February 5, 2019
Anyone who shames a mom for breastfeeding in public is obviously in the wrong. Parents have every right to feed their children, and it's irritating for an outsider to interfere with that in any way.
That said, if someone has the audacity to tell you to breastfeed your child somewhere else, it's not worth stooping to their level and getting hostile. More importantly, it's not worth wasting an ounce of that precious breast milk on someone who needs to mind their own business!
According to one recently resurfaced Facebook post, though, that's exactly what happened when one woman asked a breastfeeding mother "to go somewhere private" to feed her child. The account of events was submitted anonymously to the "Dartford Gossip page," which is an online forum for those who live and work in the English town.
The public breastfeeding-shamer addressed her complaint "to the lady [in] Dartford Park who thought it was appropriate to breastfeed her baby whist my child and very easily distracted husband sat nearby." (By the way, we're sure the aforementioned child wouldn't have been all that interested in seeing a baby eat, and that "easily distracted husband" sure isn't the breastfeeding mother's problem.)
The woman complaining to (and about) the nursing mom wrote, "I don't think it was necessary for you to react the way you did just because I asked you to go somewhere private, telling me to f–k off and squirting me with your boobs was incredibly uncalled for. I hope you are ashamed of yourself!"
Now we can't know for sure what really happened here, but we hope the breastfeeding mom didn't really waste any breast milk (which is essentially liquid gold) on someone so rude. Telling the woman to "f–k off" might not have been the wisest choice either, but commenters in Dartford seemed to share this sentiment.
"She was definitely justified in telling you to 'F off,' and frankly, had it been me, you and your perverted husband would have gotten a lot worse," wrote one member of the group.
"You deserve what you got," wrote another Facebook user. "If you don't like it don't look, if you don't trust [your] husband deal with it. That woman was feeding her child and you interfered in her life, not the other way round."
"The only shameful thing she did was waste milk on you," quipped another group member.
In all seriousness, we know people can be rude to mothers breastfeeding. This animosity is completely uncalled for, but it's not in the best interest of a mother or her child to escalate the situation. The last thing any mom wants is to put herself or her child in a dangerous position.
So what should the breastfeeding mom from Dartford Park have done? Keep right on nursing her child, unless the other mom was making her feel uncomfortable. Breastfeeding in public is legal in all 50 states and all of England. If a mom wants to nurse her child at the park, she has every right to do so. Anyone who has a problem with that isn't worth your time—or your breast milk.
