Actress Madeleine West is a mother of six who’s had her fair share of breastfeeding experience.
But in a recent blog for Kidspot, the 36-year-old Wrong Girl star shared what was by far her worst breastfeeding experience.
When she was nursing her twins, now-two years-old, at a local park, she was met with a double whammy of inappropriateness – a middle aged woman who gave her a “disgusted” look and worse, the woman’s middle-aged partner, who looked on sleazily.
When the woman turned to her partner “to share her disgust”, she found he had “craftily slipped on his reflective sunglasses to get a closer look at my boobs undetected.”
“I’m not stupid, and neither was she, his intent was pretty clear. He received a sharp elbow to the ribs for his trouble and she stormed off, leaving him to throw me a sheepish smile.”
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From the way that Madeleine West describes it, there's no doubt that the man in the park behaved in a sleazy manner. But if there's a double standard I'd also like to point to women who have forced/shamed restaurant owners because they didn't feel it appropriate to have women breast feeding in their restaurants. Or women who could pump and bottle breast milk (keeps 8 days in fridge and three months in freezer) if they want to feed their babies in public.
What about the rights of that woman in the park not to have to see it?
Quite simply, the woman in the park has every right to turn away and not look at it. She has every right to look anywhere else that surrounds her. She doesn't have the right to tell a baby to stop eating or to tell a mother to adopt a feeding practice that takes a lot more work, simply so she can enjoy the convenience of not having to avert her eyes if she sees someone engaging in a legal activity that she doesn't like. Same goes for the restaurant owner.
For real? Are you deliberately being obtuse? She can look away, the breastfeeding mothers right to feed her baby as needed is protected by law, we all know that by now. Why should a helpless infant go hungry because someone doesn't like to look at a boob? I think there is something wrong with someone who would look down on a mother happily feeding her baby (with boob or bottle) anyway.
The right for two babies to eat far supercedes the woman's right to not have to see it.
If she didn't want to see it, she could turn her head in a different direction for 10 minutes.
Yes breast milk stores well in a fridge but Try pumping milk for two babies and lugging enough with you to the park and making sure it doesn't go off. Why would you bother when you literally make the milk? Drinking from the breast is preferable to a teat (when possible). It is always sanitary and at the right temperature and the immune properties are not lost. After feeding twins, it's likely she would likely leak all over the place anyway if they were due for a feed.
Women have been breastfeeding for thousands of years. It is literally helped us survive as a species. People need to get comfortable with it. Baby eats from a boob. End of story.
Why would I or any other mother go to the trouble of pumping before a trip to the park? Or a restaurant? Or anywhere! As a very busy mum of 3, I don't have the time, energy or inclination to pump before every outing! I also don't have the luxury of always choosing where I breastfeed. If Miss 3 or Miss 5 need to be somewhere and baby needs feeding at that same time, I'm not particularly 'wanting to feed in public', I'm feeding her because she's due for a drink!
Also, expressed milk can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 48-72hrs according to the ABA, not 8 days!!
West and Bennett are a long term couple who are quiet pointedly not married. Why does everyone assume a couple with a family is married? Time are a changing people.
Well, I was actually wondering why this article had to state who her partner was in the first place.