now don't get too upset with me yet. i'm not against breastfeeding or breastfeeding in public, but there is a time and a place and a way. today, we had a mandatory meeting at work. the leader of this meeting had brought her child, who is under one year of age i believe. not sure why this was the case as the baby was crying a great deal and very distracting to the meeting. at one point she is trying to give us the information as she held the screaming baby. i was actually happy when she went to breastfeed as i was really over the screaming and hopeful the baby would finally be quiet.
as she went to breastfeed i heard some of those in the meeting, those in the front row, asking if she wanted a blanket or something. from where i sat my view of the breastfeeding proceedings would be obstructed so no matter to me. my feeling though is if people are asking if she wants a blanket they are really telling her they want her to have a blanket. since this was a meeting we were required to attend and she was leading this meeting and thus everyone is pretty much obligated to look at her, i felt a blanket would probably be appropriate, appreciated and professional. i mean would she have done different if there had been males in the room or members of management at a higher level? really don't know her well enough to know what she might have done. she was unable to console her baby with her brief attempt at breastfeeding and people who were required to attend this meeting helped her with the baby...that is another story though.
it did get me thinking about breastfeeding in public. have we gone too far? for me, i see the health benefits for the baby and support breastfeeding for those who are able to. many people can't breastfeed, some have poor milk production, some have adopted babies, some work jobs that are less supportive and have to give up on breastfeeding. i do not feel these people should be ridiculed or denegrated for feeding thier babies by other means. my brother and his partner have adopted 2 babies and so obviously they can't breastfeed. thier kids seem to be growing and healthy. i survived being a bottle fed baby. have no idea if i ever got breast milk. so far so good.
when i am at work, i am in rooms with breastfeeding women all the time. i'm also in rooms with people who are vomiting or taking a dump. there are things i see and do at work that are just part of my job. would i love to watch people take dumps on my days off. no, not really. do i equate breastfeeding with taking a dump. not really either. it is a body function. taking a dump has never been seen as a thing of beauty. breastfeeding is seen by many in society as a thing of beauty. i think it's more beautiful than taking a dump by all means, but it's not always some beautiful event. there are some amazing photo's that depict women breastfeeding. first off, not every person is a thing of beauty ( though some may refute this also, the truth is some people are physically more attrative than others....or to be politically correct beauty may be recognized differently by different people). sometimes enough is enough. some things are more of a thing of beauty for those directly involved and less so for the casual observer.
of course, my demented mind thought of sex. often when people are in the height of a sexual experience for them it may be a beautiful thing, but do we all want to sit in the room having our coffee and reading a book while people copulate around us. some do, but that too is another story all together. i can't say i'm bothered much watching a women breastfeed in public, but i must also say there have been a few times when i have felt a bit uncomfortable. having not breast fed in my life i have to wonder is it so difficult to just toss a blanket over the breast and baby. is it so unbearable to some of these more open women to even imagine that there may be a few folks out there who are a bit uncomfortable with their breastfeeding in public. why must we all be so offended by the offended? there are just some things that can be done privately that as a society we've quietly encouraged of those around us. in the past breastfeeding fit into this category i guess, now it's come out of the closet so to speak. perhaps next the nosepickers will feel they have a right to pick and eat at will. people will floss on the bus and during movies.
these days we scorn those who aren't okay with it. it's natural and so it's somehow evil to not be cool with it. just like when you go to a lovely restaurant for dinner and someone has brought thier toddler who screams the entire meal. society is supposed to tolerate everyone else. children scream so you should not be upset at the kid for screaming all through a meal or a movie. it's just part of being a kid. we revere children in our society. always so funny as it wasn't that many years back when kids were "seen and not heard". i always seem to miss the boat. i was a kid when we were seen and not heard and now i'm an adult when kids can scream and fuss and i'm supposed to smile and coo.
i don't think women should have to run and hide to breastfeed and i realize that getting a baby to latch on is made more difficult while fighting a blanket. i think a happy medium would be to use decorum and sensitivity. those in the vacinity should be patient and tolerant of a mothers need to breastfeed and a breastfeeding mother could be understanding and tolerant that there are those who may just look away while they get their baby latched on, but would appreciate being free to go about thier business once the baby is happily eating. at that point is a blanket such an imposition? it's doubtful. now i still feel there are times that probably just are not appropriate for breastfeeding and a person could excuse themselves or have made previous arrangements. perhaps breast milk could have been put in a bottle for this meeting where the breastfeeding mom was to be the leader. that doesn't take much planning. then she could have fed her baby or someone else could have.
there are many opinions out there on breastfeeding so i'm sure to take a hit on this one if anyone out there reads it.
otherwise, it was a beautiful day and the sunset as you can see was lovely. took the dogs to the coastal refuge to catch the sunset. only saw one moose out there and it was pretty far off. rio caught wind of it.
