University and Breastfeeding and Exams.

Discrimination? I don't think so

This news article popped up in my Facebook feed this morning, and I read it with a degree of disbelief.  The woman at the centre of the story insists that she is being discriminated against, because she wasn't allowed to take her ten month old daughter to an exam - a university exam.  She says she was planning to let the baby sleep, then breast feed her when she woke up.

Here's the thing.  I am a big advocate of breast feeding.  I really am.  I was disgusted by David Koch and his ignorant comments on the morning show earlier in the year, when he asked for women to "be discreet" about feeding their infants.  It was all a bit of a sideshow, and I doubt he's ever had more press for anything, which may have been the idea all along, or that could just be the taunting voice of my inner cynic speaking to me.  Anyway.  I do think women should be able to breast feed at will wherever they feel like it. 

This particular case though, could be the exception that proves the rule.  Babies have no place in examination rooms.  The end.  It is that simple. A ten month old is unpredictable, noisy, and on the move, none of this belongs in an exam that other people are also taking. This woman had a hiccup with her baby sitting arrangements, and by calling a breast feeding foul, is trying to circumvent university protocol.  The university allowed her to reschedule the exam, and I think that was bending over backwards to be accommodating.  Asking for a separate room, and comparing having a child to being disabled is laughable at best and offensive at worst.  Babies are a choice, and the limits a child puts on your life have an end point, bit by bit you regain a portion of your freedom.  Disabilities aren't like this.  This young woman has a serious case of entitlement.  The world will not stop for her because she has a baby, like every other parent on the planet she needs to work out how to fit her baby into her lifestyle.

Additionally, I have a clear memory of my second son at ten months eating pizza with the family on a road trip.  He only had about 8 teeth, but he could suck the topping off a pizza pretty well.  He was still breast fed at the time certainly, but it wasn't his only source of sustenance, or even his main source.  Supplementary is the word.

This shouldn't have been a story.  There is no story.  Just another selfish young woman who thinks life is all about her.