Now that the sun is out and the ground is no longer covered with snow, Jeff’s been able to start his landscaping season. And when the landscaper is busy, the landscaper’s wife is, too. Lawn aeration is a wonderful thing. Doing billings for lawn aeration, as I’ve been doing lately, isn’t nearly so fun. But I’m back to blogging, and a few things have caught my attention.
One is Washington State’s passage of a law that protects women who breastfeed or express breast milk in public. Only 25 states do; in other states, women who breastfeed their children in public places can be subject to sanction. This is one of those realities that reflect the sinful culture we live in: women’s breasts, widely and prominently used to help sell beer, sports cars, and athletic events on billboards and in print advertising, are deemed “indecent” when even partially exposed in the feeding and nurture of their little ones. We’ve tolerated the use of buxom, scantily-clad young women in advertising, knowing that no restaurant or beer distributor is interested in having its product hawked by a flat-chested, plain woman, but we’ve expressed outrage when a woman uses her breasts for their God-given purpose: to lovingly feed and sustain her infant or toddler.
Let’s put it another way. Men, breasts were not made for you. Enjoy your wife’s, and God be praised while you acknowledge the beauty of the human body, but please be clear in grasping that women don’t have breasts to titillate you while you decide between Carl’s Jr. or Hooters, Bud Light or Coors, NASCAR or boxing.
As a former breastfeeding mom, I considered that my primary responsibility in feeding my children was their well-being; at no time did I feel charged with protecting men from their own lust. No other woman ought to, either. A bittersweet kudos, then, to the State of Washington for stating what really ought to never need establishing — that women who breastfeed their children in public should never be harassed, persecuted, or shamed. And unless you’re willing to take your meals in a public bathroom, think hard about expecting a nursing mom to appease your discomfort by taking baby into the restroom to breastfeed.