It took state lawmakers two sessions and a distracting debate about the meaning of “discreet,” but Kansas now has a law spelling out the rights of a woman to breast-feed her baby any place she has a right to be. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius signed the bill into law Monday, in the process also excusing nursing moms from jury duty. Now, more women should feel encouraged to feed their babies by this most wholesome of all methods — and fewer nosy Kansans should be so bold as to object to their doing so in public.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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32 Comments
While I am all in favor of breast feeding, this law is a bad thing.
These blogs know me as no conservative.
Breast feeding has always been available to the discreet woman. This is not to suggest that a natural function be suppressed. But the very purpose of this law was to serve a certain IN YOUR FACE crowd.
Now we shall be treated to women breastfeeding kids way past the justifiable need for such. The needs of some insecure women to reaffirm their fertility will be foisted on the public at large.
So let me get this straight. Nubile but non lactating breasts bad. Nude dancers bad. Women exercising (in some cases to excess) primitive feeding rituals good.
Most women will be discreet when breastfeeding because they were brought up in a culture that treats breasts as sex objects, and it’s hard to shake off that self-consciousness.For the so-called “IN YOUR FACE” crowd, more power to them. They realized that breasts were created for one reason and one reason only.Like I said, most women will continue to nurse discreetly even after this law has passed. As for the tiny percentage who don’t stuff their babies inside shirts or under blankets–if you are uncomfortable with it, stop looking! Chances are she doesn’t want dirty old men gawking at her :)
JR,You know me, and I agree with you on many subjects. This is definitely not one of them. We have been put on by a sexist mentality for longer than you or I have been around. The only “in your face” I can see is a baby getting a deserved mouth full. If you decide to look at a mother feeding her child as something other than what it is, that’s your business. And just what exactly do you mean by “justifiable need”? When you say the baby is hungry?
This country has a real problem with the female breast, and I for one think it an unhealthy sign of an ingrained abnormality towards sex in general. Take a look at European countries. Most of them have no problem with the female body. It sounds to me you are as hung up on breast feeding as some of these religious whackos are with sex period. Next time you see a woman breast feeding her baby, smile, because it doesn’t get any more natural than that. Nor does it get any more beautiful. Just ask the baby
Oh, and look at the picture accompanying this blog. It’s not going to get much more “explicit” than that. Is it such a disgusting prospect?
I’ll bet most men support “non discreet” breastfeeding in sexy young mommas…just not the old, fat or ugly ones. Rubbish.
Oh, and JR, how on earth do you breastfeed to excess?!
Do you ever wonder why nothing of importants is getting done in Topeka? Here is your answer! Gee, next is a law that states that you can go into the public restroom to pee! Breastfeeding has never been a problem…Till it was made one.D.A.s
Your generalization about “most men support non-discreet breastfeeding…” is just that, Tara, an unsupported generalization that is an insult to every male.
The idea that public breast feeding should be supported because it is ‘natural’ is hogwash. Every bodily function is ‘natural’, but does that mean we need to see someone urinating in public? No.
Do not get me wrong, I totally support a mother’s right to breast feed a child anywhere, anytime. But the argument that it should be allowed because it is “natural” is a lousy argument.
Yuck I ended up sort of on the same side as raptor.
Easy ladies easy. I am on your side for the most part if you read what I wrote close enough.
Now there are excessess of this practice. Nursing into the second and third year might be very valuable in the third world nations where clean water and nutrition are scarce. But I don’t think that is appicable to America. I grant that it is rare, but that is what I meant by excessive.
Please read my last post again. I was trying to point out hypocrisy. This bare breast ok that bare breast bad. I was speaking to the juvenile puritanic standards that do objectify women. Law or no law, until we grow this society past them, cold stares and harrassment of women will continue.
I saw a woman breastfeeding a kid who was probably 4 years old the other day. I’d say that’s excessive.
Todd–
No, you didn’t. Sheesh.
Gentle people,
And what exactly does this law do? What great social ill have we corrected?
It will end up causing more problems than it fixes. When I was stationed in Virginia we had a neighbor that nursed her son until he was almost five years old! Since then I have found that its not as unusual as one might think.
I have never been offended by a mother nursing her infant but when the child is old enough to work the snap on a bra it starts to get a lttle wierd!
Hank
Yeah, I’m gonna have to call bullsh*t on you, Hank.
It’s too much of a hassle for mother and child to keep up breastfeeding for so long.
It’s like keeping a kid in diapers for as long as possible. The motivation is all on the other side–to get them out of diapers.
It doesn’t stand to reason anyone would do this.
PL,While I doubt it’s common in Virginia, or even West Virginia, there are cultures where breastfeeding of preschoolers is the rule rather than the exception. So a kid gets his milk straight from mama instead of a plastic jug from the fridge. Why on earth should that make any difference to anybody but dairy farmers? And why should breastfeeding anywhere be an issue?
PL – It doesn’t matter to me whether you believe it or not. I’ve seen kids in preschool with pacifiers in their mouths also. But I’m sure I’m just making that up, because……well, just because. :rolleyes:
PL – Look up Extended Breast Feeding, or EBF. Apparently, it’s just a little more common than you think.
