Pro-life video of the day: Breastfeeding military moms disgracing the uniform?
by LauraLoo
Yes, we’re back to this controversial topic.
Air National Guard member Terran Echegoyen McCabe, who is shown nursing her twin daughters, says the act of breastfeeding in uniform is not new. What was new was the public nature of the photo.
Both Terran and the other mom in the photo, Christina Luna, have been criticized and applauded since the photos started circulating.
Are you for or against these military moms’ right to breastfeed while wearing their uniform? Or should they not do so “out of respect for country and uniform” since it is offensive to some?
Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
People who are offended by breastfeeding reveal that they’ve forgotten or never knew what breasts are actually for. Certainly, if a woman is a mother, she should be able to feed her child without it being offensive. I really couldn’t care less what kind of outfit she does it in. Breastfeeding is good for mothers, it’s good for children, it’s good for society. There are legitimate reasons not to breastfeed, but it’s beautiful to me to see a woman feeding her babies the way God intended.
There’s a lot of customs and traditions involved in wearing the uniform of the armed forces. For example, men in uniform are not permitted to use an umbrella.
That regulation does not imply moral condemnation of umbrellas, nor does concern with nursing in uniform imply condemnation of breastfeeding.
Much ado about nothing.
There’s nothing offensive about breastfeeding and I don’t see how being in uniform changes anything. Babies need to be fed and that’s what breasts are for. I don’t think a woman should go out of her way to expose herself though. Be discreet if possible but most importantly it’s a time for feeding the baby and bonding with her.
Soldiers don’t cry or suffer neglect when they don’t get to carry umbrellas, nor is carrying an umbrella filling a human need. But babies need to be fed and breastfeeding is the natural way to do it. If women are in the military, then breastfeeding in uniform is something that’s going to need to happen occasionally because the baby’s needs should be the priority.
I see mommies. I love mommies!
I see babies. I love babies!
I see military service-women. I love Soldiers!
I can’t watch the video and I haven’t followed the story, but this cover-image makes me very happy.
If we are enlightened enough to let women serve in our military, then let us be common-sensical enough to let our service-women live the fullness of womanhood. Let them have and care for their children as human nature designed us.
I’ve never understood why feeding a baby is offensive.
It has nothing to do with breastfeeding being offensive. What is unacceptable (and offensive to me) is using a branch of the US Armed Forces, as reprented by the uniform, to advocate a cause.
An umbrella isn’t an organ. Bad comparison.
Mostly, my reaction here is, why is this a thing? How on earth is two moms taking care of their children a disgrace to the uniform? The military–and by extension, its uniform–does not exist just for the heck of it. It has a purpose. To protect the lives of citizens and their families and defend the freedoms of our country. That being the case, it seems kind of moronic for anyone to claim these two women, who are serving both the military and its ultimate function in this picture, are doing anything wrong. Or even anything remarkable.
Move along, people. Nothing to see here.
Breastfeeding isn’t a “cause.” It’s a biological function designed for feeding newborn offspring, shared by all species of mammals.
Also, Peter, female army personnel are allowed to carry umbrellas while wearing their dress blues in times of inclement weather.
Joanna, the photo was taken for the organization the photographer worked for. It was promoting cause which you are not allowed to do when in uniform.
I am currently breastfeeding. I have problem with women who whip it out and don’t try to be discreet. Breasts are for children AND they’re sexual. They’re both. Sex is for making children but I don’t want to see people having it on the street. BF should be discreet and modest.
Once again, Sydney, breastfeeding isn’t a “cause,” despite what the military apparently thinks. It’s a biological function designed for feeding newborn offspring, shared by all species of mammals. And if you have a problem with boobs, you should be attacking magazine stands, not breastfeeding mothers.
Does the military intend to censor any photos of gay soldiers, so as not to advance the cause of LGBT rights? What about women in uniform at all – wouldn’t that be advancing the “cause” of women in the military? Where does it end?
FTR, I’m currently breastfeeding too. I wear a cover while nursing in public but that’s my personal preference, because I have an easily distractable baby, and he nurses better when we’re in public if I wear a cover. I have friends who can nurse perfectly discreetly in public without one.
Okay, let me better phrase this Joanna. Breastfeeding isn’t a “cause” but the organization MOM2MOM that the photos were taken for is. You are not allowed to use your uniform to promote any organization or cause. Your uniform represents the US military and that is it. I know this because my brother recently retired with the rank of Major in the USMC. He went to tea party rallies but was not allowed to wear his uniform because the US Military does not endorse any political affiliation nor any organization. Individual soldiers are not allowed to use their uniforms as a photo op for any organization. period.
