A new mum has organised a breast feeding “sit-in” after being told to stop nursing her baby son in an Oxford department store.
Mother-of-two Emily John organised the protest in anger after being asked by staff to stop feeding four-week-old Jacob in Debenhams on Saturday.
Oh, oh! More brealots. But wait!
Debenhams apologised and said it was an “isolated incident” where staff got its policy wrong.
So, the sit-in’s off, then?
The sit-in is set to take place this Saturday at 11am. A Debenhams spokesman said staff at the store were now working to make the event a “celebration” of breast feeding.
*sigh*
Well, of course! After all, if no-one sees you exercise your rights, do you even have them? It’s the new philosophical thought experiment of our time!
Comments are pretty much as you’d expect:
Andrew:Oxford says…
Is this really wise? Not only has this young mum had her home address (near enough) published in the paper, half of Oxfordshire now knows she won’t be at home at 11am on Saturday…
As to getting the baps out for the babies. There’s a restaurant on the 3rd floor and a coffee bar on the 1st floor. There’s also a seating area on the 3rd floor adjacent to the loos. I’m not sure if the Oxford store has a Gold Card holders lounge or not.
Perhaps other ladies were waiting to sit down and try on shoes…
And oooooh, does he get some flak for that remark!
Later on, the lady herself enters the fray:
Emily_J says…
I wanted to update this a little as the interview with me was done before Debenhams had issued a full apology, and things have since changed.
After Debenhams apologised, my contact at their head office and I agreed that since we all agree that breastfeeding should be encouraged – including in public – that we would like to work together to celebrate breastfeeding.
As such, the sit-in is no longer a protest, but Debenhams is welcoming nursing mothers to a party to celebrate berastfeeding.
I fully accept Debenhams apology and they have assured me that staff will be urgently retrained so that this incident is not repeated. I feel happy that Debenhams can use our celebration on Saturday to demonstrate their committment to nursing mothers, and mothers and their supporters can use the time to gain support and be reassured that they can breastfeed in confidence in Debenhams from now.
I think pregnant women have a ‘right’ to urinate in public, should they so need; will Ms John be holding a similar ‘Pee-In’ in the High Street?
Or is breastfeeding special?
I hope this doesn’t become the norm; I don’t actually like seeing women breast-feeding babies in public places, so where are my rights?
Sorry John. You will need to change your name to Joanna or Amber to have any rights.
Oh FFS. Breast-feeding in public has been happening since the birth of the yooman race. Get over it. It’s a lovely sight. I presume you are not a parent?
Even some parents are a little perturbed by the modern fashion for doing it anywhere they please. What happened to modesty?
Anyone getting their tits out in public is fine by me.
I’ll be there. Not participating mind but just to checks their racks.
Yuk yuk!
For goodness sake what a load of old cobblers. A woman feeding a baby is not a turn-on and neither is it remarkable. Debenhams should have ignored her and let her just get on with it in the first place. Just about everybody else would have ignored it too and any member of the public who complained should have been told to do the other thing (politely). We then would not have to put up with this aggressive feeding mothers crap.
It used to be that feeding mothers preferred to go somewhere private. What is this mother’s rights crap. As a middle aged white male it would be nice to know what rights I can aggressively assert. Perhaps the right to make inappropriate sexual remarks? I mean, come on folks this is all bollocks. How about a bit of friendly and polite give and take here.
Given the huge number of paraphilias, I wouldn’t want to say it wasn’t a turn-on for someone…
I might pop along and whap my cock out
As long as you’re not planning to feed anybody with it. Debenhams staff might be justified in throwing you out for that!
Sauce for the goose! Masturbation is perfectly natural too, isn’t it?
Having lived a sheltered life I confess to being taken aback some decades ago when dining out with a Scottish colleague and his wife. He asked “Would you mind if Agnes fed the bairn?” Upon which she whipped her tit out and duly fed it. I think I managed to carry on as if it were not happening.
Have a heart. You may be surprised to learn that breastfeeding mothers don’t actually enjoy getting their tits out in public. They don’t want to offend or titillate people, and they don’t care about exercising their rights. The only reason to breastfeed a baby in public is if the baby is teething or hungry, and can’t be kept quiet by any other means, and the mother can’t find a private room. Would you prefer it if babies were allowed to keep on screaming? Besides, most mothers learn the knack of being very discreet. You have probably walked past dozens of breastfeeding mothers over the years and never even noticed.
There seems to be another reason to breastfeed a baby in public lately, though. And that’s as some sort of ‘protest’.
It certainly seems odd to do it in the shoe department; as the comment you quote points out, Debenhams in Oxford has two dining areas (though this raises the moot point of consuming only food bought on the premises) and a capacious seating alcove next to the kitchenware dept – though I imagine that location is in itself enough to give offence to some.
In all, the shop offers more suitable – and comfortable – locations to breast-feed than any other in the city (my sister raised two children in Oxford – she should know). In any case, it’s hard to imagine why any mother would choose a backless pouffe with no support when there are chairs available elsewhere in the shop.
I imagine the staff have a brief to move on anyone occupying the seats in the shoe department for extended periods, particularly on busy shopping days; this looks like a case of ‘my child comes first’ trumping all other arguments.
My money’s on Emily John making the news in a few years time as one of the unscrupulous ‘school run mothers’ who cause parking havoc.
As an ex-public schoolboy of a certain age… I have always found it a bit difficult and I have not really known where to look when a woman breast feeds in public…but I have always thought that it was me who had the problem.
I suppose this is hardly surprising considering I come from a generation where even to comb one’s hair in public was considered extremely uncouth. Heavily gravid ladies were not encouraged to display their “bump” either and “pregnant” was a bit of a racy word!
It all seems so long ago and really strange now but I am also left with a feeling that something important has also been lost.
Beats me why…when perfectly within her rights to do so…she didn’t tell the officious shop assistant where to shove it the first time around.
Going off in a huff and coming back with a gang of your mates to back you up is not what I would call “standing up for your rights” in any meaningful sense of the phrase. There’s winning a fight and there’s beating the loser to a bloody pulp just because you can.
I call that bullying and it reflects very badly on every woman who turned up to support it..whatever they called it.
A storm in a teacup. (Or D cup, if you like
.)
I’m a father of four breastfed children, and I know from experience that babes can be breastfed in public places in a perfectly discreet and decorous fashion. All that’s needed is a shawl of some kind, and nobody need be either outraged nor titillated.
As someone once remarked: “The problem with commonsense is that it’s not very common”.