Each of my children went everywhere with me during their first year, including to Cabinet and Opposition lobby sessions, meetings, conferences, you name it! And I breastfed on-demand, leaving the room only when I needed to, not when someone else believed I should!
My children are now 17 and 14 so I am appalled that an attitude such as that displayed by a Saskatchewan Rawlco Radio producer is begin voiced today! What was said is, in some ways, not that big a step away from that voiced by Tom Lukiwski, Brad Wall, Kathy Young and unnamed others in an infamous video recorded 17 years ago! It is an attitude that conveys the idea that women should be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen, as opposed to in boardrooms, on TV news and in the political eye. What a disgrace for the station! And what a disgrace for our province! Here’s how the producer referenced Amber Jones’, Green Party of SK Leader’s, decision to hold her child during a media scrum:
Here’s an idea for Jones – how about she gets her own priorities in order before she starts worrying about what the government’s should be.
About 35 breast feeding mothers brought their babies with them to protest a News Talk Radio blog site at the Saskatoon station.
Note the different story in the newspaper coverage:
SASKATOON — Mothering and public life can and should coexist, say moms who held a “mother-in” outside Rawlco Radio’s Saskatoon headquarters Monday.
About 70 mothers and children attended the event, prompted by a blog post in which NewsTalk 650 producer Tammy Robert commented on a politician’s choice to breastfeed during a press conference. Her entry, entitled Children and the Places They Don’t Belong, created lots of debate after it was posted last week. In it, she criticized Saskatchewan Green party Leader Amber Jones’s decision to include her six-month-old daughter in a media event.
The StarPhoenix used ‘Mother-In’ in the headline’! And the story is more in depth. I love it!
I think the Leader-Post may be publishing the letter I wrote immediately after I read their story. Watch for it. It is neither so kind, nor so pretty as this blogpost!
the regina mom 
Alison
/ April 30, 2008I think the Leader-Post may be publishing the letter I wrote immediately after I read their story. Watch for it
Post it for us, Bernadette.
RSP
/ May 1, 2008In my opinion, confrontations over breast feeding in public are not about what is best for the child, nor are they about respect for women or for maternity. They are about the woman’s desire to be the center of attention and to exercise power over others. They are ego-driven, purely and simply.
bluetech
/ May 1, 2008Well RSP I have no idea if you are male or female, but you have no idea about what breastfeeding is about. If society is oh so tolereant and open minded about the use of women in sex trade and stripping, real moms should be quite comfortable with breastfeeding.No apologies necessary!
RSP
/ May 1, 2008bluetech:
“Society” is indeed “oh so tolerant” regarding pornography, strippers and sex workers, and I have about as much admiration for that tolerance as I do for egotists who breastfeed in public. So, what’s your point?
skdadl
/ May 1, 2008Soooo, RSP — you have this thing about breasts, do you?
skdadl
/ May 1, 2008Soooo, RSP — you have this thing about breasts, do you?
RSP
/ May 1, 2008skdadl:
Could you be more specific? What exactly is this “thing” you think I have about breasts?
Gigi
/ May 1, 2008Phobia?
Boob-o-phobia?
Gigi
/ May 1, 2008But seriously, WTF is wrong with these people?
When a woman is breast-feeding, you see the back of a baby’s head, not her boobs, and 99% of women use a cloth to cover even that.
Jesus, is it the very thought that “there it is – someone suckling and it isn’t me” that bothers them so much?
Maybe they were weaned too early.
Nutjobs.
brebis noire
/ May 1, 2008RSP, I’d love for you to tell me how a woman can exert power over others when she’s breastfeeding. If you’re a man, that’s pathetic reasoning, and if you’re a woman, it sounds an awful lot like jealousy.
I breastfed 2 kids, both in and out of the house. Luckily, nobody felt I was trying to exert power over them, because I would’ve been pretty bewildered at that reaction.
And truly, I have no desire to be the centre of attention, breastfeeding, or not.
And ego? Because she has both a baby and a political career? Get over it already.
deBeauxOs
/ May 1, 2008“In my opinion, confrontations over breast feeding in public are not about what is best for the child, nor are they about respect for women or for maternity. They are about the woman’s desire to be the center of attention and to exercise power over others. They are ego-driven, purely and simply.”
