Keown: The breast meal in Boston

When the state legislature voted to legally protect mothers breastfeeding in public, it prompted a string of posts on newspaper Web sites and blogs. Some were even read by people unrelated to the posters. When Gov. Patrick approved the bill last month, there were a few more.

They ranged from mothers, saying “about time,” and “it’s beautiful and natural,” to the uptight, saying “go to the restroom,” or “that’s offensive, put them away.” And one bloke complaining that nursing in view is like peeing on public property. As if he doesn’t do that.

I don’t know if I was ever breastfed, and I doubt that I will be at this point, but I do know that neither side has it quite right. I’ve never found much beauty in watching anybody eat, whether a baby sucking milk or a pin-up gnawing steak, but I’m not offended by it either.  

That, until now, a mother feeding her child in public could have been prosecuted for indecent exposure is ludicrous. That Massachusetts was one of only three states without protection on the books added another to that list of things that make us so proudly liberal in everything but rules. (Joining those prohibitions protecting us from casinos, alcohol sales on certain days, and shutting bars at 2 a.m. so we can get home in time to not go to church the next morning.)  

 There was a time in my giggling juvenility that a women nursing would have stopped me from ever finishing a book on a bus. Not because I wanted to watch — no more than I wanted to make cheap puns about how public breastfeeding sucks or that we should nip it in the bud and such. But because I was so unaccustomed to seeing things so natural that I’d keep looking over to see if she had finished yet.     

Fortunately I’ve grown up now. And reached a more developed conclusion. That so long as mothers respect that I mightn’t want to see their nipples any more than they want to see mine — and consequently feed with courteous discretion — I’d much rather a baby was eating within eyeshot than crying within earshot.

Thomas Keown is a freelance writer living in Somerville. He can be reached at thomaskeown@hotmail.com.