Remember this story about the American Professor who briefly breastfed her baby during class rather than cancel the first week’s lectures because her baby was sick? Since then that story got quite big in the US Internet media and there were a lot of predictably stupid responses to it but then there were some good ones, too.
Six Thoughts On The Case Of The Breast-feeding Professor over at Alas, A Blog!
The idea that childrearing should be absolutely separate from the work world is a leftover from the past, when a large number of middle class families could afford having a “wife at home” taking care of kids while Dad worked (and secretly drank). We don’t live in that world anymore; we live in a world where, typically, children are raised either by two working parents or by a single parent. It is inevitable that sometimes work and home overlap, and sneering or yelling at breastfeeding mothers is exactly the wrong reaction.
And The Bitch is Back over at Buffalo Mama (formerly, Bitch PhD). (Also re-posted here on Crooked Timber where you can follow an interesting comment thread).
So the main argument seems to boil down to whether or not one thinks that this professor’s students–those poor young things!!–were somehow ill-served by the fact that she brought her kid to class/breastfed it in class. (Some folks who are willing to allow–so generous!–that women with kids might have to occasionally bring the child to work Must Draw The Line at giving it the boob In Front Of Other People.) Because the students Deserved Her Full Attention or because they Might Have Been Offended. Somehow by bringing her kid to class/feeding it during lecture she wasn’t giving them What They Were Paying for.
blue milk 
I’ve been keeping up with the Feministe thread on this. So much mother-hating going on there…. it’s amazing. It’s full of, Won’t Someone Think of the
ChildrenStudents. A heap of the people there can’t see that the choice was not between (a) professor teaching her class with no distractions [except for students talking, tweeting facebooking, getting up and leaving etc] and (b) professor teaching her class while keeping an eye on her baby. The choice was between (b) professor teaching her class while keeping an eye on her baby and (c) no class at all.Not so much these days, because my children are older, and I can tuck them up on a sofa in my office with books and computer games, but back in the olden days, when they were little, I can recall several occasions when one or other of them got up sick in the morning, and we had to sort out which of us had critical meetings that day and how we were going to manage getting our other children to and from school. My heart would start beating faster and my breathing would shorten – classic stress stuff.
Unless you are lucky enough to have grandparents who are not in paid employment living nearby, or maybe an aunty or uncle, then the chances of finding emergency childcare that very day are incredibly small. I think Prof Pine made a good decision, balancing her competing responsibilities, and coming up with a viable solution.
Word, on the mother-hating. That’s big over at feministe sometimes. Even Jill can’t help her distaste for all things SAHM or baby from popping out now and then.
I have been following this as well and it’s been pretty disheartening. The Alas a Blog comments thread was just as bad. She brought the baby in once! Bf the baby for a minute (according to the students)! Sick baby did not crawl or sneeze over anyone! Get a grip!!!
Sorry. Had to vent somewhere.
I’ve been really discouraged by the conversations about this as well. As I told another blogger, my sniff test on whether or not breastfeeding is appropriate is to ask if bottle feeding the baby would have been remarked upon. In this case, I think it might have been–and therefore the real story was the intersection of parenthood and work, and not about BOOBIES!
The discussion of that intersection and the appropriateness of children in a work sphere is a multi-faceted and important conversation that we need to have. Because it absolutely sucks that Prof. Pine had no other options than to bring baby to class or cancel it. But that conversation needs to happen without shaming mothers who have to take the best of two bad choices and it ABSOLUTELY needs to happen without getting our collective American panties in a bunch over the fact that (gasp!) some women express milk from their breasts.
I have seen this (shaming) conversation happen on several mothers’ discussion groups I am a part of wherein work-at-home and stay-at-home mothers are appalled that sometimes work-outside-the-home parents will knowingly take their sick kids to daycare. The rhetoric seems to be that you shouldn’t have had kids unless you were willing to stay with them 24/7 for 18 years.
I don’t understand the perfect world in which the judgers seem to live, but sometimes you have to make the best of a bad situation. And, in the case of Prof. Pine, sometimes you find that you’ve become a national news story for it, and not because the nation is discussing the issues inherent in a society that does not value children and parenthood with its actions.
Breast feeding is the most natural thing in the world! When are people going to stop making such a big deal about it? Why was this even a news story??? Why are we even discussing this???
