Sorry, folks. I don't care how "natural" or "beneficial" breast-feeding
is, in modern American society it is STILL bad manners for a woman to
expose her breast in public places (the exception being the erotic
entertainment venues - which are in and of themselves etiquette
minefields). Far too many private functions are now seen as perfectly okay
to perform in public view, much to the dismay of those of us who wax
nostalgic over the comforting discreetness of the etiquette of past
generations (borne out of what has become an almost extinct sense of
consideration for the sensibilities of others). Whipping out
one's tit and shoving it into a baby's mouth simply is not an activity
that most strangers - and even friends of the mother - really care to be
exposed to in public places. The mother really should stop thinking solely
of her own convenience, and instead think more of the offense she might
cause by her action. The whole premise of a system of etiquette is NOT to
challenge the rights of other people to be offended by certain unmannerly
acts, but instead to provide a code of minimal acceptable conduct that is
designed so that no-one really has to ponder whether a given action will
possibly offend others. Militant public breast-feeding is unmannerly pure
and simple. And attempting to turn it into a campaign of sorts seems like
a very thinly veiled attempt by the offending mother to divert attention
from her own laziness in not simply standing up and moving to a place that
is PRIVATE before feeding her baby. If this means having to interrupt a
dinner-table conversation for 15 minutes, so be it. Part of parenthood, as
any parent will tell you, is relearning how to manage time, prepare for
contingencies, and charmingly apologise for the interruptions that one's
children inevitably cause to one's social life and own convenience.
Karen Mercedes
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
________________________________
One must be something if one
wishes to put on appearances.
- Ludwig von Beethoven
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