Marks & Spencer cafe: breast-feeding mother asked to leave & feed baby in toilets:OK?

Doc_N

mumps wrote: »

I am 60 something, breastfed my four children and did in restaurants, beaches, sitting in the car and sometimes in private but never because I thought it was something that needed to happen in private.

I think 60 something people might just be a bit more broadminded than you seem to think. Personally I find it surprising that the young women I know seem so uncomfortable about feeding in public but maybe it is because of incidents like this one. I never had a complaint when I was feeding.

I apologise unreservedly for any implication that this is an over-60 thing - though in my defence I did carefully use the word 'some'. I take your point entirely.

Elsewhere

mumps wrote: »

I am 60 something, breastfed my four children and did in restaurants, beaches, sitting in the car and sometimes in private but never because I thought it was something that needed to happen in private.

I think 60 something people might just be a bit more broadminded than you seem to think. Personally I find it surprising that the young women I know seem so uncomfortable about feeding in public but maybe it is because of incidents like this one. I never had a complaint when I was feeding.

I am also over 60 and second this.

If you want to go further back my Aunt Maud (born in 1908) told me once about how she used to breastfeed her babies on the bus. It seems to me people these days are far more prissy than previous generations about natural functions.

duchy

I'd think it's the opposite.... Older people didn't grow up with page 3 girls getting the girls out and the attitude was breasts were meant for babies ......and as a side benefit for the men at other times

In the seventies attitudes changed and breasts became about sexual exhibition first and feeding second- a complete reversal. I think it's younger people who can be the ones with a problem about public breastfeeding (for want of a better work-most women can do it very discreetly) rather than the older generation who weren't "exposed" to our media's boob obsession growing up.

Azari

rach_k wrote: »

I find your refusal to accept the that the two situations could happen at around the same time a bit odd. I'm not sure what the OP would gain by making something like this up. It seems quite clear to me that they were separate incidents. Your inability to accept that M&S could possibly have two members of staff who haven't understood the law is, quite frankly, ridiculous. There are examples every day of mothers being asked to leave or receiving abuse because they are breastfeeding.

As I have clearly explained but you obviously haven't understood, if M&S are doing this to such an extent that you can get two similar incidents reported in as many days, why not the rest of the time?

The idea that M&S or any other large retailer are regularly and very publicly flouting the law - particularly in a way that disadvantages mothers with babies - without a massive amount of negative publicity is absurd.

The OP still hasn't told us the branch where this alleged incident took place which I find extremely odd.

Why would M&S be any different to any other place, unless they have special scanners that weed out the numpties at interview?

And yet the OP said: 'Can you imagine this happening at Waitrose', which is what first set alarm bells ringing.

He seems to think that M&S will happily break the law or allow their employees to, but Waitrose won't.

I also find it almost beyond belief that the alleged victim claims that this has happened before. This implies that she was humiliatingly ejected from the cafe and had to feed her child in a lavatory and then went back to the same place and underwent the same thing again. Without ever making a complaint? Without anyone who saw what happened ever making a complaint? Without any friends or family every making a complaint?

The only way I can see this account making any sense is if, as someone suggested earlier in the thread, she was actually asked to leave because she hadn't bought anything in the cafe which would be a completely different matter. Still something M&S might want to take a look at but quite different from wilfully breaking the law.

olgadapolga

My local has it's own room with changing facilties, basin and a soft chair for feeding.

Sadly these sorts of rooms also perpetuate the need to "hide" breastfeeding mothers away.

Azari

olgadapolga wrote: »

Sadly these sorts of rooms also perpetuate the need to "hide" breastfeeding mothers away.

Not all women want to feed their babies in public.

They should be allowed to, not forced to,

Bantex_2

Sorry, but I really do not wish to share the sight and sound of body fluids being exchanged when I go to a public place to eat.

pulliptears

Bantex wrote: »

Sorry, but I really do not wish to share the sight and sound of body fluids being exchanged when I go to a public place to eat.

I suspect the baby would be completely put of its lunch the sight of such a bigoted fool themselves.

Why don't you take your lunch into the toilet?

RosiPossum

Sorry, but I really do not wish to share the sight and sound of body fluids being exchanged when I go to a public place to eat.

pulliptears wrote: »

I suspect the baby would be completely put of its lunch the sight of such a bigoted fool themselves.

Why don't you take your lunch into the toilet?

Exactly. Why should the baby have to eat in the toilets when you're the one with the problem? You can't even see the exchange of fluids at all! But other people can see you chewing your food. Maybe they should ask you to relocate if they find it horrible?

peachyprice

Bantex wrote: »

Sorry, but I really do not wish to share the sight and sound of body fluids being exchanged when I go to a public place to eat.

I'm sure nobody want's to hear you slurp and chew, but hey, that's the way of the world, humans eat.