Mom Claims To Unintentionally Breastfeed In Front Of Formula Booth, Prompts World Breastfeeding Rage Fest
Breastfeeding mothers already know to choose their nursing spots wisely, lest some cop start harassing you about putting your already highly sexualized boobs away because they’re not in a lacy Victoria’s Secret bra plastered against the side of a building. But 21-year-old Elicia Binman of Maplewood, MN claims she wasn’t exactly thinking about how it would look when she plopped right in front of an Enfamil booth at a baby expo to nurse her daughter Winnie. After beginning to feed, Elicia reportedly took a look around at the “ironic” setting and asked her friend Julie to take a picture of her. Then she posted the picture to Facebook. During World Breastfeeding Week. You know where this is going.
Babble reports that the image “is rapidly spreading across the Internet and prompting heated debate,” interpreted as a big middle finger to formula mothers. She reportedly posted the coincidental breastfeeding snap to her own Facebook with the caption, ”At the baby fair today and was sad to see tons of formula stands but none for breastfeeding so Winnie and I did some advertising ourselves.”
Circling back around, Elicia, who was wearing a flower wreath in her hair after attending her local “Big Latch On,” says that she did not intend to get in formula mother’s faces about their choices:
If a women chooses to formula feed for whatever reason, that is up to her, and I for one would not criticize anyone for their choices, but I would hope everyone would have the opportunity to make those choices based on facts”¦. Formula companies spend millions on heavily promoting their products, yet those who support breastfeeding are not even permitted to make statements about the proven superiority of breastfeeding to formula feeding without being accused of bashing other moms. I think that is unfair and really sad.
Elicia shares that she is a fan of the personal blog, “The Alpha Parent,” which offers a guide on “How To Win Any Breastfeeding Argument” with many cited studies. Among the many comebacks are canned responses from hypothetical mothers asserting their reasons for not breastfeeding. There is also an entire additional post on “Why The Way You Feed Your Baby Is My Business” :
”My baby, my choice”.
”It’s got nothing to do with you how I feed my baby”.
”Live and let live”.
These are classic lines you’ll hear from some defensive formula feeding mothers whenever a breastfeeding advocate points out the flaws of formula. The message from those who give formula to their babies is clear: ”It’s none of your business”. Yet I argue that the way a mother chooses to feed her baby IS my business. Read on to discover what motivates my judgy stance.
Among the 14 points of reasons, the author claims “breastfeeding has been shown to have a protective effect against abuse,” makes the breastfeeding = less crime argument, as well as the lower IQ argument, and asserts that formula “undermines women’s lib.”
Elicia may have meant not intended to get all finger-wavy with this particular photo, but schooling formula feeders certainly seems to be a passionate past-time.
(photo: Facebook)