My thoughts exactly!
I agree, the controversy is stupid. From the other side, I have known students to take babies (especially very small ones) to class – i have babysat for a friend whose baby hit a very talky stage *just* before the end of the semester and couldn’t go to class with her any more, after an entire semester of being quiet (and often nursing) during class. Given that universities don’t generally offer childcare and full time full cost day care days aren’t suited for class schedules or covered by student aid, it can’t be that uncommon.
I commented extensively on the Feministe discussion about the Pine controversy, and it was extremely discouraging to see how Jill tried to downplay the breastfeeding aspect and turn it into a criticism of Professor Pine’s bringing her sick child to work. The whole shifting of the debate seemed disingenuous precisely because the controversy was all about the breastfeeding in the first place (the student who initiated it tweeted and Facebooked his outrage about the breastfeeding and never took issue with the child’s presence in the classroom.)
More generally, I’ve repeatedly found it disheartening how Jill seems to downplay and dismiss feminist issues if they are related to women wo are also parents (and WOC as well as non-UC/UMC women.) Just because she isn’t and doesn’t care to be a parent? Not sufficient reason to fail at having the backs of women who do and who are.
Right on Lolagirl! I could only comment once and then I thought maybe my brain would explode. Thank you for persevering in giving us a voice.
I was so disheartened, but not surprised, by the Feministe thread and Jill’s take on the situation. It seems like feminism has my back everywhere except when the issue of kids come up and then we’re (mothers) just dropped down a cliff. The idea that People Being Sick in Public is a Huge Crisis is absurd. Everybody goes out in public sick sometimes. Faculty show up ill, students show up ill, people load their kids up with tylonel and send them to daycare, something which I totally did not understand until I had a baby with his five millionth fever of the season and I was desperate to get to work (and as an academic I have a lot more flexibility than most women). (Let’s do the math; say you have two young kids. In winter, they could have as many as 5-10 fevers/illnesses between them, which would be conservatively between 8 and 20 sick days you’re taking, not to mention the random doctor’s appointments and accidents that result in er trips.) What was most disheartening was to see almost everyone involved in the conversation thrilled to rush down the lowest common denomonater without any analysis, context, or big picture whatsoever. It was all Bad Mommy Who Takes Her Baby to Work! Bad Mommy whose Baby has a PAPERCLIP IN ITS MOUTH SOMEBODY CALL CPS! Bad Mommy Who Endangers Other People’s Children with Her Gross Boobs and Babygerms! Wow. I mean, just wow. And no one seemed capable of seeing how this might be a social justice issue or a feminist issue, how many taking babies to work/school was actually okay, maybe even a positive thing. (Something that happens in family-positive, gender neutral, family-friendly societies!) I was *appalled*. And those were the comments at Feministe! Let alone every other random site in the world where no one has consciousness of social justice issues. And let me just say that I have taught undergrads at a variety of institutions for a decade and their ability to pearl clutch over almost anything is unparalleled. I teach human sexuality – you should the see the titters when we talk about being intersex, or circumcision, or the time I brought up dildos (totally on-topic). They blush so red it’s like they’ve never heard of these things, and they are almost all sexually active and live in an extremely sexually explicit country.
And Lolagirl, just to pile on the Feministe hate, I mean the woman in the bf “controversy” was presumably a white, cis professional woman with a reasonably flexible academic job (she would not have been fired for canceling class). Now let’s think about what happens to a poor woman of color when her baby is sick. Maybe this is actually quite a serious feminist issue? Maybe?
I think every time a woman, especially a mother, but really any member of a vulnerable/oppressed population is accused of not behaving in a “professional” way, we all need to take a step back and be *very* careful about what we’re saying. “Professional” isn’t a behavior, it’s a culture. *We* collectively decide what is and is not professional, so what is it we are saying about ourselves when we label someone as “unprofessional”?
I said this over at another blog (maybe at feministe?) but I’ll say it again here. I was a bf mother, and an academic. I’ve never brought my kids to class and I’ve never nursed in front of my (very conservative, sexist) colleagues. I’d bring the baby to class if I had to (I’ve considered it) but I’m not sure in this particular woman’s situation what I would have done. But you know what? My standards are not the only one that matter! I’m not actually the only person in the world. Mindblowing, I know.
