WHAT is the matter with people on the subject of breastfeeding babies in public?
A young mum, casually and discreetly feeding her baby on a step while  out and about is photographed by some critical troll who posts the pictures all over YouTube for other subhumans to vilify.
And another mum is reduced to tears when staff at a naval museum order her to stop breastfeeding in its crèche as “we don’t do that here.”
I really don’t understand the problem that some people have with what is, after all, the most natural thing in the world. Breastfeeding is acknowledged by health experts as the best possible start to a baby’s life. It’s a way for a new human to get all the best nutrients from the host body that brought it into the world.
Contrary to what some people – both women and men, surprisingly – seem to believe, it’s not an opportunity for a female to flash her breasts in public. Breasts were not created simply as sex objects to entice a mate, and any suggestion they could be used for something as crass as feeding is offensive.
A quick look at the natural world across all the species, reveals that they were originally designed by the “manufacturer” for feeding young.
Society is probably at fault for their tainted image is partly because we’ve allowed pornographic pictures of women’s bodies to become commonplace. In other words, we’ve stopped acknowledging the original description of what they do in favour of being simply decorative or exciting.
For many mums, breastfeeding feels absolutely normal when their baby cries demanding food. It’s also a further way of bonding that Nature made possible.
This is not to say that women who either prefer not to breastfeed or have difficulties with it are worse mothers or uncaring in any way. Far from it. Personally, I’m a great believer in whatever gets you through parenthood is fine because it’s one of the toughest times of anyone’s life.
No. What this is really all about is perceptions, a gross lack of commonsense along with a huge dollop of Jobsworth all exacerbated by today’s ease in getting any twisted message out there.
People who just “don’t like the idea” of breastfeeding sometimes feel it’s their God-given right to try to make women feel very uncomfortable about it. Well, sorry to disappoint, but the God-given bit is actually what they were created for. So get used to it.