Not Wallpaper

I think every nursing mom has learned how to blend in with her surroundings. Lean back, space out, and don’t dare make eye contact with anyone. You don’t want to notice when they avert their eyes. Just accept the fact that your adorable child who usually has enough charm to start a conversation with anyone in a thirty foot radius has now transformed the two of you into the social equivalent of a leper.

I have grown so used to being ignored when my kids are hungry. I have wanted so badly for any kind of acknowledgment, even negative, so at least I could stand up for myself. But I didn’t realize how thoroughly I have been effected until the aftermath of my experiences at the mall today.

Olivia was playing on the toy car rides in the mall after we had eaten lunch. We were in transit from my chiropractor appointment at 11 and Olivia’s cast removal at 1 so we were just wasting time when Elise started to get hungry. I moved over to the bench where I could keep an eye on Liv and started nursing Elise. I don’t carry a blanket, but I don’t make a big show either, it’s just business as usual.

While I watched Liv ride the train a group of about ten teenage girls comes over and they start taking each other’s pictures on the car rides and laughing. That’s when I noticed that one of the girls was staring at me. That’s not uncommon so I just glance up, grin, and look away. Business as usual.

Then the Staring Girl walks over, very flagrantly, and whispers to her friend and her friend swings her head around to gawk at me. My heart began to race, and I started to think of all the things I’ve prepared myself to say in case I ever needed to defend my right to breastfeed.

This is where things get really interesting. One of the girls notices her friends’ attempt to make me a spectacle, and she turns to me and waves. So I waved back and she said loudly and deliberately, “Your baby is precious.” I was moved. She stuck up for me. I thanked her from across the room.

Right about then Elise was done eating and it was time to be heading to Olivia’s appointment so I packed up my stuff. On my way out I made a split decision to thank that girl for being so kind to me. She helped me feel normal when I had been beginning to feel like a sideshow for doing what I have to do to mother my Baby. As I tapped her arm and said thank you I surprised myself. I totally started crying.

“Thank you,” I sobbed. “No one is ever nice to me. They either ignore me, or are rude to me, but no one is ever nice.” She hugged me, and highfived me.

After I escaped my emotional outburst and made it to the car I reflected on my surprise reaction. Why was I so worked up? I hadn’t even known how much hurt I’d been carrying around. That’s when I put a name to the way people have treated me, I’ve been discriminated against for being a breastfeeding mom. It’s a quiet discrimination, but that’s what it is and it hurts. It belittles, and labels and judges.

I felt an extra solidarity with my Mall Advocate– she was African American and she was probably noticing a feeling in me that she had felt herself before: a sadness and anger at not being acceptable they way you are. Thank God for my own little Martin Luther King Jr. in the mall today…  my hero.