Ugh, I think I’d better stop commenting at feministe. amblingalong has announced that I’m an asshole, Fat Steve is giving me examples of how I SHOULD write my comments, and bagelsan … well, bagelsan and I will never agree on anything. Because I’m an asshole, I guess.
I am tired, tired, TIRED of defending women to supposed feminists, and I am very sarcastic as a result. Sigh.
Amen to this:
“I think every time a woman, especially a mother, but really any member of a vulnerable/oppressed population is accused of not behaving in a “professional” way, we all need to take a step back and be *very* careful about what we’re saying. “Professional” isn’t a behavior, it’s a culture. *We* collectively decide what is and is not professional, so what is it we are saying about ourselves when we label someone as “unprofessional”?”
@Lolagirl, what’s UC/UMC? Sorry for my ignorance.
Upper Class/Upper Middle Class
I definitely got that you were writing out of extreme frustration in your comments. Because at this point there’s a cumulative level to that frustration as every flipping discussion of mothers and parenting turns into how they are so doing it wrong. I totally have had and will continue to have the backs of the child free/less, but I hate that the courtesy rarely, if ever, gets returned.
Aha! Shoulda been obvious. Thanks!
re: child-free having our backs: I agree. It doesn’t feel reciprocal over there, at least.
NOOOO! Tinfoil hattie you must not stop commenting on Feministe. You too Lolagirl. I know we are only stupid mothers and know nothing about the feminist aspects of childcare and need the ardently childfree to explain everything to us, I still feel we have something to add.
Oh and let’s not forget that the whole “incident” came to light because the student paper of her university was going to write a story in public about the “controversy” she caused by nursing in class. talk about disruption! talk about putting her body in the limelight! And of course her actions were condemned by the university. Gag.
Apparently, by the time the reporter got to the class, the “controversy” had gone from Uncomfortable 18-year-old dude Tweeting His Hatred Of All Things Titty (except, of course, porn – if he’s het, that is) to Professor Under Academic Review for Breastfeeding in Class!
No, no … not about breastfeeding at ALL!
Double-gag.
Ik, r?
After someone posted a link (Steve, maybe?) to that WaPo article, I was expecting it to be all about the controversial move to bring a sick kid to school. Lo and behold, it turns out the whole thing was started by the tweeting/Facebooking about and only about Pine breastfeeding during the class. Those little facts? Completely ignored until I raised it in my own comments.
Dang, it feels good to read these comments. Perpetua and Lolagirl, you are helping me to diffuse my anger.
Let’s narrow things down, shall we?
Eeeeyyyewww, breastfeeding! – feminist issue
Eeeeeyeeewww, someone brought baby to work! – feminist issue
EEEYYYYEWW, baby was SICK! – feminist issue, because the reporter does not show up at every class every day demanding to ask sick students about the “incidents” they caused in class
EEEEYYYEW, lactivists! – feminist issue, and SHAME on Prof. Pine’s nasty comments in that regard. Gee, white, privileged person – YOU’RE WELCOME for the entitled feeling you have that nobody should JUDGE YOU, EVER.
Yeah. No matter how anyone wants to slice-and-dice this into a different issue, this is all about women. Women in the workplace, women at home, women having to find daycare (Just! hand! your baby! to! a college student! right before class! the always need money! was one handy suggestion on some horrible commenting thread, somewhere.) Women feeding their babies. Women breastfeeding their babies. Inadequate family leave – this mostly affects women.
So yeah, this is all about women and all about feminism.
Hattie, that’s not feminism in action, that just us women choosing our choice to reproduce and then having the nerve inflict our nasty little spawn onto the poor and unsuspecting populace.
Amirite?
And yet, I just can’t quit on Feministe altogether. Why I feel the need to be sole voice of reason is probably in no small part a form of self flagellation, but I hope that at least someone who reads the comments might be persuaded somehow to see the other side.
OMG Lolagirl, I often “yell at” myself: “WHY DO YOU KEEP COMMENTING THERE? You are abusing yourself!”
and I take a break. Then, a “big” subject comes up, and I comment. Same rationale you’re articulating above. Thank you.
Also, I like reading your comments. And perpetua’s, and several others.
