I hope it’s handy, because if you’re like me, you’re probably going to need it after starting the day with this piece on military moms photographed breastfeeding in uniform and the ensuing backlash. It seems that there is no end to “experts” detailing exactly how disgusting and disrespectful breastfeeding in public is — likening it to mid-afternoon sex on a playground bench, or dropping a deuce in the middle of the mall food court. That is, of course, when they’re not busy shaming mothers who choose not to breastfeed. (“So many health benefits! Don’t you love your child enough?”) The only consistent message I can take away from all of this is that I should stay inside more. And off the Internet. And that people are the worst.
The thing is, these uniforms are worn by people, mothers in this instance, who are giving their time and energy, sometimes even their lives, to protect our nation and the rule of law. And, uh, several of those laws guarantee a mother’s right to nurse her child anywhere she and her child are permitted to be. So I call shenanigans! Which is Irish slang for “heaping pile of ignorant bullshit.”
A friend on Facebook articulately quipped that he sure hopes the same folks who love to laud soldiers as heroes will be quick and ferocious in defending these particular soldiers against this smear campaign underway against them.
I think we need to ask ourselves just exactly what it will mean if (when) they don’t.
*Hat tip to filmmaker and fellow rebellious mom Amy Ellison for the phrase “rant cream.”
