Public nursing can still be private

I first want to point out that I don’t have a problem with breastfeeding, nor with women who do so in public. I don’t think that breastfeeding is a pre-programmed act in mothers and infants, so the pride and accomplishment you take in being able to feed your child and keep him alive and healthy is something I as a man cannot fathom. Breastfeeding is a beautiful thing, and you are fully within your right to do so wherever you choose.

However, nursing your child on a crowded bus without attempting modesty and proceeding to ream me out for questioning your wisdom is more than a bit offensive. Are you within your rights to proceed as you wish irrespective of my feelings? Perhaps you think so, but you fall into an exasperating sect of nursing mums who self-righteously frame this as a feminist issue. It isn’t.

Should women feed their children in public? There’s no reason why not. Some swear by formula, but that doesn’t mean it should be an expected standard. Pumping and bottling milk is an extremely painful and time consuming alternative, but more often than not, mothers seem to respond best to infants suckling. So breasts become the sacred cow.

Some mommy-bloggers declare smugly that anyone against public breastfeeding is against breastfeeding altogether. Others choose to play the poor, put-upon victim: “Don’t you understand how hard it is being a mother? Why should I have to carry bags of formula and bottles? Can’t you see how exhausted I am caring for my beautiful child? Are you going to deny my angel and I our emotional bond?”

I’m not sure if you’re aware, but nobody rides a packed B-line down Broadway for the hell of it. Exhaustion is not a mental or physical condition reserved for nursing mothers. I’m not asking you to wear a snuggy while you breastfeed. Nursing blankets are a pain, I understand that, but it’s a common courtesy that you extend to fellow riders and other people who dare to exist around you and your cherub when you enter a public space. It’s the same courtesy you were extended when seats were vacated to accommodate your stroller.

I understand mothers don’t want to sit in smelly toilet stalls while they feed their children in restaurants or in shopping malls (though claiming there isn’t enough space carries little water when some women McGyver everything together within the confines of a bus seat), and badgering them to do so is selfish. However, your snooty retort that I can “simply look away” is ridiculous, especially after you bemoaned my disrespect toward your personal space.

I’m not going to compare public feeding and urination (as many opponents do), as they really aren’t the same thing. But it’s odd that breastfeeding acolytes retort that breasts, unlike a penis, aren’t sexual — that feeding renders them purely utilitarian. That’s an absurd argument, given how sexuality, penises and breasts are entwined in global human culture.

However you choose to phrase it, your naked exposure on a bus is discomfiting. I doubt that it would be too long before I got belted across the face if I blatantly stared at your ‘utilitarian’ appendages.

This isn’t a treatise encouraging female repression; I am not a religious or moral zealot or a volcano of barely suppressed sexual frustration that needs to curb some disgusting desires so you can feed your child.

I fully support your right to feed in public, please understand that. I’m only asking that you exercise a modicum of respect before painting yourself as a victim of some patriarchal conspiracy designed in your own mind.