this evening i also got in a swim which felt great. i've remained all knotted up in my back and shoulders these past days. hopefully, the swim helped a bit with that. had the pool to myself for those last laps which is always so relaxing, then the steam room. great way to end a day.
thought the sun looked like a flying saucer. the mountain in the background in many of these pictures is actually a volcano, redoubt i believe.
blossom is a bit tired after her walk out on the refuge. she and rio also got to go to the dog park before my meeting. i left them in the car while i attended the meeting. rio had honked the car horn three times before i had left the parking lot. silly dog. hopefully, she settled in.
i attempted costco after the meeting and when i got there the lines were totally short. by the time i got my 3 or 4 items and headed to check out the lines were weekend long. eek!! sad to say, i jsut left the cart and opted out. i know i'm terrible. it was too pretty out there to stand in line.
the ice was further out than last time i went.
watched the news tonight for a bit. a policeman from anchorage was convicted of sexual assaults. he had sex with several women that he arrested. he felt it was all consensual and they had argued that though he used bad judgement in having sex in a booking room despite being married it was not rape. i think he just lost sight of the situation. the women were put in a position of not feeling they were able to say no. they had been arrested. it's one of those cases that are kinda sad all the way around. there are some lines that get crossed in life. i'm sure it happens slowly and then one day it's all been taken too far. he may have been a decent guy at some point who just forgot who he was, the position he was in. mistakes that he will now have to pay for. hopefully, the women he abused using his position will feel somewhat vindicated and will be able to move forward with thier lives.
on oprah today she talked to this woman who had been severely abused as a kid. her parents often kept her locked up in a dog cage in the basement. she was found and rescued at age 7 after her brothers had been locked outside one winter day for punishment. they were not dressed at all for the very cold weather in chicago i believe and the one kid walked barefoot to the police station. her physical abuse improved but for the rest of her childhood years she went from foster home to foster home and suffered emotionally from all that. she was almost abnormally happy in her life of present. sounded like she has just buried all the crap of her past and is trying to just forget that part of her life occured at all. oprah was encouraging her to go to further counseling and deal with it all, especially as she has a young son herself now. perhaps some events in life are so traumatic that it is best to not regurgitate it all but instead bury it. burying painful memories is the body's way of coping. will she one day just lose it or will her method of pushing back those events be the way to go. you hope for her sake and the sake of her young son that it is.
we haven't improved too much on the whole foster thing over the years. it really seems like a rough road. some kids get lucky and get great fosters, others get tossed around. most seem to get seperated from thier siblings. it was interesting that she said her foster time was as bad as her physical abuse time, just more of an emotional abuse as opposed to physical. i suspec it was better than what her future would have been in the home of her birth parents. she always referred to them as her birth parents. sounds like she was adopted at some point, but returned to foster. that has to be rough.
fostering would be a rough gig, but i occasionally ponder it for one day in the future. probably would be way easier to foster dogs than kids though.
i should be pondering my bedtime. gets later and later every day.
made a roast through the day and then didn't really eat it. got busy, went swimming. it got to late for a real meal. i just made some mashed taters and ate the gravy. really just make it for the gravy, just like a make chocolate chip cookies for the dough.
the dogs love when i make meats as they tend to reap the benefits of it the most.
blossom is a bit tired and sore. i probably should let her rest a few weeks as after a few days she doesn't limp and then i take her out like today and i can see a slight limp again. she seems to forget the pain when we go for walks and wants to chase her toys.
such a beautiful sunset. there is no way to stay annoyed at anything in life when you are shown such beauty. it's so good for the soul.
of course, the dogs seem utterly unaware of the scenery.
got past the funky trees after a bit, but they always make for cool photo's. i seem to stop and get this particular tree every time i'm out there.
now don't get too upset with me yet. i'm not against breastfeeding or breastfeeding in public, but there is a time and a place and a way. today, we had a mandatory meeting at work. the leader of this meeting had brought her child, who is under one year of age i believe. not sure why this was the case as the baby was crying a great deal and very distracting to the meeting. at one point she is trying to give us the information as she held the screaming baby. i was actually happy when she went to breastfeed as i was really over the screaming and hopeful the baby would finally be quiet. 
as she went to breastfeed i heard some of those in the meeting, those in the front row, asking if she wanted a blanket or something. from where i sat my view of the breastfeeding proceedings would be obstructed so no matter to me. my feeling though is if people are asking if she wants a blanket they are really telling her they want her to have a blanket. since this was a meeting we were required to attend and she was leading this meeting and thus everyone is pretty much obligated to look at her, i felt a blanket would probably be appropriate, appreciated and professional. i mean would she have done different if there had been males in the room or members of management at a higher level? really don't know her well enough to know what she might have done. she was unable to console her baby with her brief attempt at breastfeeding and people who were required to attend this meeting helped her with the baby...that is another story though.
