madonna

Rock on!

Atena — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 19:36:38 -0600

Dana, you've said everything I wanted to say in an articulate, intelligent and totally reasonable way. But the puritanism and sexual weirdness in this country run so deep that what you're saying tends to go over heads. Thanks for speaking up, though.

Atena

Assumptions, Biases & Irrational Fantasies

My Life As a Radical Whore/Madonna

Both men and women sexualize breastfeeding

Mamalogues — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 19:11:12 -0600

Fair? When nursing mothers and their children are treated as second class citizens because others refuse to avert their eyes? How is that fair? We agree to disagree, then.

I think it's funny, no one seems to have a problem with the T&A on television, plastered across magazines, in the Victoria's Secret catalogs but a nursing mother? Scandalous!

There are other ways to be discreet than by throwing a blanket over a baby's head (nursing shirts anyone? Button-down tops?) but I don't assume that you'd know this bit of female fashion being that you're a man, unless a wife or girlfriend has breastfed? I'm not pulling the sex card, I'm genuinely curious.

How does someone even know that a woman is breastfeeding unless they're oogling her chest? If it makes you or anyone uncomfortable to see a mother bring her child to her chest - whether or not she's a nursing veteran who is so slick you can't tell what she's doing unless, again, you stare, or a newbie mom who's still learning the ropes, just look away! Stop staring!

I've looked the other way numerous times when I've breastfed my children, away from the people who cannot mind their own business and feel the need to roll their eyes. I am discreet, most mothers are. Public breastfeeding is a right; people need to get over it already. It isn't going to change, but the taboo over it needs to.

I do not want to say "breast," "feeding," "nursing" or any combination thereof for the next month as I just burned myself out.

Dana
Mamalogues.com
In the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Pop Mama
Since Eve

To Mamalogues

stoutimore — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 18:43:15 -0600

C'mon, Mamalogues, be fair. In your first response, you said, "It's rare for there to be an absence of modesty." But later you bemoan the child's "sweating to death under a blanket while he's trying to nurse." You apparently believe modesty is breached when a mother "whips her breasts out and shakes them in the faces of passerby before feeding her infant"; but not otherwise. We differ on that; and I've never heard of a child's death being attributed to having suckled under a blanket.

You then state: "You're offended by me poking fun at stereotypes in saying "funbags for men" but aren't at all offended by women who are convinced that breastfeeding mothers should cover up because boy howdy, when men see boobs they must think of sex?"

It's not only men who think women should cover up when nursing in public. After all, according to this blog and news reports, the offended person in this instance was FEMALE! Women should cover up when breastfeeding in public because MANY people consider it inappropriate.

No, I don't cover my baby's

Mamalogues — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 18:07:41 -0600

No, I don't cover my baby's face with a blanket in cold weather. He wears a coat. Besides, biiig difference in that and sweating to death under a blanket while trying to nurse. The comment you referenced made no distinction between "modestly breastfeeding" (as opposed to slapping on a pasty and twirling the breast not in use during nursing, I presume) and "breastfeeding" in the second graph.

You're offended by me poking fun at stereotypes in saying "funbags for men" but aren't at all offended by women who are convinced that breastfeeding mothers should cover up because boy howdy, when men see boobs they must think of sex? I find that a weensy bit contradictory. I've actually written prior:

"The women who say â€œwhen men see a breast all they see is a breast,â€ are incredibly insulting to guys â€“ they make it sound as though men are barbarians incapable of complex thought and require a constant nanny in order to shield them from the wiles of the world. I feel bad for the mother quoted in the article as saying that she shredded the magazine [Baby Talk cover] so her 13-year-old son wouldnâ€™t see it. Instead of taking the time to educate her son on the way some women feed kids, she chose to stick her head up her backside. What a way to teach respect for females, mom!"

Dana
Mamalogues.com
In the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Pop Mama
Since Eve

To mamalogues

stoutimore — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 17:49:39 -0600

Mamalogues, jcdill analogized breastfeeding to defecating to the extent that both are completely natural acts. She did not suggest that modest breastfeeding is shameful, embarrassing, or negative.

