Breastfeeding Mom Claims That She Was Shamed By Police After Being Harassed At An IHOP

From Redbook

It’s 2017, but there is still somehow a persistent stigma against mothers who breastfeed in public, making it likely for them to be harassed or shamed by ignorant onlookers. For one group of Colorado mothers who fed their babies while dining out, their public breastfeeding experience managed to go from bad to even worse.

In a Facebook post shared by Breastfeeding Mama Talk, Tiara Wilson posted a photo of herself breastfeeding her baby along with a lengthy caption explaining the horrific incident. Apparently, Wilson and a group of her mom friends went to IHOP for International Pancake Day on March 7th. At some point, the nursing children became hungry – y’know, as humans are likely to do now and again – and a few of the mothers began breastfeeding at the table.

The women noticed a family of 3 sitting next to them who seemed to be reacting rudely to the sight of moms using their breasts for what they were literally made to do.

“While breastfeeding, that same family of three that was sitting next to us decided to snap a picture of us feeding our babies. He decided to make disgusting faces and snarky little remarks to his family,” Wilson wrote. “Then his family decided to take photos and decided that they would sit there the whole time and mean mug and again make nasty faces as everyone FED their babies.” Awful.

One mom got the IHOP manager involved, and here’s where the story manages to restore just a tad of my faith in humanity – the (male) manager was a stellar advocate for the women and decided to call the police on the harassers. According to Wilson, the manager (as it turns out, incorrectly) believed it was illegal for the other patrons to be taking photos of the women breastfeeding. Unfortunately, when the police arrived, the situation took an unexpectedly negative turn.

“The Aurora Police Department COP said ‘GO TO THE BATHROOM or USE A COVER if you don’t want to be bothered or have pictures snapped while feeding,'” Wilson alleged. “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.”

The rightfully irritated mother closed out her post by wondering how this sort of reaction was possibly okay and pointing out how unsanitary it is to feed a child in a bathroom. Beyond that, it is so not alright for the onus to be on nursing mothers to make other people feel more comfortable by hiding away while breastfeeding – and most U.S. states, including Colorado, explicitly allow moms to breastfeed in public without any potential consequences.

The Aurora Police Department investigated the incident once the Facebook post gained traction, issuing an official statement on their own page. They confirmed that the officers had pointed out that, legally, there is “no expectation of privacy in a public place” and they had not found the allegedly harassing group to be violating any laws. The police also admitted that the officers had made the bathroom suggestion, acknowledging that the officers “could have communicated more effectively” to avoid inadvertently shaming the mothers.

What a mess. On the bright side, there was one good outcome – the Aurora Police Department met with the group of mothers and their kids to clear the situation up and to reiterate a commitment to normalizing breastfeeding. Here’s hoping that, one of these days, the law catches up to common sense decency when it comes to protecting breastfeeding moms.

(h/t Babble)

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