THE GREEN(wald) HOUSE … (growing rosemary & raising a little wolf)

I’m a lactivist. I kinda hate that word, and that we have to put labels on everything these days. But, as my wonderful husband told me - “you have to stand up for what you believe in”. So, I participated yesterday in a nurse-in (nurse-out?) at a local Applebee’s restaurant because of all the recent hoopla.

In a nutshell, a mother breastfeeding her 7 month old while eating at an Applebee’s in Kentucky was told by a waitperson and manager that she had to cover her baby’s head with a blanket in order to continue to nurse him. She was already sitting in the last booth by the restrooms and facing the back wall. The manager said it was “indecent exposure”. She is an experienced mother (with 8! kids) and says she always tries to breastfeed discretely - so I doubt her whole boob was hanging out or anything. And, I don’t even think that is the issue - I think people are uncomfortable with breastfeeding (for whatever reason) even if there is not one speck of breast showing. People would rather see a bottle with an artificial nipple in a baby’s mouth than imagine that there could be a human nipple in there! Maybe it comes from this country’s puritan background - I don’t know. But it is a mindset that is in desperate need of change.

Thankfully, in my (a little over 2 years of) breastfeeding experience - I have never been discriminated against nor told to stop breastfeeding when in public (or even gotten any dirty looks - to my knowledge). Mostly I have gotten support - when people actually realized what I was doing. I think I am pretty good at nursing in public (known as NIP to my mama friends). I would guess that less than 30% of people I encounter when NIP actually know that I am feeding my baby - usually they just think the baby is sleeping with his face turned in to me.

My best moment NIP was when Rosie was just a few weeks old and Joe and I went out for our first anniversary dinner at the same ritzy hotel we got married in. We were near the back of the dining room and I was still getting used to eating and nursing at the same time. A waitperson came over to me and said “excuse me” and I thought “uh oh” and steeled myself for the confrontation that I assumed was about to occur. She told me that an entire wedding party was about to walk through the restaurant to the ballroom in the back. That’s it. She did not ask me to stop nursing - I’m not sure if she was hinting that she wanted me to stop nursing - but she was really sweet and I just said “thank you” and continued eating and nursing. The cool part was when the parade of people was walking through (I was facing them) one woman came right up to me and said “Good for you!” and gave me a double thumbs up! I was kind of shocked - so I didn’t respond, but that one experience stays with me to this day and even thinking about it makes me feel great.

Nursing is hard enough as it is. It takes a HUGE amount of time and dedication. I don’t ever want anybody to feel that they can’t nurse their baby in public. We really need to change the culture around breastfeeding. The more people see women nursing in public, the more natural and acceptable it will be. That’s why I felt it was important for me to go stand in front of our local Applebee’s with my fellow nursing mama friends and do my part to (hopefully) change the way people feel about seeing a mom nursing her baby. As one of the nurse-in signs said - breastfeeding is nature’s kids meal!