Did I explain it better?
MOM2MOM is a support group — one on an Air Force base, no less — not a “cause.”
Omigosh, Joanna, get off the word “cause”. Its a GROUP, an organization etc… do you not understand this? You aren’t allowed to use your uniform to promote any group OR cause, mkay? Seriously. What are you not understanding?
And for the record Joanna, I don’t have a problem with women breastfeeding in public. I don’t think its okay to flaunt boobs in magazines OR while breastfeeding. I believe in modesty all around. Just because women do it in magazines or in their every day dress doesn’t make doing it while breastfeeding okay. I think modesty is a virtue our society should return to.
But thanks for explaining what breastfeeding is. I was seriously confused as to why my son has been noshing on my boobs for the last 3 months. What would I do without you?
Given you seemed to think breastfeeding was a political statement and not a biological process, I’m glad I was able clear up your confusion.
I think it’s a shame that women feel the need to be discreet or modest when it comes to feeding their children. Magazine covers are intended to titillate and sexualize. Bfing moms are not. and I would love to see any mom who “lets it all hang out” while bfing in public – I’ve participated in nurse-ins, hung around a lot of places frequented by crunchy moms, and have yet to see anyone breastfeeding for the sake of exhibitionism.
I don’t see any problem with this at all. I don’t think it’s promoting a ’cause’ and I don’t think they’re being immodest. They’re simply feeding their children which is a very natural thing to do. Breasts are nothing to be ashamed of. I’m confused as to why this is even an issue.
I’m disgusted that sometimes we’d go to the PX and they had a food court there, and sometimes we’d sit down and eat and there would be ALL THESE SOLDIERS-men AND women-and they’d be feeding their kids! Just feeding them while they wore uniforms-IN PUBLIC! How disgraceful. Just disgusting. Some of the male soldiers would actually be PUTTING FRENCH FRIES IN THEIR DAUGHTERS MOUTHS. IN FRONT OF EVERYONE!
I am uncomfortable with women and their children being associated with war.
Our military has other purposes besides the waging of war, truthseeker.
They were reprimanded for taking photos in their uniforms to promote a group. Not b/c they bf in uniform. Even if they had not bf for the photo they would have been reprimanded.
What if they took photos for a group that supported abortion?
As a woman I am upset when women demand “equal rights” but then use their gender to claim exceptions to the rules. (Yes I’m thinking about the stupid umbrellas!)
Yes babies need to be fed and should be bf IMO (currently doing that for my daughter myself), but it should not be used as an excuse to get around rules in the work place.
I have a problem with women whipping it out too, Sydney. Being modest and discreet seems to me to be considerate behavior. I’ve breastfed babies and it is a beautiful and wonderful bonding experience. But, as a woman, I do not appreciate when a female just lets it hang out, especially in front of my husband. Breasts are not just for feeding. They also can get a man sexually aroused. Let’s be realistic.
Breastfeeding in public, or “whipping it out”, is not immoral behavior. To do so shamelessly in public is great, since doing so isn’t a shameful thing. People are perfectly capable of being modest AND breastfeeding in public, since breastfeeding in public isn’t immodest.
And as for the “men get aroused by breasts, too!” comments, I don’t believe I’ve ever tried to entice my significant other by “whipping it out” and breastfeeding our kid. If anyone here has, I’ll retract this statement and concede the point to them, if not, I think they’re full of it.
The military has rules upon rules upon rules for what you can do while in uniform. Sorry, this is a promotional picture for a group and to pretend that it’s not – to act like these women were just set upon by people while quietly, privately breastfeeding – is disingenuous.
As for the modestly issue, it is most certainly possible to breastfeed in a way that is immodest. And I’ve seen women do it. Men do get aroused by breasts – even breasts being used for breastfeeding. Note the volume of “lucky kid!” and “hot mama” comments on that time magazine cover. Now there are definitely people who put no stock in modesty who would say, “who cares if men are aroused.” But the term still has a definition and objectively, breastfeeding can be done in a way that runs afoul of modesty. At the same time, the people who are just offended by all breast feeding in public and try to use modesty as an excuse need to get over it b/c it can and most often is done in a very appropriate and modest way.
