This story from a Boston area newspaper was just emailed to me. Got my blood boiling and I had to post it.
Dr. Melissa Tracy, a Brockton cardiologist, never thought breast-feeding her infant son while shopping would become controversial.
But it did Friday, as the 40-year-old Hingham mother was asked to stop feeding her son while shopping for birthday party supplies with her husband at iParty on Pleasant Street in South Weymouth, she said.
Tracy had responded to her 7-week-old son Tristan's cries of hunger by sitting down in the aisle to discreetly feed him, she said.
Within five minutes, the store manager, identified only as Dave, came up to Tracy, a mother of two.
“He said, 'You have to stop doing that. You can't do that here in the store. I don't think it would be good for children to see you,” Tracy said.
“I was shocked,” Tracy said. “I never felt so humiliated in my life. This man felt like I was doing something vulgar, or stealing. I was doing nothing wrong.
“I said, 'This is the most natural thing a woman can do for her child. This is what women do. This is not offensive. I am not doing anything offensive. I'm just sitting here nursing my son,” Tracy said.
Tracy said she then stopped nursing her baby, stood up, left the store and cried in the parking lot.
Note that no one complained - the store employee assumed that it would be bad for children to see breastfeeding. And the mother said, “You could not see anything. Everything was covered.”
The mother later complained to the regional manager, who apologized and offered her a gift card, which she refused. The regional manager said that the company “will make our managers aware that women might need to have some private space and to see how that can be accommodated.”
To me, this is missing the point. The mother was comfortable nursing in an aisle, and didn't need a private space. I would be just as offended if someone tried to force me into a private space. She should be able to feed her child anywhere a mother would feed a baby a bottle.
This is why we need a nursing in public law in Massachusetts. My home state is one of only a handful that doesn't provide protection for nursing in public. See the Massachusetts Breastfeeding Coalition for information on how to weigh in on pending legislation, and this post for information on pending legislation in many states. If you want to complain to iParty, here's their customer care email address. I'm going to go do some deep breathing and see if Motherwear can offer the mom a gift card to replace the one she refused!
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