on nursing in public

"Can you stop doing that?"

"I keep looking over here--I can't help it--and every time I do I have to see your nipple!  I shouldn't have to look at that."

"You have that towel right there, why don't you cover yourself?"

"You wouldn't walk around without a shirt on would you?  That'd be indecent!"

"You shouldn't be doing that here!"

I've been nursing one or the other of my boys for 34 continuous months. I know the sweet privilege of cradling a glossy haired newborn to offer the breast, I know the fatigue of cluster feeds and growth spurts, I know the intense love that springs from a milky smile, and the comedy that is a nursing toddler.

A couple weeks ago a big bad dad at a well-loved neighborhood park was so uncomfortable with my nursing son (and so confident in his position) that he demanded me to stop.

But I didn't stop. I said, "No, I'm not leaving. I'm feeding my baby."

His discomfort quickly escalated to entitlement and bold arrogance. As for how he really felt, he didn't leave much to my imagination.

This angry man was yelling about my nipples. I was shocked.

To his barrage of insults I calmly held my ground and repeated, "No, I'm not leaving. I'm feeding my baby." It's all I could come up with.

To be honest, I hadn't given any thought to what I might say in defense to an attack like that. In the early days after Roscoe was born I may have brainstormed some clever retorts, but that feels like eons ago, and besides no one has ever said anything to me and so my guard was let down a long time ago.

As deeply woven into my daily life as nursing has become, as confident as I am that this is the right thing for us, as wholeheartedly as I believe in the importance of breastfeeding for nutrition and as an integral aspect of our relationship, having that man unload his inner thoughts out loud made me feel bad and it stuck with me for days after.

But why? Why do I care what some anonymous man thinks about the way I feed my kid?

I've invested and sacrificed to build these nursing relationships. I persevered through the early months with both of them, learning to feed the first under a nursing cover so that I could move about in the world with my baby in tow and, as my confidence grew, learning to nurse without a cover until there came a point that it only felt normal and right to meet the needs of my children for thirst or hunger or comfort whenever they needed me.

Wherever we were.

Building confidence, transcending social barriers, and overcoming personal anxieties, to find that sweet spot where I could effortlessly read his cues and know when he was hungry and feed him before he fussed with little more than a flip of my shirt, after all of that, finally, joy and knowing.

To then have someone bully and belittle me and call this thing that I've grown to love and believe in--that is as much a part of my identity as a mother as anything I've experienced so far--for him to single me out to express his disgust and his belief that what we do is in fact counter to mothering and offensive, that I am offensive and that I violate his view of women and the sexual nature of breasts, it all made me realize that perhaps I am more vulnerable than I thought.

That I am susceptible, that I am not as safe as I had believed and that maybe I shouldn't have thought so in the first place.

Shame.

Perhaps that is what he intended. To shame me into covering up, leaving the park, quitting nursing altogether.  I have no idea. He was motivated by something that likely had little to do with me or with what I was doing in that moment.

I didn't like how I felt afterward. I was confused by it actually. But, by giving it a name I gained clarity and then I wasn't shameful but empowered again.

It all made sense. It's not me. It's him.

I am good.  My kids are good. We are good.

Have you ever been reprimanded for nursing in public?  How did it make you feel? How did you respond?