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Battles break out over breast feeding at Mormon meetings


lilwriter85

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Certain segments of Catholics like to complain about breastfeeding women at Mass. It's immodest, disrespectful, blah, blah, blah. They're usually older folks whose own children and grandchildren, they are quick to tell you, never cried at Mass, never were hungry at Mass, never fussed at Mass, and certainly were never, ever breastfed at Mass.

When I hear this, I remind the speaker that shaming Catholic women for having babies only encourages birth control usage, and complaining about mothers and babies is hardly a pro-life attitude. As uncharitable as this is, I admit to a certain satisfaction at watching them sputter as their heads explode.

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Well this makes the post by TW on breastfeeding make sense. I didn't understand where it was coming from last week.

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First the mormon church was up in arms because women wanted to wear PANTS to church.

Now breastfeeding your baby is a no-no?

Good grief. Are women allowed to do ANYTHING in church besides sit there, in a dress, and smile? :roll: :roll: :roll:

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In short, if you exclude nursing mothers, you are effectively encouraging women to wean prematurely, or banishing women from the public realm.

Maybe that's the point? :?

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Certain segments of Catholics like to complain about breastfeeding women at Mass. It's immodest, disrespectful, blah, blah, blah. They're usually older folks whose own children and grandchildren, they are quick to tell you, never cried at Mass, never were hungry at Mass, never fussed at Mass, and certainly were never, ever breastfed at Mass.

When I hear this, I remind the speaker that shaming Catholic women for having babies only encourages birth control usage, and complaining about mothers and babies is hardly a pro-life attitude. As uncharitable as this is, I admit to a certain satisfaction at watching them sputter as their heads explode.

A friend of mine got a rude comment about nursing in the cry room. She complained to the priest, and he put an image of Maria Lactans in the cry room.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello, I'm new and also LDS. Every single modern Mormon chapel has a "mothers lounge" with chairs or comfortable rocking chairs to breast feed and the rooms come with speakers to listen to the meeting. I have never ever witnessed a woman breast feeding in the middle of sacrament, but I have seen plenty of women (and a few breasts) during relief society meetings. Trust me, I have a very hard time having any kind of spiritual experience these days with my young baby (he's 1 and I breast fed him for about 9 months). Women, in my opinion, are not missing out by going to the mothers room to breastfeed.

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Ohhhh, right. Guys, discussion over. Evyorwin is Mormon and doesn't breastfeed in the service, so there's no issue here.

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So, one person in this entire thread has seen one mother whip her boobs completely out while breastfeeding and one woman on this thread has whipped her boobs out completely to breastfeed. Maybe not "mythical," per se, but certainly not COMMON either :roll:

Uncommon enough, I would suggest, that bringing it up in a public breastfeeding conversation is largely irrelevant and yet... that potential scenario (as if all women just want an excuse - any excuse! - to flash NIPPLE at unsuspecting menfolk who reportedly can't control their necks, eyes, or penises) almost always gets brought up by someone or other in conversations like this.

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Only once did I see a woman fully pull out her breast and leave it fully exposed for her toddler to walk over to it at Borders (a bookstore). The next day I went to an AP (Attachment Parenting) playdate and she was there! We are still FB friends. I've seen moms whip it out, oh wait that was me, for 8 straight years :) But she was the only one who had a full breast outside of her shirt without a baby attached to it that I ever saw.

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Hello, I'm new and also LDS. Every single modern Mormon chapel has a "mothers lounge" with chairs or comfortable rocking chairs to breast feed and the rooms come with speakers to listen to the meeting. I have never ever witnessed a woman breast feeding in the middle of sacrament, but I have seen plenty of women (and a few breasts) during relief society meetings. Trust me, I have a very hard time having any kind of spiritual experience these days with my young baby (he's 1 and I breast fed him for about 9 months). Women, in my opinion, are not missing out by going to the mothers room to breastfeed.

I'd agree that she's not missing out because stupid, boring bullshit is what happens in religious meetings, any person is best off beng as little involved with it as they can. But, if she wants to be there and her baby is not disruptive, she has the moral right to feed that baby when its hungry, anywhere, anytime.

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  • 5 weeks later...
Certain segments of Catholics like to complain about breastfeeding women at Mass. It's immodest, disrespectful, blah, blah, blah. They're usually older folks whose own children and grandchildren, they are quick to tell you, never cried at Mass, never were hungry at Mass, never fussed at Mass, and certainly were never, ever breastfed at Mass.

When I hear this, I remind the speaker that shaming Catholic women for having babies only encourages birth control usage, and complaining about mothers and babies is hardly a pro-life attitude. As uncharitable as this is, I admit to a certain satisfaction at watching them sputter as their heads explode.

When I had a nursling, the priest at my Episcopal church would have me sit right where I was and he brought Communion to me. Because that's how we roll.

As for Catholics, of all people, throwing a snit about women breastfeeding at Mass: Two words. Maria. Lactans.

