Angry Canadian mums take breast-feeding to the mall
By ANIFriday, January 28, 2011
WASHINGTON - About a hundred mothers in Montreal staged a ‘nurse-in’ protest at a downtown shopping complex, breast-feeding simultaneously before a crowd of reporters, mall security guards and passers-by.
They said that the protest was retribution for a store that had thrown out a mother for breast-feeding earlier this month.
It all started when a 36-year-old mother of three was stopped by a children’s clothing store in the mall on Jan. 5 when she fed her youngest baby under a blanket.
The humiliated mother, Shannon Smith quickly turned to anger and created a blog, breastfortheweary.com, the next day.
“I’m pissed. My older kids were sitting in their stroller watching the movie when my youngest got hungry. So I fed her. She’s 5 months old, and she eats breast milk. From my actual breast. Shocking, I know!” she wrote on her blog.
With just the one post, the blog quickly started gathering hits-almost 7,000 so far. A day later, a Facebook group was created to organize the nurse-in for Jan 19, reports AOL.
Many commentators compared breast-feeding to eating lunch and even urinating, even saying it should happen in bathrooms.
Parents fought back, arguing that babies deserve to eat whenever and wherever they are hungry, and that breast-feeding is convenient and healthy.
“I think that, basically, you should be able to do it anytime and anywhere,” said Frances Moxant, as she fed the youngest of her four children.
“Even my parish priest tells us to go ahead and do it in church. Jesus was breast-fed-he wasn’t bottle-fed. So it’s definitely all right,” she added.
Smith said she was happy with the turnout, especially with the many dads and grandparents who stood nearby. She said she had been shocked by the frenzied response to her blog, but tried not to read too much into the negative comments.
“I figure a lot of people just don’t care. A lot of people are pro-breast-feeding, and they don’t talk about it because they just think it’s normal,” she said.
Meanwhile, the clothing store has apologized to Smith, blaming the mistake on a poorly trained new employee. (ANI)
