Nursing at the mall and at mass

Yesterday, we looked at fitness spas for vaginas – something worth mocking, but not getting upset about.

Today we look at breastfeeding in public – something worth appreciating, but not getting upset about.

At Inside Catholic, Kate Wicker writes of nursing at mass:

I realized that if, as I strongly believed, nursing was a part of God’s plan for helping mothers bond with their babies and a way of using my body the way He designed it to be used, then of all places, I should feel comfortable breastfeeding my children in God’s home. Christopher West, the Catholic author best known for his insightful commentary on John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, describes a nursing mother as “one of the most precious, most beautiful, and most holy of all possible images of woman.” So why should I feel ashamed nursing in church — in the presence of the Most Holy Eucharist — but not at the mall?

Good question. My kids were babies I could pretty much plan a thing around nursing – not be design; I never held them to a “feeding schedule” – but after a while they found their own routines. Occasionally, particularly if I was shopping and not finding what I needed, or if we were out for day trips, whatever, I would nurse very discreetly in public. I only once ever needed to nurse a squalling infant at mass, but – the need being voiced – I did it, again, discreetly. Had I gotten up and taken the baby “into the back” or “somewhere discreet” I would have drawn the attention of the whole assembly and allowed the child’s screaming to disrupt their prayers. By simply remaining in my pew, the deed was quickly done and no one knew the difference.

People are entitled to their opinions, of course, but the debate about public breastfeeding always seems a little overmuch to me, since at its core it is about feeding a hungry baby, and there is nothing sexual about that. Too many people forget that “form follows function,” and get wholly caught up in something else. I’ve never had much patience for those who run around scolding women who are simply feeding their children. Discretion is the key.

Once, when nursing one of my children at a mall, had an encounter with a prude of a woman who came up to me, asked if I was nursing, (because, as I said, it was not obvious) and then told me I should “go do that in the restroom and have some decency.”

I told her she should go eat HER lunch in the restroom and see how she liked it.

If you’re really focusing on the mass, you shouldn’t even notice if a mother near you is nursing.

This dust-up reminds me of a man who once went into a loud, sneering critique in our church lobby about “people who need to use the missalette to recite the creed.”

If people are reading the prayer in a book, and you’re busy looking at them and judging, whose making the more focused prayer?

Brian Saint-Paul at Catholic Inside has some interesting pictures.