it did get me thinking about breastfeeding in public. have we gone too far? for me, i see the health benefits for the baby and support breastfeeding for those who are able to. many people can't breastfeed, some have poor milk production, some have adopted babies, some work jobs that are less supportive and have to give up on breastfeeding. i do not feel these people should be ridiculed or denegrated for feeding thier babies by other means. my brother and his partner have adopted 2 babies and so obviously they can't breastfeed. thier kids seem to be growing and healthy. i survived being a bottle fed baby. have no idea if i ever got breast milk. so far so good. 
when i am at work, i am in rooms with breastfeeding women all the time. i'm also in rooms with people who are vomiting or taking a dump. there are things i see and do at work that are just part of my job. would i love to watch people take dumps on my days off. no, not really. do i equate breastfeeding with taking a dump. not really either. it is a body function. taking a dump has never been seen as a thing of beauty. breastfeeding is seen by many in society as a thing of beauty. i think it's more beautiful than taking a dump by all means, but it's not always some beautiful event. there are some amazing photo's that depict women breastfeeding. first off, not every person is a thing of beauty ( though some may refute this also, the truth is some people are physically more attrative than others....or to be politically correct beauty may be recognized differently by different people). sometimes enough is enough. some things are more of a thing of beauty for those directly involved and less so for the casual observer. 
of course, my demented mind thought of sex. often when people are in the height of a sexual experience for them it may be a beautiful thing, but do we all want to sit in the room having our coffee and reading a book while people copulate around us. some do, but that too is another story all together. i can't say i'm bothered much watching a women breastfeed in public, but i must also say there have been a few times when i have felt a bit uncomfortable. having not breast fed in my life i have to wonder is it so difficult to just toss a blanket over the breast and baby. is it so unbearable to some of these more open women to even imagine that there may be a few folks out there who are a bit uncomfortable with their breastfeeding in public. why must we all be so offended by the offended? there are just some things that can be done privately that as a society we've quietly encouraged of those around us. in the past breastfeeding fit into this category i guess, now it's come out of the closet so to speak. perhaps next the nosepickers will feel they have a right to pick and eat at will. people will floss on the bus and during movies. 
these days we scorn those who aren't okay with it. it's natural and so it's somehow evil to not be cool with it. just like when you go to a lovely restaurant for dinner and someone has brought thier toddler who screams the entire meal. society is supposed to tolerate everyone else. children scream so you should not be upset at the kid for screaming all through a meal or a movie. it's just part of being a kid. we revere children in our society. always so funny as it wasn't that many years back when kids were "seen and not heard". i always seem to miss the boat. i was a kid when we were seen and not heard and now i'm an adult when kids can scream and fuss and i'm supposed to smile and coo. 
i don't think women should have to run and hide to breastfeed and i realize that getting a baby to latch on is made more difficult while fighting a blanket. i think a happy medium would be to use decorum and sensitivity. those in the vacinity should be patient and tolerant of a mothers need to breastfeed and a breastfeeding mother could be understanding and tolerant that there are those who may just look away while they get their baby latched on, but would appreciate being free to go about thier business once the baby is happily eating. at that point is a blanket such an imposition? it's doubtful. now i still feel there are times that probably just are not appropriate for breastfeeding and a person could excuse themselves or have made previous arrangements. perhaps breast milk could have been put in a bottle for this meeting where the breastfeeding mom was to be the leader. that doesn't take much planning. then she could have fed her baby or someone else could have. 
there are many opinions out there on breastfeeding so i'm sure to take a hit on this one if anyone out there reads it.
otherwise, it was a beautiful day and the sunset as you can see was lovely. took the dogs to the coastal refuge to catch the sunset. only saw one moose out there and it was pretty far off. rio caught wind of it. 
this evening i also got in a swim which felt great. i've remained all knotted up in my back and shoulders these past days. hopefully, the swim helped a bit with that. had the pool to myself for those last laps which is always so relaxing, then the steam room. great way to end a day.
thought the sun looked like a flying saucer. the mountain in the background in many of these pictures is actually a volcano, redoubt i believe. 
blossom is a bit tired after her walk out on the refuge. she and rio also got to go to the dog park before my meeting. i left them in the car while i attended the meeting. rio had honked the car horn three times before i had left the parking lot. silly dog. hopefully, she settled in. 
i attempted costco after the meeting and when i got there the lines were totally short. by the time i got my 3 or 4 items and headed to check out the lines were weekend long. eek!! sad to say, i jsut left the cart and opted out. i know i'm terrible. it was too pretty out there to stand in line. 
the ice was further out than last time i went. 
