Imagine trying to feed your child, and getting publicly harassed for it. This is the plight of many breast-feeding moms, so much so that it's actually exciting when a mom gets support for breast-feeding in public.
But the harassment took a turn for the worse for three moms in IHOP after the police were called.
Tiara Wilson and a few of her friends went to IHOP for international pancake day with their kids. When three of the moms started to breast-feed their babies, a man sitting at the table next to them started taking pictures and making faces at the women.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
"A mom friend that was with us decided to get the manager because this family was truly just so disgusted by us feeding our littles so much that it was obviously picture worthy, ???" she posted on Facebook. Her post was later reposted by the Breastfeeding Mama Talk page.
The manager was an amazing advocate for the moms, Wilson wrote in her post. He called the police, refused to give the man and his family their check, and stopped them from leaving when they tried to leave the restaurant.
But while calling the police might have seemed like the best decision — and honestly should have been — the officers who arrived just made everything worse.
"The Aurora Police Department COPD said: 'GO TO THE BATHROOM or USE A COVER , if you don't want to be bothered or have pictures snapped while feeding,'" Wilson wrote in her post. "This caused one of my mama friends to break down in tears because this horrible family is snapping pictures of her breastfeeding and that was their response."
Since it was posted to Breastfeeding Mama Talk's page, the Aurora police department's Facebook page has been overrun with comments from people who are outraged by the officers' comments. The commenters call for the police department to go through sensitivity training, which might not be a terrible idea, if you ask us.
The police department has promised to look into the matter, and those who run Breastfeeding Mama Talk's page are calling for commenters to back off the police department's page.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
"Let's hope for a positive resolution," they posted. "No need to make anymore posts to their wall at the moment ... Let's give them a chance to make this right!"
Yet, even if the police respond to this one instance, it doesn't stop the fact that breastfeeding mothers face this scrutiny all the time. It's a bigger problem that will take a lot of work to solve.
"How is this okay? Why is it that we are still shaming mothers for feeding openly," Wilson wrote on her post. "Why do we have to go to the bathroom to feed our littles? Do you eat your food in the bathroom? No. Are you eating under a blanket? No." She has a point.