I also like reminding the readers that “feminism” is not just white, young, able-bodied, single, hetero, cis, single, child-free women. It’s not my problem that my existence BOTHERS them!
/rant; I will be productive now. (ha)
What a storm in a tea cup. We had a similar stink in Australia a few years back when a tv presenter breastfed on tv. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/18/1063625153238.html Reaction was pretty evenly divided though with lots applauding her.
This followed a parliamentarian breastfeeding in the house (she was evicted but it caused a huge stink and, more importantly, a rule change!).
And sorry, I just remembered you are Australian – so feel free to delete my comments! 🙂
Well, as. USian reader, I found your comments interesting! Thanks.
Thank you. I like your user name!
Thanks! It came out of the 2004 US Presidential elections, when people who thought there were illegal goings-on were branded as paranoid conspiracy theorists. So I decided to just wear mt heart on my sleeve.
this really seems like a textbook case where the general cause–normalizing breast feeding in public and making women’s normal existence part of what “normal” is in the workplace–is just. But the professor herself seems a less than sympathetic character and is in some large part responsible for the controversy. This wouldn’t have been a national story had she not written a fairly nasty Counterpunch piece excoriating and publishing personal contact details of an undergraduate newspaper reporter.
[…] In other news this week, there is a thread of doom at Feministe on a professor teaching a class in feminist anthropology who took her baby to class because the baby had a cold and couldn’t go to daycare, and part way through the class breastfed her baby. See all 649 (and counting) comments here: Breastfeeding sick babies in class. Blue Milk has some links to a rather more nuanced analysis of what happened: A couple of great responses to the Professor who breastfed in class controversy. […]
Thanks for the post, bluemilk! I still don’t think (from the student’s perspective) that kids belong in the classroom if their parents are teachers – and this is after having watched my LMC mother navigate exactly this issue repeatedly through my childhood – and Pine herself seems to be an asshole par excellence, but I totally, totally agree that the breastfeeding wasn’t a problem and shouldn’t have been centred in the “controversy” at all, and that people arguing that that wasn’t why Pine came to national attention are disingenuous in the extreme. Your post was much better (and yes, much less mother-hating) than Jill’s.
Tinfoil, I know we don’t always agree on things, but I’ve always found your comments on Feministe really challenging and thought-provoking, and your language and phrasing incredibly clear and concise and generally awesome.
If you have the spoons to keep it up in the face of the masses of BrainZombies on Feministe, I’d love to keep seeing you there. ^__^
Thanks, macavity – I genuinely enjoy your comments, too, and can’t really remember much disagreement between us! And if there is some, it doesn’t concern me one whit. I think you’re incisive and wry-humored.
The best thing about feministe right now, as far as I’m concerned, is that I “found” bluemilk! Yay, blue!
Tinfoil, I don’t actually think there’s much disagreement (and fuck knows we seem to be two of like ten people on that site who comment regularly and actually discuss class issues and motherhood), particularly as I slowly acquire more theoretical/alternative approaches rather than just coming at feminism from my own (admittedly and naturally limited) perspective. ^__^
And yeah, bluemilk seems a haven of sanity in comparison! I really regret that I was away when she was posting at Feministe.
I find it bizarre that a lot of people commenting at Feministe are all “it’s not the breast feeding that’s the problem, it’s the presence of the sick/distracting baby”. Breast feeding doesn’t happen without the baby being there to feed, and babies can’t only be either asleep or breast feeding. If it was normal to see babies doing baby things in more places, those students wouldn’t have been distracted!
The arguments on the Feministe threads I’ve managed to follow in full (this latest breast feeding one, the one about the disgusting entitlement of stroller wielding mothers in Manhattan and bluemilk’s one on capitalism and the exploitation of mothers that was derailed by arguments about the etiquette of bringing babies to weddings) seem to boil down to “I’m paying good money for this class/wedding/restaurant meal and it’s not fair that it’s being spoiled for me by the presence of other people who don’t/can’t behave just like me, especially babies and their unreasonable caregivers who are usually their mothers”.