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Interesting you should say that; reminded me of this after post about breastfeeding as a private sphere activity http://nopod.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/tr ... l?spref=fb

What next? Women won't be allowed to bring their toddlers to a café because feeding their children is a private act? :roll:

Breastfeeding is in many ways a private moment between mother and baby, but how is it really any different from a couple going out for a romantic dinner together? They both involve the consumption of food with loved ones, and even though they are private moments they can occur in public places.

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Do you spend an hour every couple of hours eating ham sandwiches? And do you require someone else to hold it for you while you eat?

I hated the idea that because I breast fed, I should have to separate myself from other people. Why should the nursing mother have to leave service just because someone else isn't mature enough to handle the sight of a breast.

I have small breasts and it was not difficult for me to keep myself covered but I still had people express dismay that I breastfed in public. Once I was in a mall's food court, covered with a blanket. A woman walked by and asked if my child was hot and wanted to know why I was covering his head. I explained that I was nursing. Her expression was one of extreme disgust and she informed me that I could do that in the bathroom. This was twenty years ago but that moment still upsets me. The woman could not see anything at all!

What I have discovered is it does not matter how well the woman covers herself. There are people who will get very offended that any attention is drawn to the fact that women use their breasts for other reasons than to attract males. Nursing rooms are nice for women who want to use them but it never bothered me personally to nurse in public. If I don't want to separate myself from everyone else, I shouldn't be pressured to do so. And I think that the presence of nursing rooms does encourage some people to pressure nursing mothers into using them.

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Hello, I'm new and also LDS. Every single modern Mormon chapel has a "mothers lounge" with chairs or comfortable rocking chairs to breast feed and the rooms come with speakers to listen to the meeting. I have never ever witnessed a woman breast feeding in the middle of sacrament, but I have seen plenty of women (and a few breasts) during relief society meetings. Trust me, I have a very hard time having any kind of spiritual experience these days with my young baby (he's 1 and I breast fed him for about 9 months). Women, in my opinion, are not missing out by going to the mothers room to breastfeed.

You know what's not pumped into that room? Sunday school and relief society. Whose watching my other child while I nurse in the little windows less room with my husband on the stand? Half those rooms are on the bathroom meaning you smell what's going on in the bathroom. Icky. By 1 pm our mothers room sinks from the diaper Pail. Do you know what else you miss out on in the mothers room? The Sacrament, the whole reason to come to church. I find myself playing games, facebooking e t c in there because it's so boring and lonely in there, something I never do during classes. So you go on ahead to the mothers room, I'll stay in class tyvm.

I once was a guest at a Catholic function. I needed to nurse my baby, and was about to leave when the Monsignor I was seated next to told me there was no need, children are loved, babies get hungry, that's how our Lord Jesus was feed, Pope John Paul II is a big supporter of nursing, that I was welcome to nurse whenever I was visiting the Catholic church. He was 80 ish, and so kind.

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Nursing rooms are nice for women who want to use them but it never bothered me personally to nurse in public. If I don't want to separate myself from everyone else, I shouldn't be pressured to do so. And I think that the presence of nursing rooms does encourage some people to pressure nursing mothers into using them.

That, and they aren't available OR nice everywhere.

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I was never able to breast feed ( my body just wouldn't cooperate), but if someone told me I should "do that in the bathroom" I'd have to ask them how they would like it if they had to eat in the bathroom. :evil:

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That, and they aren't available OR nice everywhere.

Exactly. In many Mormon chapel buildings, the nursing or mother's room is connected with the bathroom, so if someone's ward meets later, they have to deal with the smell of the diaper pail that hasn't been emptied all morning. On one hand, the Mormon church claims to be for families, yet if a woman uses her breast as it was designed, she's considered immodest, even if she's discreet about it.

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I think this is the issue of puritan modesty clashing with our modesty idea of women's role. Women are no longer stuck at home all day (where they can breastfeed to their heart's content), but we still hold on to the idea that a woman's breasts is a sexual item that must be covered. The result is this conflict. I'm not surprised this happened in the Mormon church. It's a branch that strongly pushes for women to have large families AND for "modesty". Then again, the Mormon church seem to be fine with marginalizing women to a certain extent in the church hierarchy, so it should come as no surprise they don't mind shunting nursing women away during church.

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I nursed my oldest when she was a toddler and I was pregnant with my second at Mass. We usually sat right near the front. The pediatrician we chose for our second saw me nursing in church and thoroughly approved. I recall, too, seeing a friend nurse her daughter at Mass one Sunday. The Old Testament reading that Sunday referred to nursing mothers. Seeing Linda nurse her baby right then was so beautiful and fitting.

I found an article several years ago by a Conservative rabbi saying that, of course, women should breastfeed during services.

Kathy Dettwyler wrote some years ago on Lactnet that she had noticed a large number of women in Utah exclusively pumping and bottle-feeding their expressed milk. She wondered if that might indicate a high rate of abuse, probably sexual abuse of the women earlier in life. Several posters said that Kathy was wrong. I think Kathy's observation may have been right, but her reasoning as to why wrong. Maybe those women exclusively pumped because nursing during meeting was so frowned on.

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