There you have it in a nutshell, folks. Your misogynistic fetus-fetishing neo-con fundamentalist view. Women, especially breast-feeding women have to stay hidden from view. Wouldn’t want anyone to be offended by the reminder that human beings are mammals too, right? And a woman better not make a fuss about her choice to be pregnant, to give life, to breastfeed, and to demand a healthy environment for herself and her children.
RSP
/ May 1, 2008Gigi:
Boob-o-phobia? No, far from it.
Brebis noire:
The “power” comes from defying traditional mores and making others accept that defiance. The degree to which this is actually occurring depends, I think, on cultural context. A woman in Africa, say, is not trying to defy her culture. In fact, she is cooperating with it. In Canada, however, where acceptance of public breast-feeding is considerably less widespread, I think it is fair to question the woman’s motives. Have objective circumstances in the West really changed so much since our mother’s day? Perhaps they have, though I am skeptical.
deBeauxOs:
Let me take your post one sentence at a time.
“There you have it in a nutshell, folks.”
The most significant thing about this opening is that it is not addressed to me. Rather, it is addressed to your imagined audience, from whom you hope to milk support with a flattering invitation to share in down-to-earth folk wisdom.
“Your misogynistic fetus-fetishing neo-con fundamentalist view.”
This is an argument? It’s not even a complete sentence. These labels have nothing to do with me or with anything I’ve written. You don’t know my “fetus fetishing” views on abortion, nor do you know whether I’m a “neo conservative”, whatever THAT means. (What it means, actually, is that I belong to a group, any group, that you trust your audience will detest sufficiently so that they’ll get right behind you. More pandering to your audience, no?)
“Wouldn’t want anyone to be offended by the reminder that human beings are mammals too, right?”
Wrong. As one who accepts evolutionary theory and who has befriended a fair number of mammals in his day, human and otherwise, I need no such reminder.
“And a woman better not make a fuss about her choice to be pregnant, to give life, to breastfeed, and to demand a healthy environment for herself and her children.”
Other than questioning why a woman, in our culture, would breastfeed in public, where have I disputed a woman’s right to express herself in any of these areas? Again, you appear to be dragging into your post every innuendo and association that you think might win the support of unthinking confederates.
If you can address what I have actually written, rather than conjure up a straw man that you feel comfortable knocking down, I’ll be happy to converse with you.
Alison
/ May 1, 2008DeBeauxOs, what is your problem?
In our society boobs are for sex and for selling things – it just totally ruins it to be reminded that they have any other purpose.
saskboy
/ May 1, 2008RSP and a lot of the freaks over at SDA would get along well with “sean”
http://www.abandonedstuff.com/2006/07/28/breastfeeding-in-public-is-normal/
Separated at birth even?
Gigi
/ May 1, 2008“Traditional mores”? Are you on crack?
This “tradition” is what, 150ish years old, in a tiny segment of the world’s population? Versus the entirety of human history?
If it’s not some Victorian boob-o-phobia as you claim, then I am inclined to agree with Alison: breast-feeding ruins your sexual objectification of breasts.
And dBO was speaking to a larger audience of confederates than you are at the moment. Don’t be so bitter about it.
Gigi
/ May 1, 2008Oh christ, Sask, should we be expecting a visit from “Sean” here too?
Can’t wait to ask him if Conservative values also include auto-asphyxiation while in two wetsuits with a dildo up one’s anus.
Whatever, I guess if he does it in a car or bathroom or in the privacy of one’s home, it’s all good.
Freaks.
What a Crock
/ May 2, 2008What a bunch of blithering idiots. The point was that it is disgusting to use a kid as a prop in a pointless political exercise, by a 10th rate politician, in a 12th rate party. Leave the damn kid at home where it ought to be, and you should too if you are a decent mother. when you and the kid grow up a little, then go back to hopeless politics. A bunch of breast feeding no-minds don’t change the fact that THERE ARE SOME PLACES WHERE KIDS DON’T BELONG!
tell me about it
/ May 5, 2008Re: Sean, I just checked out the first few posts from that infamous post… my LMAO line was: “its disturbing because of the fact that sexual body parts are being exposed out in the opening where everyone can see”
I wonder if Sean wears gloves everywhere, cuz I get the impression his hands are his only “sexual body parts”… hehehe
Finally, just one question: What makes a woman decent?
Is it doing as her man says, having supper hot for when he gets home from his hard day at work, or is it doing her duty of working and caring for children without any complaints or compromises while doing as her man says, keeping the house clean and having supper hot for when he comes home from his hard day on the oil patch?
I’d really like to know how to be a “decent” woman.