Here we go again. Seriously, when will some people learn?
Mom told to stop breastfeeding in NYS Museum
In New York, the law states you can breastfeed in any public place. But an Albany woman says a State Museum employee must not know that. Kristin Kelly is a young mother of three including a 4 month old she breast feeds.
Tuesday she says she was insulted and humiliated for feeding her baby in public even though she knew she was well within the law.
“I absolutely felt like I was doing something wrong,” said Kristin Kelly with tears in her eyes.
Kelly and her three children ages 5, 3 and little four month old Zachary were enjoying an afternoon at the New York State Museum. Near the end of their visit Zachary got hungry and Kristin says she found a bench up against a wall and began to breast feed her baby.
“I sat down and made sure I was covered, three blankets over him actually, and I began to nurse, while my other two children sat beside me,” she said.
Suddenly, according to Kristin all this was interrupted.
“A lady that said she was an employee of the museum they had another person report me and so I had to go to the bathroom where they had a chair set up where you could nurse or I would have to leave the museum,” she said.
Kristin says was speechless when the woman with the museum ID tag came back a second time, stared at her and asked her to move again.Read more >>>
People, people, people. Breastfeeding is none of the following:
- obscene
- immoral
- sexual
- perverted
- or any other stupid thing you come up with because you don’t like your view of boobs to be blocked by a baby.
And if she was covered with 3 blankets, which is insane to me, that already blows your whole “trying to get attention/flashing her boobs everywhere” idiocy out of the water. I’d also like to point that being in a museum there are likely to be images displayed that are more likely to corrupt your children’s poor innocent eyes than a woman simply feeding her baby. Heck, I see more obscenity just going to the mall than a breastfeeding woman.
Get over yourselves already. Your personal feelings do not create laws out of thin air. Trust me, if they did there would be a whole lot of people not allowed to talk in public because they offend me with their every word. Luckily we live in America, you know with all that freedom and stuff. Which, by the way, means freedom for other people too. Even the ones doing stuff you don’t like. Like blocking your peep show with a baby’s head or reminding you that boobs weren’t created to sell beer and sports cars. Inconvenient, I know.
And yes, before it’s pointed out I’m well aware that the museum worker was a woman. A) Some women, surprisingly, like other women and might have wanted a peep show just like some men do, and B) many women buy into the patriarchal crap of “boobs are for men only”. So just because she has a pair doesn’t mean she doesn’t think they should be covered up unless bouncing in a bikini on a beer commercial.
Update
The museum thinks some one pretended to be an employee there to make the woman leave. If that’s true it sounds like a serious case of someone knowing they were wrong. Whomever the woman was she knew she had no right telling the mother to take it to the bathroom or leave, so she pretneded to be someone that she wasn’t in hopes of intimadating the woman enough. This just pisses me off.
At least there’s always the comics to make me feel better.
Tags: breastfeeding
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February 21st, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Unfortunately this situation doesn’t shock me. As a woman who breastfeed both of my daughters I can remember the people who were against nursing. Some made it quite obvious by stares, comments or unsolicited advice. I’ve never had anything this terrible happen to me, thank God.
I’m happy to read that Kelly and her husband are standing up for her and her child’s rights. The museum needs to do some type of training for all of their employees after this incident.
Summer, you keep posting about this information. Educate the masses!
Connie’s last blog post..Choices
February 21st, 2008 at 4:10 pm
I wonder how a non-employee came to have a security ID?
Outrageous that any mom any where should be told to stop feeding her baby.
Loved your 5th observation, I may have to borrow that one- promise I’ll be sure to say you said it first
Eden’s last blog post..A Little Give Away
February 21st, 2008 at 4:22 pm
You don’t want your view of boobs to be blocked by a baby! TOO funny!!!
Personally, I was too self-conscious to ever nurse in public, but those who choose to do so have that right, the same as if they were using a bottle. I also believe that those of us who do choose to breast-feed should have the good manners to make it as small a spectacle as possible for those around us. But if the lady was using a cover-up blanket (or 3) then whoever the other woman was, she should be the one to go to the bathroom and remove the stick she’s so obviously troubling her! And by the way — who eats in a public toilet?!? Why should a baby be forced to eat there?! ICK!
February 21st, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Good for her and her husband for not letting this go…as I’m sure the museum would have liked. Shame on that employee for treating her like that!! gggrrrrr
Joanne’s last blog post..Unschooling Voices
February 21st, 2008 at 10:38 pm
What I’m shocked about is that she had three kids under the age of five there and that while she nursed the baby, the 3 and 5 year olds sat next to her. What?! She’s good.
Sarah is Ok’s last blog post..I get to it: Part 2
February 23rd, 2008 at 1:31 pm
We had this same problem come up in my area a few months ago. A young mother was at the local mall in a PacSun store and one of the employees came right out and told her she couldn’t breast feed her baby in their store. The mother said it was obvious the employee was uncomfortable about it from the get go, so she cut the feeding short. But when she went out the employee actually told her “Just so you know, you can’t do that here!”
You can read more about it here and here and you can visit the womans MySpac page here
Holly’s last blog post..Your call has been dropped, please try again
February 23rd, 2008 at 9:27 pm
How ridiculous is this? Though, it’s not quite as ridiculous as the woman who was reprimanded for breastfeeding in a Victoria’s Secret (which flashes more breasts on its posters and ads than nearly any other public place…). When I first started breastfeeding I was ambivalent about doing it in public until I started hearing these sorts of stories and then I decided I was going to do it in public just to support these women. I decided it was a political act, as ridiculous as that sounds, as women everywhere are constantly being denied the very basic right to feed their children…Thanks for the post.
Alwen’s last blog post..Pregnant with a Hungry Corpse
March 2nd, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Thanks for submitting a great article to the March 2008 Mom’s Blogging Carnival. You can see your story and all the others at:
http://www.gogirlfriend.com/reviews/moms-blogging-carnival-2-7760
Julia Rosien’s last blog post..Mom’s Blogging Carnival - 2
March 13th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
I agree, I have seen way more boob exposure at the mall and museum than most women show when nursing. I used to try to find a place to hide to nurse, when my first child was born…but no more…now I nurse whenever and wherever my baby/toddler is hungry. Why should I inconvenience him? He’s just little.