How did all this crap get started in the first place?
It is clear. We need a new law. No breast feeding beyond age 3. I am sure the legislature should spend their valuable time figuring out appropriate punishments for “feeder” AND “feedee”.
Agreed, this law was a complete waste of time and money.
Agree with tara and Mother above – there is something truly and purely beautiful about a mother nurturing her child. I have a real hard time figuring out what kind of hang-ups people have with this.
When I look at the picture above I see “Madonna and Child”; not “Madonna”
http://www.storknet.com/cubbies/breast/extendedlaw.htm
Dear ProudLib,
Me thinks youv’e lived a sheltered life. I don’t care when or where mother’s nurse, but I have seen some weird things.
Like in the Atlanta airport about ten years ago I saw a lady that would go around 300 pounds that for some reason had to have both brests out to nurse one of the healthiest babies I’d seen in quite a while. I’m not a prude, but that sight could have emotionally scarred a lesser man!
Now she was in the seats closest to the concourse, making no attempt at modesty. I didn’t have to ’sneak’ a look! (I did have to push my way through the croud though)
Hank
Imagine outlawing and controlling something as common and natural as teenagers trying sex.
Can’t we be decent enough to mind our own business?Todd you are right.Why don’t they tackle some real issues?
ok y’all I’m gonna put my 2 cents in.As a mother of a child whom I breastfed I have to support this law. I was discreet when feeding but HATED having to go into a bathroom stall and sit on the toilet to feed my child if I was out and about. It was so nice if the store/restaurant had a couch or chair in a lounge area.(Guys – imagine having to sit on a toilet with no back support while holding a 20 lb sack of potatoes to your bare chest for 20 – 30 minutes with no break)I never have been one for exposing myself unnecessarily and I always covered with a blanket before feeding. I don’t want you pervs looking at my body like that. (No I don’t wear itsy bitsy swimsuits either)I stopped breastfeeding when I returned to work, mainly because there was no place to pump other than the bathroom on breaks.
Tracy,There’s some things you can outlaw all you want, and it still doesn’t make a difference. I agree that we need to concentrate our legislators’ valuable time on things that are actually constructive, and leave teen sex to the watercooler where it belongs.
Gentle and ungentle people,
If you see a sight that you disapprove of, you have the constitutional right to look the other way. It has worked for me for years.
I knew a mother who breast fed her kid for a length of time that I thought was way too long. The kid’s teeth rotted out as a result. Did she make a bad parenting decision in my opinion? Yes. Was this decision really any of my business — or the government’s business? NO.
Would criminalizing dumb parenting decisions be the limited government promised to us by Republicans? I hope not.
Breastfeeding until about age 2 is perfectly natural. The baby loses interest about that time and weans him or herself.
That said, I don’t see the need to breastfeed my 17-month-old in public. But when he was a 6-month-old, I fed him when and where he got hungry. It was possible to do this so discretely that no one would have noticed unless they were staring. When he was really little, I even fed him during mass once or twice … as this was better than having him scream and disrupt everything.
Discretion in all things is a virtue.
Take a trip to the local swimming pool or lake beach this summer.Look around for awhile and then decide if breast feeding is so obscene it needs to be outlawed.
What’s next, the bathing suit patrol?
I don’t understand the uproar over this whole thing. My wife nursed all of our kinder, discreetly, and never encountered any problems, not even with the twins!
V.L.R.B!!
Dear Julie,
Honestly would this law have had any effect in your life? I’ve seen mothers discretely nursing in a variety of places and no one was hassling them. When you went to the restroom to nurse, was that because of the rules or modesty?
You see, what I’m afraid of is that because of this law, sooner or later certain establishments will be required to provide places that you can discretely nurse your baby.
I’ve been to several nude beeches in my life, but I’ve never been tempted to extend my tan.
Hank
Sheesh……
I got this thread started by trying to use oblique outrage to address the juvenile and double standards as to attitudes about female nudity.
And all I accomplished was drawing out a bunch of examples as to why it will likely never cahange.
But I guess that does illustrate my intended point. Laws addressed to the unintended consequence of a long held problem don’t do much but complicate the the unintended consequences.
Ladies ….and gentleman too as to this subject. many of the posters above illustrate what I was trying to say. Laws will not change those folks. YOu gotta get at what made them that way in the FIRST place.
It’s sad that we’re having this discussion in the first place. How do people get so uptight? I remember as a kid in the 50s in Fort Worth, there was a huge department store called “Leonards”. There was a standing rule in the store. If a mother needed someplace to nurse her child, some clerk had better be clearing out a comfortable place for her. I always thought highly of Leonards for that.
non-issue
Hank,Sorry it’s taken me a while to get back to you.I went to the restrooms for modesty’s sake. I personally would have felt too uncomfortable to nurse in full view of everyone. I’ve even remained in the vehicle to nurse rather than go into Wal-Mart if I knew it was close to feeding time. And if we were at family functions I would go to a spare bedroom.
Julie