Secondly, from a physiological viewpoint, breastfeeding IS, in fact, closely related to defecating. Food in--waste out.

You decry the modesty of using a blanket while breastfeeding because it causes a child to "practically suffocate." Gee! Don't you cover your baby with a blanket when you're out in the cold weather? Give me a break!

As a male, I am mildly offended by your intimation that men regard women's breasts as "funbags." To imply that men in general are so shallow as to value women for their breasts, paints a degrading picture of men. In fact, I've often thought that it must be women, rather than men, who are fixated on breasts. After all, many women opt for enhancement surgery; and I've never heard of such surgery being performed when it wasn't voluntary.

WTF?

Mamalogues — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 16:27:27 -0600

I wrote a column about this when the Baby Talk issue hit.

I breastfed my two sons until their first birthdays. I do not know a single breastfeeding mother who whips her breasts out and shakes them in the faces of passerby before feeding her infant. It's rare for there to be an absence of modesty.

First off, equating the act of a nursing infant to defecating in public is illogical and offensive. You are immediately assigning shame, embarrassment, and negativity to the act of breastfeeding by analogizing it to waste removal. That needs to be realized. I'm not even going to go down the road of you analogizing breastfeeding to sex, other than to say that's the mindset which has created this "controversy" in the first place.

Secondly, if you don't expect to eat your meal in the toilet, don't expect my child to do the same. If you don't eat while practically suffocating under a blanket, don't expect my child to do the same. If you don't want to be exiled to a dressing room to eat, don't expect me and my child to do the same. If public breastfeeding makes you uncomfortable, if you think that it's a bond that should be kept between a mother and a child THEN QUIT STARING.

Our society needs to stop behaving like a bunch of perverts. I fear for the children whose parents fail to teach them that breasts are more than just funbags for men. That's what's really bad - the attitudes towards women's breasts, NOT breastfeeding. Take off your beer goggles, America!

Dana
Mamalogues.com
In the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Pop Mama
Since Eve

jcdill is right

stoutimore — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 14:05:54 -0600

I agree with poster jcdill. Breastfeeding is fine, but modesty is appropriate. In my opinion, many of the so-called lactivists equate opposition to immodest breastfeeding with opposition to breastfeeding. That's dishonest. In our culture, the female breast is sexual, and should be covered up. It is made no less sexual by the fact that a mother is breastfeeding her child.

Should we change our cultural views of sexuality? Perhaps; possibly public nudity should be the norm. But it seems to be that the lactivists are more concerned about asserting the right to bare their breasts than they are about babies' need to feed.

Get over it

ldkroegel — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 08:25:07 -0600

I think people are making too big a deal out of this. I live in Connecticut which, granted, is a fairly liberal state, and I see people nursing their children in public on an almost daily basis, in restaurants, parks, standing in line at a store...etc, without any problem at all.

The media hype makes it appear that the objection and subsequent action by the Delta employee occurs on a frequent basis.

There will probably always be some people who object to public breastfeeding. Public breastfeeding is the critical word here - I don't think even the most ignorant of persons disagrees that breastfeeding is a natural act.

Also why should it surprise people that people object to public breastfeeding, "even in this day and age"?

Despite all scientific evidence to the contrary, there are still people who believe the world was created in exactly seven days and that the theory of evolution is some sort of conspiracy,

There are still people who believe it is okay to drive a vehicle,simply for the kid-convenience factor, that gets less than 15 miles per gallon, dismissing dire warnings from hundreds of experts about global warming.

At least moms who want to breastfeed in public have the legal right to do so and usually can.
Unfortunatley the same cannot be said for people who want to live in an ecologically sound environment. The government has done next to nothing to provide people with this right.

I agree completely!!!

slpngbyuty — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 21:23:38 -0600

I'm so glad to see that someone here feels the same way I do. I think that breast-feeding is fine. I'm not sure it's fine once the child can unbutton your shirt him/herself, but that is another discussion for another time. I do believe that our actions effect others around us, however. If someone was uncomfortable, then the Mom should have covered up PERIOD. A person has a right to smoke in some public places, but I sure don't want to be around it. It is just common courtesy to go somewhere else (or cover up in this instance). By refusing to take the blanket, it suddenly became less about feeding her child and more about making a statement. If your kid is hungry, by all means, feed him/her, but don't try to use it as a public forum on the rights of women. We all know that breast-feeding is "natural", but we don't have to make a scene about it.