I want to say something about the earning and spending of money and what these commenters feel it should entitle them to, and their defensiveness about etiquette and professionalism, but I need to go and breast feed my babe…
The AU article details exactly how many buttons on Pine’s blouse were undone whilst BF-ing. But NO, no feminist issues to critique here, move along. Argh. I wonder if Feministe would have gotten behind a professor whose non-lactating cleavage was deemed “two buttons” too exposed by her Tweeting male students. What, sorry? That’s totally different, you say? Oh. I see.
The article was a bad tactical move on Pine’s part. I get why she felt compelled to write it, but a stupid move. (God forbid, after all, that a woman stridently defend her image). I find the idea that it hurt the journalist ridiculous. She’s a journalist, her work contact information and name is already public record. If you can’t take the people that you’re unwillingly exposéing exposéing you in turn, you’re in the wrong business.
I’ll go ahead and say it, because every discussion about mothers/parenting on Feministe goes this way, that of course there would be outrage about a professor having scandalized student tweets and a student paper expose written about her exposed cleavage. But of course this particular issue is completely different.
I just don’t know what other conclusion to make but that a contingent of the commentariat there does not see mothering and parenting issues as anything having to do with feminism, and that many of the aspects of mothering and parenting are seen as per se unfeminist. Take issue with anything the medical establishment throws at you during pregnancy? You’re just falling for the naturalist fallacy and should embrace modern medicine for all of its many wonders. Want to breastfeed your child? Ditto. Try to insist on a better work life balance in order to parent your child? Not feminist because capitalism is only awesome greatness and having a successful career should never take a back seat to one’s children. Become a SAHM? You are the worst, anti-feminist, sell out, tool of the patriarchy and should be deeply ashamed of yourself. Take your child anywhere outside your home? You’re infringing on everybody else’s right to be free of any reminders that children exist. Push your child around in a stroller? You are an over-entitled, attention grabbing, status symbol wielding person intent upon taking over the sidewalk and getting in everyone else’s way.
ARGH THAT HORRIBLE THREAD on “natural” vs “hospital” birth. It was bordering on misogynist fucknuttery even in the OP, and then the comments happened.
Also, the massive erasure of PWD that happens in most of their discussions. “Push your child around in a stroller? You are an over-entitled, attention grabbing, status symbol wielding person intent upon taking over the sidewalk and getting in everyone else’s way.” Like this one: if I had a baby tomorrow I physically would not be able to carry it for long periods. As in, even holding it up in my arms for as much as 10-15 minutes would put me at risk of dropping it because my muscles fuck up. It would be stroller or risk badly injuring my baby. But of course all people using strollers are lazy entitled jerks. Of course.
Tsk, tsk, Mac, no you’ve got it all wrong. The hating on strollers is all because they fuck it up for disabled people. It’s all about being allies of the disabled (unless, of course, a disabled person inconveniences them in their every day life, but of course that’s also completely different.)
So either stay at home, or make that 3 week old of yours walk. Nobody cares if your pubic bone/vagina/belly was split in half during childbirth, suck it up, pull on your bootstraps and quit whining.
@macavity – I had a ridiculously large “jogging” stroller. I used it to do all my shopping by foot, especially in snow – it had a nice high clearance for the times people didn’t shovel. For a while I spent a lot of time apologizing for its size.
And then one day I was on the train with it and a guy in a power wheelchair overheard me and said “We all take up the space we take up, and we all do our best.”
So I shut up and stopped feeling like me & my baby took up too much space/time/soundscape.
It’s never occurred to me to freak out or get huffy about children in classes, and that entire Feministe thread, as per usual when OMGCHILDREN are mentioned there, is like another planet.
I had colleagues at uni who brought young children to class back in the 1980s, either sporadically or routinely, and those kids were ‘adopted’ by everyone in the class, and were more than welcome as part of our community. I’ve had surgeons come see family members in hospital with young children on their hip (for the people there saying surgeons can’t ever bring children to the job!), and it was a non-issue. I’d have zero issue with children of teachers coming to class, breastfeeding or not. And I’m now thanking my lucky stars that some of my teachers in my more recent degree not only allowed children, but went out of their way, when they found I was a new mum, to assure me that my child was more than welcome in class any time I needed to bring him.
Which reminds me that I always tell my students that they are welcome to bring their children to class if necessary. Very occasionally they do, and I’ve never had a problem with a child disrupting the class. The students… not so much.
