Common sense is not a common commodity. As we discover here.
Mother-of-three is left ‘shocked and embarrassed’ after being told she couldn’t breastfeed her 10-week-old daughter during a speed awareness course
Oh, no! Shock! Horror! Or, as we delve into the tale a more mundane story appears:
However she was told children were not allowed in the class and she would have to leave Maud with someone else and go out when she needed feeding.
Okay, so you’ve attended a course and someone brings their sprog along. How will this affect your concentration and ability to participate when said sprog starts whining and complaining (as they do)? Of course, these days, the breast-feeding Nazis insist that it be done everywhere no matter the sensitivity or appropriateness of the situation and environment. My mother breastfed four children – she didn’t take us to public places to do it and she wouldn’t have dreamed of taking a child on a course to feed it.
A spokesman for Drive Tech said those on the course needed the ‘ability to concentrate, participate and learn without external distractions.’
Precisely. I would have done likewise if someone turned up on one of my courses expecting to have the child present. A course is simply not the place to be wetnursing children. And as for the complaints about whether she will be prosecuted – don’t do the crime and all that…
Recalling the incident Mrs Jefford said: ‘I was shocked and embarrassed, I did not even think it would be a problem to bring my baby. I’m worried about what I am going to do now.
And hubby is no better:
‘We were never told that taking a baby and breastfeeding would be a problem. Bringing a baby somewhere should be normal, you should not have to be thinking about it in this day and age.’
You shouldn’t need to be told. A training course is not the place to bring an infant.
And that sums up the current generation. Somewhere we lost the ability to gauge a situation; to consider other people and to ask ourselves whether what we are about to do is appropriate for the circumstances. A generation so spoiled and so used to getting its own way, such considerations do not enter their delicate little heads.
We are doomed, I tell you. Doomed.
There is a time and a place for such things and it most definitely is not here! Just who did she think she was to act in such a grossly rude manner?
On a thread about doing a 140.6 triathlon as a diabetic I mentioned the fact that the organisers make provision for special dietary requirements. You have to supply your own stuff in clearly marked bags and these are sent out to the feed stations. I got a response from someone who had worked as a marshal on these events.
“Ah yes, the special needs table at feed stations… Once used by a woman who needed to express breast milk, after she’d been told that doing so on the bike wasn’t safe, during a Challenge triathlon (full Ironman distance, trademark!)”
I’m not quite sure what this story brings to this particular discussion. If a nursing mother can do an ironman, then a four hour course should be a doddle. But then we were talking about common sense and I’m not sure either women qualify. Surely the baby wouldn’t have died if it were fed on expressed milk or formula milk for half a day.
I’m not surprised she was on a speed awareness course, as she was probably nicked for speeding while attending to said sprog in a front mounted backwards facing baby seat.
As for her statement; “I did not even think it would be a problem to bring my baby.” The “I did not think..” is an accurate description of this particular young mothers mental acuity.
As an aside; I Wonder how many children and young mothers are injured / killed because the driver was paying more attention to what was going on in the baby carrier rather than paying attention to their driving.
“because the driver was paying more attention to what was going on in the baby carrier rather than paying attention to their driving”
Marry me! (actually that’s probably now legal everywhere). I’ve been saying that for years….and getting into trouble for saying it. Even with my own kids and their offsprung. “But Daaaaad I have to be able to see baby, incase she suddenly chokes!” “No, Son Of Mine,what did I teach you to do if you drop a light cig whilst driving and it rolls under you and parboils your nuts? Same thing applies. You need to pull over where safe, get out the car and go round to the back. The Heimlich Manoeuver doesn’t involve crashing into the car infront! “
I do wonder how previous generations survived to the age of majority without this cossetting, but somehow we did. Odd that…
My thoughts exactly. Same with the Smoking furore. If smoking was so bad, where are all the bodies from the ’50s and ’60s, when almost everyone smoked, everywhere, even *gasp* on raiway stations?