“whipping it out”, is not immoral behavior.
xalisae, Women can ‘whip it out any time’ xalisae but in a man’s case it would be inappropriate to ‘whip it out’ in public.
Well, I have experienced a lady exposing her full breast while nursing and I didn’t appreciate it one bit. So, yes, I am offended by this and I think it’s totally inappropriate and insensitive for a woman to do that in front of another woman with her husband and family. As for nursing in public, no problem with it as long as it’s done modestly. But, this seems to have become a lost virtue for many in this culture.
Oh, and I almost forgot. This lady kept her blouse completely open while nursing the baby, which ticked me off even more.
And x, maybe your significant other might not get aroused by the booby. Someone elses might.
If so little has gone wrong in your life that this is what you choose to complain about, then you are blessed. But those of us who who have lived in countries where breastfeeding in the way you describe is the norm probably won’t be able to sympathise. It isn’t a big deal to people who weren’t weaned super young or who grew up surrounded by breastfeeding mothers. A mother feeding her child this way is beautiful. She shouldn’t be treated with contempt, and she shouldn’t have to skulk off and hide just because people in this country have forgotten that breasts are nature’s baby bottles first and foremost.
These women are not getting in trouble for advocating for a cause or group, they are getting in trouble for advocating for a cause or group the mainstream disagrees with. I have seen pictures of homosexuals kissing in uniforms used to promote lgqrszetc, I have seen pictures of men in uniforms used to promote guide dog services for vets, men and women in uniforms used to promote hire-vets organizations, women in uniform used to promote women’s ‘equality’. Etc etc etc. Are they *all* technically breaking the promotion in uniform rule? Sure. But when the only ones who end up getting in trouble for it are those promoting ‘unpopular’ groups/causes then it’s not the rule-breaking they are getting punished for, it’s the opinions expressed.
In what is arguably the most modest cultures on the planet, those that swath their women head to toe in formless robes and shawls, the women still expose a whole breast, in public, to breastfeed. In modest societies in the past, like middle ages Catholic Europe, 1st century Christianity, and ancient Jewism, women exposed their whole breast to breastfeed in public without anyone batting an eye. Yes, a breast is a sexual object to bring pleasure to both men and the women. Yes, it is a purely functional means of feeding a child. Yes, it can be both, humans have this totally wild ability to differentiate function based on situation. Which means a man can get titilated by gawking at a woman in a little bikini and not get remotely stirred by the swell of the exact same breast when it’s used for feeding a baby. If *some* men have a societal hang-up or personal inability to properly divorce two functions of the human body then that’s *their* fault, and not the fault or responsibilty of the women who *isn’t* disordered. If a woman walks around naked she must take responsibilty to the emotions and responses she understandable illicits from others. But if she walks around properly attired and someone *still* has an emotional/physical response to her than that is not her fault and the onus is wholly upon the person having that response. “Whipping it out” to feed a baby is 100% within properly attired by any rational, reasonable, Biblical, historical, or anthropological base, you don’t respond to an inappropriate, inaccurate, and wholly unacceptable societal construct by obliging it. No, *you* respond rationally and do not take onus upon yourself for other people’s *irrational* responses.
(*sigh*) It really never fails… I get busy with frenzy-like tasks aplenty, and then I return to topics about which every last wise instinct in me screams, “Stay away! Go not here! Danger, warning, Will Robinson! Beyond here there be dragons…!”
Of course, I muddle in, anyway!
God (and you all), forgive me…
For my own position: I see nothing immoral, inappropriate, or even unwise about mothers in the military breast-feeding their children. (I seriously question the wisdom of placing women in the military at all, or having society feeding the ambitions of women toward joining the military, but that’s a separate topic which is incendiary in its own right, which I’ll pass by, for now.) I do, however, have grave concerns about a sort of “naturalist/nudist” approach to the whole process in which the mother has no responsibility to be discreet and modest; that strikes me as little short of insane. I echo (and applaud) Sydney’s comments, on that point.
