Really?

Yesterday while I was waiting to pick Emily up from school I was listening to the radio. They were talking about this news story in which a woman was asked to leave a store when she was breastfeeding her baby.  Yeah, ignorance still runs wild. But wait, it gets worse.

The show I was listening to was  the Jim Richards Showgram on Newstalk 1010 (AKA old man radio) (You can download the podcast of the specific show in question - it's the February 13th show)

Now, I'm claiming to know how it is anywhere else in the world but here in Canada you are protected under your basic human rights to breastfeed your baby anywhere at any time and it's against the law to ask a mother to move, cover up or be more 'discreet' while doing it. If Mom wants to haul the boob out and feed the baby she's perfectly entitled to (in fact, in Toronto she doesn't even need to be feeding her baby because being topless is legal for women in public places - but that's a whole different issue.)   When I was breastfeeding Mary and Connor I did occasionally feed them in public. If they were hungry and I wasn't home I wasn't going to rush home. Mary refused bottles for about 5 months so pumping for her wasn't an option and because of the late correction of Connor's tongue tie it was imperative to my milk supply and his latching efforts to use the bottle as little as possible.

So, the host of the show said, while he had no problem with women bf in public he felt that the store policy of 'no eating in the store' should apply to all, not just people with hamburgers but babies as well. You know in case Mom squirted some milk or the baby spit up. His opinion was that mom should have left the store and gone out to sit on the bench in the main mall area. Whatever, that wasn't even the most irritating part of the show.

People called in to give their opinions. They were all men (no surprise here because no woman would EVER) say what these men said) and they all had one single theme to their comments. Respect. Show some respect for others and go somewhere else to feed you baby. Don't be disrespectful, take your baby somewhere else. Some people might be offended, show some respect.

Are  you kidding me??!!

The real problem in this was that I'd left my phone at home and couldn't even call in to tear a strip off these ignorant asses. Since when is breastfeeding a baby disrespectful?? I was also really mad that the breastfeeding advocate who was on the show. She was too 'respectful' and not once asked any of these asses why feeding a baby is disrespectful.

I don't normally go all ape shit about stuff like this but man, I was getting irritated by the whole respect word being thrown around when it comes to something like this.

My rant is over now. Have a fabulous day!