Breastfeeding NOT Allowed!
I said the other day that, in regards to something from a long time ago, that “it really got in my crawl.” I am not even sure what that means exactly and need to look it up, but it really ate at me over the years. Well, here is one that is eating at me like crazy already and I just heard about at 1:00pm today. I was actually in stunned disbelief at hearing it, but then as the number of callers on the talk radio went on and on I was just flabbergasted and turning angry at the stupidity, particularly of men.
The story in short order is that a woman was at McDonald’s in Berea, Kentucky yesterday (an aside note, I was at the McDonald’s in question sometime last week briefly) for breakfast. While there, with her two to three-month old baby, the baby began to cry indicating that he was hungry. She did what was natural and began to breastfeed the child. Shortly there after, the manager on duty came out and in apparently rude, confrontational proceeded to tell the woman that she couldn’t do that there and would have to leave. This was apparently followed up with more than one other dining person piling on with the same kind of sentiment.
The woman, pretty well having had enough and know full well of the Kentucky Statute that makes it illegal for anyone to interfere with a mother breast-feeding her baby, stepped outside and called the Berea Police department over the matter. When the police arrived, apparently there was a bit more confrontation and the manager indicated the woman need to leave. The woman tried to point out to the officer that the laws of her of our fine commonwealth were on her side. However, the officer, allegedly and with total disrespect for the law, informed the lady that he didn’t give a crap about the statutes (unbelievable), that he was the law and she needed to leave and that if she did not he would be forced to arrest her for criminal trespassing.
Apparently since the incident a report against the officer in question has been filed. Additionally, the owner the particular McDonald’s called the woman in question and personally apologized for the incident. And all over the local talk radio shows in Lexington it was split almost down the middle with people for her right to do this and people who unbelievably felt she did not have the right to breast feed in public.
There are just so many things there that SCREAM wrong to me that it almost hard for me to believe. First, if I were the owner of the McDonald’s I would at least make sure the manager involved was publicly reprimanded and possibly even terminated for such rude behavior to a customer over a matter that is protected by the state government as a right. Second, the officers boast that he had no choice in regards to the criminal trespass complaint is incorrect, the wording says can be arrested not must or shall be arrested. Beyond that though, is the point that he blatantly took the law, the very thing he has sworn to protect and uphold, and trampled it into the dirt with both feet and spit on it for good measure if even came close to the statements alleged to have been made by him. My gut feeling is that if truly made a statement that he didn’t care about the statutes, that he was the law, he needs to be removed from the position and his badge taken before he does something really stupid that will result in more than just the disgraceful behavior he has already exhibited.
As to the callers in talk radio, who with few exceptions, were men, that felt somehow this woman did not have the right to breastfeed in public I have no idea what to say. It is obvious that we, as Kentuckians are backward, but I truly did not realize just how much we are until today. I heard the blatant she has no right to even have the baby out in public until it two years old, to the possibility of seeing a breast will turn on my eleven year old, to take the baby outside, to just wait 30 minutes and then feed, to feed it in the bathroom. Now with going into much of it, I will point out the following:
- come on folks, this is McDonald’s – known as a kids happy kind of place, complete with clowns and happy meals
- a little bit of talking to an eleven year old about nature will remedy that, besides a mom feeding a babe is not so much sexy as just lovely thing
- it was hot today
- baby is starting to cry and say hungry, you don’t wait 30 minutes
- would you want to eat in the bathroom at a McDonald’s just off the interstate?
- and obviously, as the state that ranks 50th in percentage of breast feed infants, we as a commonwealth really need some additional education on the matter
For those that know me, this may sound out of character. It really isn’t. I know that if children are misbehaving in a nice upscale high dollar restaurant I think it is in appropriate. Everyone should have some consideration and either have well-behaved children for such, be willing to leave or at least take the child outside if not, but even in that case, there should be nothing that stands between a mother and her infant child being feed. So, yes, this one has really gotten in my crawl.