For those who estimate that the sexual impact of a (forgive me) bare female breast will be diminished in the context of breast-feeding, I reply: that may be true, in many (or even most) cases… but “diminished” does not mean “eradicated”; and in this era where fetishism is rampant (i.e. where body parts, clothing, and even excrement [and the like] have become foci for sexual fascination/obsession), I wouldn’t suggest that any approach of placing too much weight on the “no one would be perverted enough to think lewd thoughts about a woman who’s breast-feeding with exposed breast(s)!” idea would be very wise. One might as well say that witnessing naked sex would arouse, while witnessing a nude woman showering would not, based on the idea of “what on earth is so sexy about watching someone scrubbing grime and sweat off her body?” I’m afraid that, no matter what the explanation, it’s certainly a rampant and self-evident fact that most men *would* find such a scene arousing, despite any disillusionment this might cause to some of us. (*wry look*)
Honestly: the appeal to “no one would be perverse enough to do [x]” is an unusual tactic to use in a fallen world such as ours… and history is more than replete with examples. Replace [x] with various actions/practises such as (again, forgive me!) anal sex, homosexuality, and the like, and you can see how the statement could easily (and inaccurately) have been used in years past.
Summary: yes, by all means, breast-feed. Just do not be flippant, callous, nonchalant, or devil-may-care about exposing the relevant parts in question. Yes, feel free to feel disgusted that Original Sin has rendered us lustful and disordered enough that we humans can no longer “be naked without shame” (cf. Genesis 2:25); but I’d gently suggest that we not try to pretend that the fall never happened. I personally know of no limits to human depravity, in this (or any other) regard, frankly.
” A mother feeding her child this way is beautiful. She shouldn’t be treated with contempt, and she shouldn’t have to skulk off and hide just because people in this country have forgotten that breasts are nature’s baby bottles first and foremost.”
There’s a happy medium between skulking off and hiding and being over-exposed.
As to the issue of modesty – no doubt other cultures and time periods have had different views of modesty. Modesty is a society construct by definition – we don’t point to tribal populations who walk around mostly naked and say “see, they don’t think that’s immodest, so it’s not immodest here. OUR society seems to have an awful lot of people who believe that baring the entire breast (for any reason) is immodest. You may find that “wholly unacceptable”, but we’re not talking about some small fringe group of sex fiends who just can’t look at a bare breast. This is not a view limited to people who haven’t breast fed, or who are anti-breast feeding. Many very pro breast feeding women and men are very AGAINST very exposed breast feeding. You can certainly try to convince them not to view it as immodest (just as you could try to persuade everyone that walking around the mall in a loin cloth is not immodest), but it’s not irrational to say that in our society, baring your whole breast (or BOTH breasts, or your entire chest and stomach – i’ve seen the completely open shirt move too, Doe) is not modest.
Is it really your position that as long as your breast feeding, any degree of exposure goes? Do you draw no distinction between what you might do in your home among family and close friends and what you might do in a public location among strangers? I totally oppose women having to breast feed in isolation or in bathrooms, but if you’re in public, you should try to maintain the usual norms of decorum to the extent possible while accomplishing the feeding. And I don’t think that’s an irrational position.
CT,
I maintain that if children in this country were breastfed to the age of three or four in general, Americans would be far less troubled by women who breastfeed in public. I do think you have to pay attention to the culture you find yourself in. If I were a mother, I would be as modest as possible about breastfeeding in the United States. But that doesn’t mean that I think, objectively speaking, it should be necessary for women to cover up and act like they are doing something shameful and inappropriate.
I personally don’t care how women breastfeed, but that’s my upbringing for you. I know it’s not entirely typical, but I think it’s better than looking at breastfeeding mothers with disgust.
Which brings me to my next point:
You guys must not have spent much time on the internet, eh? If I were to try to cover or not do in public everything that might arouse some man, I’d never leave a standing position in my living room being fully covered by a bedsheet (although now that I’ve said that, I’m sure the kink exists somewhere). I don’t live my life around what the men of the world might find appealing or not. If you look at it like that, “prudes” and “sluts” are just two extremes of the same behavior-living their lives according to what may or may not appeal to men.
Male dysfunction isn’t my problem, and I’m not about to make my kids suffer for it. If I used to tell my own dad to take a flying leap when he’d make remarks about me feeding my son in the living room, I’m not going to give two squats about what is said here. <3
“But that doesn’t mean that I think, objectively speaking, it should be necessary for women to cover up and act like they are doing something shameful and inappropriate.”
I think that’s the crux of my disagreement. Trying to maintain a usual degree of decorum for the society you’re in is not acting like you’re doing something shameful. Breastfeeding is nothing to be ashamed of, but just b/c you’re not ashamed doesn’t mean you throw normal views about modesty out the window.
@Paladin,
No disallusionment caused on my end. I admire your very honest admission to what seems to often be a very painful reality to women – the male nature. No offense, if you’re a man, of course. :) I just believe we are very different.