Honestly...

Atena — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 18:34:46 -0600

I am pretty amazed that a grown woman would even say something like this. But then, if you equate having a meal with taking a shit, then I find myself less and less amazed. But I've already spent too much time responding to your misguided comment...

Atena

Assumptions, Biases & Irrational Fantasies

My Life As a Radical Whore/Madonna

I'm sure I'm going to be flamed for this...

jcdill — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 14:34:32 -0600

I'm sure I'm going to be flamed to no end for this, but I have to speak up here.

Just because something is "natural" or "healthy" doesn't mean that it's appropriate to do it in public. Some natural and healthy actions are supposed to be done in private. Taking a shit comes to mind, as does having sex.

Some people feel that breastfeeding is also one of those things. Many breastfeeding mothers disagree. Obviously.

Before you start jumping up and down and saying "but we have a right" just stop for a minute and think about how you would feel if someone stopped and took a shit in front of you, or if two people started to get it on in public. Unless you are OK with other people doing other things that are "natural" and "healthy" right out there in public, consider that perhaps you should be more mindful about how some other people feel about breastfeeding.

The mother was offered a blanket and she refused it. Why? Just how hard would it be to be a bit more sensitive about how others feel about this act and if asked to be more discrete to cooperate??? Instead of doing one simple thing to cooperate, she was asked to leave the plane and her travel plans were seriously disrupted.

Everyone here is jumping on the airline's actions as if only the airline did anything wrong. Well, I disagree. The mother clearly was bothering someone if she was asked to use a blanket and she should have been more sensitive to that.

Airline breastfeeding scandal concludes: Freedom Airlines apologizes... sort of

Mir Kamin — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 11:28:08 -0600

Four days after Emily Gillette was removed from a Delta/Freedom flight out of Burlington because a flight attendant was "uncomfortable" with her nursing her daughter, Freedom Airlines announced that the flight attendant was "disciplined" for her actions.

(If you need some review, check out my original coverage and follow-up post here at BlogHer.)

So this is good news, right? Freedom did the right thing?

Well, there are at least two problems here.

First, Freedom Airlines and Gillette disagree on what happened:

Skellon said that after the flight attendant ordered Gillette off the plane, the captain of the Delta Air Lines flight being operated by Freedom apologized and asked her family to reboard, but they refused.

Gillette, however, said the airline never offered her a chance to get back on board the New York-bound plane. "I would have jumped at the opportunity," she said.

Delta paid for a hotel room and rebooked the family on a different airline the next day.

Now, I'm certainly open to the possibility of the "wronged" party not always being truthful. But in this case, I have a hard time entertaining the possibility that Ms. Gillette is lying, even if only because no sane person accepts an unexpected delay on a trip with a toddler in tow if it can be avoided. I call foul on Freedom and its too-little, too-late attempts at damage control.

Second, no one seems to know what the disciplinary action involved. Was it a "nudge, nudge, wink wink, take the week off until this blows over" sort of thing? Failure to disclose the actual consequence suggests fear of further backlash. If Freedom was so sure they were responding appropriately, I think they'd be more forthcoming with what exactly was done.

Meanwhile, Burlington Free Press reports this official statement:

In his Friday response, Skellon had this to say: "To clarify our policy, Freedom Airlines firmly supports a motherâ€™s right to breast feed a child. We understand that air travel presents particular difficulties to a nursing passengers. Moreover while blankets are available for passengers convenience, we do not expect (and will not in the future request) that nursing mothers use a blanket to cover their child while nursing. My comment in the original article to the contrary was not an accurate statement of our policy."

Yeah. Um, Mr. Skellon? I think you missed a little bit of that egg there on your face. And by "a little bit" I of course mean "all of it."

BlogHer Contributing Editor Mir also blogs at Woulda Coulda Shoulda and Want Not.