Hello Dearest Readers,
I hope you are all well. I'm just back from Kindergarten Roundup for my little guy. I only cried a little. Matt laughed at me a disproportionate amount, I think. He probably feels differently about that. I am amazed at how much of public education is NOT free. I mean, we're in a position to shell out the $400/month to get "whole day" kindergarten, so we're quite blessed. But hello? 2.5 hours of school for "free" and if you want it up to 6 hours you have to pay. That changes next year in Oregon, and is not the case at schools where the majority of families qualify for nutritional support. But yikes. People. You want to know why America is losing labor competitiveness? It ain't the unions. It's the fact that WE DO NOT TEACH PEOPLE TO READ OR DO MATH. Sweet cuddly Jesus.
Anyway, enough of THAT rant for five minutes.
So this happened. It boils down to, if someone is the PR face of the company for your social media platform, maybe you should be sure they actually know your company's policies. So I fault Delta, not for their breastfeeding policies, but for their employee training. And no, I'm not going to boycott Delta. They have never asked ME not to nurse or pump on a flight. (And it's a dang good thing as I'm sure you can all guess.)
What I want to comment on is, why should any mom even think she has to ask permission to feed her kid? It's not the clean room at a microchip factory. It's a mode of transit. Kind of like a glorified charter bus. Here is a great story about nursing on a public bus. But back to my point.
You ever hear a parent call an airline and say, "Can I give my kid a granola bar on the flight?" Nope, pretty sure you haven't. If you are horrified at the sight of granola bars, do you get to tell another passenger to put a blanket over their kid's head while they eat said granola bar? Nope, you don't. Rather, in the country of free speech, you can say it, and everyone else will give you a big "you crazy" face and no one will dignify your complaint with a response.
It's food. Yes, it comes out of breasts. Yes, breasts are beautiful. You know what else is beautiful? Eyes. And smiles. And cheeks.
Let's grow up and move on and work on some ACTUAL problems now, please. Like the "public" education we are NOT providing to our citizens. Democracy is dependent on an educated, informed populous. China has a gazillion engineers to throw at Apple's iPhone factories.
Eyes on the ball people. Get over the boobs. Teach some math.
Much love always,
Suzi
PS - you know what works even better than a nursing cover? Not staring at my boobs while I'm feeding my kid. You gonna stare at my boobs while Robert eats a granola bar? Didn't think so.
