Do you find it objectionable for a woman to drape a blanke over herself while breastfeeding?
Thank you, LongingForLight. This needed to be said. I don’t understand cmscms’s reasoning at all. Nursing Madonna pictures are beautiful and so are ordinary women who breastfeed. What could be more beautiful and natural than a woman feeding her own child in the way God intended?I beg your pardon? Breasts are not for sexual intercourse, like genitalia. They are built-in bottles. What is wrong with a woman using her God-given natural bottles in public?
Personally, I feel objectified when a man implies that there is something wrong with me feeding my baby in public. I don’t like having my nursing breasts - one of my most feminine and wholesome, family-oriented body parts - reduced to sex objects that ought to be hidden when they are being used as God intended them to be.
Your attitudes towards breastfeeding are not old-fashioned, either, but really relatively modern. I was raised by my grandmother who had children before such attitudes were the norm (she’s turning 89 this year), and she definitely indoctrinated me with her old-fashioned view that breasts were simply functional - and NOT sexual - when used properly (and by this she meant, when they were used to feed a baby). Covering up was not the norm in the early 1900’s in the US (and has never been the norm in some places) - there are lots of great historical pictures of mothers nursing, and they usually have the whole thing pulled out over the top of their shirt (I would agree, however, that this is no longer appropriate in the highly disordered sexual climate of the modern day). For even more old-fashioned examples, look at all the places where Mother Mary is depicted nursing the infant Christ . Do you really think people were frequently painting Christ’s mother doing an action that is not appropriate in public? Nursing Madonna pictures are a classic!
My apologies for derailing this thread, but I find this reasoning very offensive, largely because I do see such a strong correlation between men being offended by nursing (to clarify, I don’t mean just being a little uncomfortable), and men having disordered attitudes towards women. Breastfeeding apparently reminds men with a tendancy to objectify women that female bodies are geared towards children - and such men generally prefer to forget that sex is intended to have children as its consequence. Such men can view a woman in a bikini showing everything but the nipple, and think it’s great - but if she should show a mere inch of skin, with the baby over the nipple and most of the aereola, they will react with disgust.
I guess I don’t see anything wrong with a wife going out to see her husband play ball and spending that time as a family rather than in two different lives, if she has to feed the baby than fine, she probably isn’t even showing any skin (and I bet she didn’t have to feed the baby the whole game).
You and me both whatevergirl
No, it is really not that simple.
That’ll certainly draw some attention!And part of being a Christian is making sacrifices for mothers and their children, too.
Why is baseball a male activity? Why can’t mothers watch and enjoy a game too?
There is nothing wrong with ANY body function that God gave us. He gave me the ability to vomit when I am sick to get rid of the bad stuff in my stomach. Yet I don’t expect that I can do it publicly and people should have to put up with it. And if breast have absolutely nothing to do with sex, can you please explain why girls don’t develop them until puberty?
I agree it is one of a woman’s most feminine and wholesome and family oriented parts. That is what makes it so beautiful and why respect should be given to the process. I personally think it takes away from the intimacy of a couple with a new baby for the mom not to care who she shares it with.
Again, it’s about the BABY, not the mother. Babies poop in public, they pee in public, they vomit in public, they fart in public, they leak all sorts of fluids all over the place in public and they eat in public. It’s not a baby’s fault that his mother chooses to feed him with her own God-given milk supply.
And it’s not the mother’s fault that people are offended when she needs to feed him.So women can FEED the babies their bodies now have the ability to bear.
Lots of men usually ***do ***want to see more of them, if we’re talking low-cut tops, bikinis, nudes on TV, etc. They just don’t like seeing them being used in the way they were meant to be used. A woman wearing a low cut top is “hot” but a mother nursing her baby is “disgusting.”
I can’t tell you how often I have looked after a single mom’s kid so she could go for a walk and have a bit of time for herself. I never complain that my property taxes fund schools that I never had a child attend. My resentment is (as I have tried to explain several times) is why can’t there be compromise. Why is it becoming a mom means no longer having to have to think of others
It was a male baseball league. If they wanted some family time, why didn’t her husband join a co-ed league or something more family appropriate
When I am home with my nursing baby trying to pump for future use while nursing full-time, it mormally takes me 90 minutes across 2 days to collect enough milk for 1 feeding that would take 5 minutes if I just nursed. This is pretty unreasonable, and I even have a tendency toward oversupply and a $300 breast pump! Women with low supply or no pump would often need even longer. On the other hand, some women respond better to pump or hand expression, and would be able to produce the extra milk faster.
I guess I’m lost then. I have no idea what you mean by compromise. What is a mother supposed to compromise? “I as a mother owe society a child-free and breastfeeding free world so I will never take my child with me anywhere and pledge to pump or use formula when I do need to go out.”
I am totally clueless as to what you mean by compromise.This shouldn’t even be of your concern. Families don’t need to pick their extra-curriculars and activities based on who they may or may not offend if they ever decide to venture out as a family.
Normally I would agree in everything you’ve stated. But we live in a world gorged on sexual appetites of the flesh in every imaginable description.
Sorry
I thought you wanted to discuss the breastfeeding point because you were continuing the discussion on that point. I’ll stop, since it apparently isn’t actually of interest to you. My guess is others made the same assumption - that since you hadn’t asked us to stop discussing it and get back to the original intent and were responding on that tangent, that derailing things for a bit was OK with you.Well, you haven’t made an enemy with me. I admit I am frustrated because you aren’t answering the questions I ask…I’ll try again, although it seems you may not check back to answer:
It isn’t and I’ll show you how (apart from the fact I warned the example was flawed).
That doesn’t follow. What follows is that the child’s “right to eat” will be more important than social concepts of propriety, but it doesn’t follow that “propriety” won’t matter at all.
Not the Catholic men who expressed their opinions in this thread, let alone the women who agreed with them. Everybody except maybe a single poster had a problem with the negative examples you give. It may be true about secular men, but then, what can we say about secular women?
Since I want to be considerate of your feelings, I will answer your question. I do not have objections with women who cover themselves when they are caught in a situation where they have to feed their baby in public. For example, a woman might have a doctor’s appointment at 10. She tries to feed her baby at 9 before going to the doctor’s but something happens and she can’t feed her baby. She still needs to go to the appointment so she brings a blanket so that she can feed her baby modestly. Society needs to understand these things happen.
It’s standard operating procedure on the “Non-Catholic Boards”. A catholic will ask a question about a protestant dogma/religion/doctrine, then those protestants/non-christians that do answer will get ganged up on and beaten down.