watched the news tonight for a bit. a policeman from anchorage was convicted of sexual assaults. he had sex with several women that he arrested. he felt it was all consensual and they had argued that though he used bad judgement in having sex in a booking room despite being married it was not rape. i think he just lost sight of the situation. the women were put in a position of not feeling they were able to say no. they had been arrested. it's one of those cases that are kinda sad all the way around. there are some lines that get crossed in life. i'm sure it happens slowly and then one day it's all been taken too far. he may have been a decent guy at some point who just forgot who he was, the position he was in. mistakes that he will now have to pay for. hopefully, the women he abused using his position will feel somewhat vindicated and will be able to move forward with thier lives. 
on oprah today she talked to this woman who had been severely abused as a kid. her parents often kept her locked up in a dog cage in the basement. she was found and rescued at age 7 after her brothers had been locked outside one winter day for punishment. they were not dressed at all for the very cold weather in chicago i believe and the one kid walked barefoot to the police station. her physical abuse improved but for the rest of her childhood years she went from foster home to foster home and suffered emotionally from all that. she was almost abnormally happy in her life of present. sounded like she has just buried all the crap of her past and is trying to just forget that part of her life occured at all. oprah was encouraging her to go to further counseling and deal with it all, especially as she has a young son herself now. perhaps some events in life are so traumatic that it is best to not regurgitate it all but instead bury it. burying painful memories is the body's way of coping. will she one day just lose it or will her method of pushing back those events be the way to go. you hope for her sake and the sake of her young son that it is.
we haven't improved too much on the whole foster thing over the years. it really seems like a rough road. some kids get lucky and get great fosters, others get tossed around. most seem to get seperated from thier siblings. it was interesting that she said her foster time was as bad as her physical abuse time, just more of an emotional abuse as opposed to physical. i suspec it was better than what her future would have been in the home of her birth parents. she always referred to them as her birth parents. sounds like she was adopted at some point, but returned to foster. that has to be rough. 
fostering would be a rough gig, but i occasionally ponder it for one day in the future. probably would be way easier to foster dogs than kids though. 
i should be pondering my bedtime. gets later and later every day. 
made a roast through the day and then didn't really eat it. got busy, went swimming. it got to late for a real meal. i just made some mashed taters and ate the gravy. really just make it for the gravy, just like a make chocolate chip cookies for the dough.
the dogs love when i make meats as they tend to reap the benefits of it the most. 
blossom is a bit tired and sore. i probably should let her rest a few weeks as after a few days she doesn't limp and then i take her out like today and i can see a slight limp again. she seems to forget the pain when we go for walks and wants to chase her toys.
such a beautiful sunset. there is no way to stay annoyed at anything in life when you are shown such beauty. it's so good for the soul.
of course, the dogs seem utterly unaware of the scenery. 
got past the funky trees after a bit, but they always make for cool photo's. i seem to stop and get this particular tree every time i'm out there.
made it out there just in time today. did want to hurry back a bit. no desire to run into all the moose that seem to chill out there in the dark in the thick brush.
rio didn't know where she was but she loved playing in the snow.
this brings me to the end of more photo's and more ruminating. hopefully, i haven't offended anyone while chewing my cud!!
Wow, you covered a lot of ground. The woman you describe in the meeting sounded selfish and unaware--maybe sleep deprived--it kinda makes you half crazy. Yeah, sensible to cover up.
ReplyDeleteMy kids bug the shit out of me if they scream. I want to scream back. Not in a restaurant though. That signals it's time to leave. I walk my baby while waiting for dinner, or the husband does. I bring extra things for them to eat. Or a matching game for the 2/3 yr old. It's just from being tuned in and single for so long myself that I noticed there were simple ways to work that stuff out.
You would be a very good mom, I can tell even from this distance. I wish I had pursued it when I was single. Much better if each one of us took one out of the foster system. The few foster parents are overwhelmed. And it's very simple to get involved. Find a good match--(that's what the social workers help with...)and if they are under 5 it's much easier to attach...
On so much we agree. A sum total of a man's life is not just the mistakes he made by misusing power. But the women he used need their peace too. I'd never be a good judge.
Yeah, that breastfeeding during the meeting story is bizarre. She sounds a tad clueless when it comes to propriety. That is the last thing in the world I would've done. I'm definitely a "run-and-hide" type of breastfeeder but part of that is because Isla would never allow a cover up and there was no way I was going to whip those out in public. Maybe if I had been raised in a society where that was okay, but I didn't. And I was definitely raised to be extremely modest. I really don't understand why she would try to run a meeting like that especially when pumping is so easy these days and allows you to still "breastfeed" without whipping boobs out in awkward situations. I didn't do that, but I was typically in the privacy of my own house.
ReplyDelete