NOT a can of worms: a clarification on the BF issue

I always feel like I want to explain this to prevent people from feeling personally attacked: The way a debate works is, whatever your position is, you stick to, stand by it, and fight it until the bitter end, whether you believe 100% in what you are saying or not. The point of 'winning' a debate is to make the best arguments, not to be 'right' or 'wrong' at the end. Beyond that, the point of debate in my mind is to GET PEOPLE THINKING. I don't care WHAT side of an issue you fall on, as long as you know enough to pick a side, to understand why you stand on that side, and to be able to explain why you are on that side. The BF debate was put up in a context which would take the issue of BF a step beyond, should it be allowed in public, to WHERE should it be allowed in public. If I had put up, "Should women be allowed to BF in public," knowing my circle and my 'regular' readers at least a little bit, it wouldn't have been much of a debate.

Frankly, there are limits to where it would be safe/necessary to nurse your baby - walking across an icy surface, riding a unicycle, driving... and what seems like common sense to some of is obviously not common sense to others. As far as swimming pools go, I think if a person really wants to stand in the water and nurse, knock yourself out. You wanna sit? Have fun. You wanna tell me that it's a violation of your human rights to be asked to get out of the pool while nursing? Depends. If it had been presented respectfully that the pool had a safety policy in place that included asking nursing mothers to not be fully or partially submerged to enforce "no eating in the pool" then no - I could see the pool's right to enforce their general safety and food policy.

Before everyone gets up in arms about that, let's try and remember that for every person like Gemma who taking a stand for her BF agenda, there is a person who (innocently or ignorantly - could be either) will come back with, then why can't my kid sit and eat in the pool if that baby can, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was someone who came along and said she should be able to do deep-water aerobics while baby-wearing because the child was BF.

However, if you are being asked to get out for the reasons Gemma was - because she might poop in the pool next, because she was making other people uncomfortable with her breast milk leaking in the water, because people didn't think it was appropriate to see an exposed breast, because people thought it looked 'bestial' or animalistic... then we're dealing with a completely different ball of wax, and if the only way to get your point across is to go to 'extremes' then so be it - I applaud Gemma' s win for BFing.

The unfortunate thing about adamant minorities going to extremes in any direction is that they can and do come across as zealots, whether they want to or not. Besides extremists or zealots, those in opposition label them as radicals, shit-disturbers, whiners, militants... and so on. People are afraid to speak up because they don't want these strong and derogatory titles affixed to them no matter how strongly they believe in something. But the radicals, shit-disturbers, whiners, and militants make the world change, for better or for worse. All it takes is for an idea to catch on and it can spread like wildfire, but not if no one's willing to talk about it, openly, passionately, and with enough disregard for social ettiquette to get the point across; whether I agree with the message or not, I'm prepared to listen, to learn, to broaden, to deepen my understanding. I'm grateful I live in a country where I'm allowed to openly debate, to disagree, to stage peaceful protests, and to make choices about policies and leaders without being beaten or sent to jail or fired from my job or martyred.

I don't believe ignorance is bliss. It's the radicals, shit-disturbers, whiners, and militants of today that will become the revolutionaries of tomorrow. Pay close attention or you won't know if you're ignoring Rosa Parks or Hitler.