I was flying high with knowing my discharge date on Wednesday. Then my daughter came to visit and I took her outside to the patio because one of the other (male) residents wanted to play with her. She wasn’t feeling it and asked to nurse so I took her and walked several feet away, plopped down in the grass, turned slightly away and nursed her. Big fucking deal right? Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the male resident move his chair so that his back was facing me and I heard him mutter something about “awkward”. Fine. I’m sure he isn’t used to seeing a nursing child and doesn’t want me to think he is staring (I confirmed this later). Fast forward a few more moments when the staff member on duty comes over to me and asks if I can do that somewhere more private next time because there are males around and it just isn’t appropriate.
Anyone who knows me can guess that steam came out of my ears at that moment. 19 months of nursing in public and no one has ever approached me with a criticism or with asking me to cover up or go somewhere else. Really? This is happening right now, at treatment of all places? I needed time so I informed the staff that we could check in later about it and I finished nursing my daughter and then I took her and went somewhere else.
After she was gone, I took the male resident aside and told him what the staff had said to me. He reassured me that he didn’t really care and he knew how I was with breastfeeding and that he felt turning away was the thing to do with the environment we were in. I told him that if he felt uncomfortable, it was okay because a lot of people do because it isn’t a normalized thing yet in our culture and there is a lack of exposure to it. It was a really nice conversation (and then we talked about genital integrity and he wanted more information….YES!).
I then approached the staff member who had said those things to me and informed her of the Minnesota laws around breastfeeding and that it is not inappropriate to nurse my child in front of a male or anyone else or anyplace. That conversation got me nowhere. She was receptive to hearing about the laws because she hadn’t known they existed but she was insistent that there need to be boundaries in place in this treatment setting. After that conversation, a different staff member approached me and asked to talk about it. She told me she has had a lot of exposure to breastfeeding and wants to be sure I didn’t feel criticized but she also said that this is a special environment and they want to make sure everyone is comfortable. I restated the laws and that, while I prefer to nurse in privacy to eliminate distraction for my daughter, should the need arise, I will exercise our right to breastfeed wherever we are permitted to be. She said that they wouldn’t allow one of the males to walk around shirtless even though that would be acceptable in public because it might be uncomfortable for other residents so would I consider covering with a blanket if I needed to breastfeed around others? I said no, that doesn’t work for my daughter. She throws it right off, been there, done that. I then cut her off and said I needed to talk to the director of the program at this point.
So I did that the next day and got a great response out of that. The director validated my rights and also their concerns for comfort level of the residents. She asked if I was offered a room for my daughter and I to use, would I make use of it and I said yes, but if there was a situation where that was not immediately accessible and my daughter needed to nurse, I would nurse wherever I was and expect not to be told it was inappropriate or asked to cover up. She responded positively to that request and asked only if I would be okay with announcing that I was going to breastfeed so anyone uncomfortable with it could leave first. I said that sounded perfectly reasonable. I felt great that I was able to provide some education to people who had never worked with breastfeeding mothers before (strangely enough). I hope they will treat future nursing mothers respectfully.
Here’s the kicker: Last night, some of the girls were putting Nair on their legs, including the staff member who had originally told me I should nurse in private because it was inappropriate to do so in front of a male. There was a male resident (the same who had seen me breastfeed) in the room last night and he whipped his shirt off most of the way and tested out the Nair. He was standing around for ten minutes with a bare chest and did the staff member comment to him that this was inappropriate because it might make others uncomfortable? Nope. I guess because the male chest is not sexual and we in this country still think the female chest is…*sigh*
