We're coming up on the 1-year anniversary of me officially considering myself a lactavist. Last Easter a woman in one of my mommy groups was harassed while enjoying a family dinner when her baby wanted to nurse and restaurant employees took issue with it. I had never even heard of someone being harassed for breastfeeding before, and quite frankly it made my brain explode. I found myself stepping forward to support this woman and others like her.
Being involved in a nurse-in was a wild experience. Actually being the planner of the nurse-in is not something I ever thought I would be doing. I'm not generally one to take a "stand" and publicly show it, but then again... don't mess with mama bear's right to feed her baby!
A nurse-in generally happens at an establishment where a breastfeeding mother was mistreated. Yes, you are giving them money by purchasing something in order to avoid being in trouble for loitering... but it is to prove a point and then never go back there again.
I guess the event I organized was technically a "nurse-out" as we did it in front of the building rather than actually going inside. Old Country Buffet was too spendy of a stand to make having all of us go inside. Not like we could just order a $1.89 soda pop and chill out for an hour. We had lots of media coverage, and a good turn out. Overall a totally positive experience and I highly recommend being involved if ever one happens in your community.
Every time something like this happens to a nursing mother we have an opportunity to educate and change the view of the general public. Some people are beyond educating... but there are a large number that just have never seen breastfeeding before and they believe the crazies who think we all strut around topless shaking our milk makers.
After the initial hype of the Old Country Buffet incident I wanted to have a Facebook page with a more positive spin on things, and thus The Normalize Nursing in Public League (The NNIPL) was born. And yes... the acronym is like the word 'nipple' and yes... the logo is a giant boob. I'm still surprised at how many people don't catch that the first time around.