I’ve also brought my own children from time to time. They helpfully give me feedback on my lecturing style. The most recent installment – “No offence, Mum, but that was really boring.” Why thank you, darling. ‘Though to be fair to said darling, I am lecturing in tax these days, and it can be pretty dry at times.
The first thing that hit me when I read about it was the number of people who felt entitled to judge Prof. Pine and tell her how she should have done it. As a parent, I noticed how, once you have a kid, it seems like everyone and his brother thinks they have the right to judge how you are raising your kid and living your life. (Of course, if you’d done it their way, other people would be judging you for doing it that way, and maybe even the original folks, too.) And it’s particularly galling, since you, the parent, have to make these decisions in a limited time with at most a WAG as to the consequences, and you, the parent, are the one who (or whose kid) is going to suffer those consequences, not the know-it-alls who feel entitled to judge you.
But then I started thinking about class and race.
Poor people (who, here in the USA, are always assumed to be African-American or Hispanic, despite the actual stats) face starker care-giving vs. job conflicts than Prof. Pine, but they don’t get sensationalized in the same way as Prof. Pine.
My theory is that “we” (and by “we”, I mean the upper-middle class white professionals, who, at least for the news media — and the blogosphere — are the people who count), _expect_ that poor parents are lousy parents, so when “we” read of a poor mother leaving her kids at an unsafe daycare — or just leaving them at home alone — we can say, well, what can you expect from _them_, we would never do anything like that.
But when we read about someone like “us” (see prev. paragraph for definition of “us”) who is faced with similar choices, suddenly the impossibility of how we have arranged our society hits us in the face. It’s like how police brutality towards the poor or crime in the poor parts of town are considered yawners, it’s only when one of “us” suffers what the poor folks suffer every day that it’s an outrage.
Sort of related:
Over at Feministe, there were a number of comments along the lines of “it’s Prof. Pine’s fault for being in a life situation where she had to make that kind of choice.” One said in so many words that she shouldn’t have had kids until she had a life partner to share (=take care of?) these responsibilities. Definitely a “I won’t ever find myself in Prof. Pine’s shoes” attitude. It sort of reminds me of the “it’s her fault for putting herself in a position where she might get raped” attitude.
This incident, and Pine’s response (including how she distanced herself right away from being a poster child for the lactivist cause ( I felt sad about that)) and the many negative responses that the incident generated made me feel remember why I largely strive so hard to compartmentalize my reproductive and productive lives. It’s because I’m afraid of the reaction when the two worlds collide. And they do. And I wish I could just feel safe about it. But there are people lying in wait to hate on you if it happens. Yes, I have breastfed while giving lectures before, but only after carefully considering the possible audience response and deciding if I could risk it. (e.g.: OBGYN conference- no, midwifery conference- yes). I wish I would have been brave enough to not give a crap in any situation, but you see the consequences. I have also not been fully present in many work situations because of my children, and I have pretended otherwise. I could give a thousand examples, and some internet person could shame me for them and point out—see, it’s exactly these reasons why women shouldn’t be allowed to hold any position of importance in our society. When I should have been studying or writing or getting enough sleep to learn my craft or do my job properly or with the right amount of professional decorum, instead a kid was vomiting on me and I was up all night changing sheets and stoking up the laundry machine. But shhhhh. Don’t tell. Motherhood sometimes must be concealed—as if it is some great, stigmatizing handicap.
As a straight male with an appreciation for the wisdom behind breast feeding (all three of my kids were breast-fed) and an ability to admire a professor who would think to take care of my class *and* her child when possible, I’d have of course not scoffed a bit had I been among the students in the room that day.
Now, had she been eating a philly cheese steak, I’d have been unreasonably distracted.
I hope my daughters have professors like her when they get to college.
[…] Within the online and print melee that ensued,discussion diverged around which of Pine’s missteps was most grievous. Because her child was sick, some thought she was negligent simply for bringing the baby into a classroom–both by exposing her students and also possibly worsening the baby’s illness. Then there were those who felt that babies have no place within a classroom–the corollary to this being that Pine wouldn’t be able to both parent and teach, therefore shortchanging her students. Some aspect of her story seems to have offended almost everyone, becoming a case study in how the juncture of work, class, mothering and breastfeeding is still a tinderbox of conflicted issues. […]