Last night my friend L sent this to me to read.
I was floored by what I was reading. Basically a mother in KY was told that she had to cover her baby’s head when nursing at an Applebee’s restaurant. When she went to talk with the manager and showed him this was against the KY law he told her the following:
“I know but somebody complained it was indecent exposure so you have to cover the baby with a blanket if you need to breastfeed here.”
What a lame response from the manager. There is absolutely nothing indecent about nursing a child. As others in this thread that I linked to mention many people at the restaurant were probably exposing more with their regular garment than this mother was while breastfeeding. So the woman left the restaurant with her children and contacted a lawyer. After quite some time she received a response from corporate.
“we are also considering keeping blankets in the restaurants for use by breast-feeding mothers that may not have them readily available as a result of this incident.”
This made me ILL. Applebee’s is going to provide someone a blanket to feed their child? WTH! That is also against the law in KY. Others in the thread stated that the people that should be given the blanket are those that complain – rightly so. And if they were to require a mother to cover over because of exposing herself, then what about the women that come in with mini-skirts, bellies hanging out, or low cut shirts exposing their girls? Will they too have to cover over?
Although I personally choose not to do public nursing, I wouldn’t want someone to tell me to stick a blanket over my child’s head. Most woman that I have seen nursing in public places do it in such a way that you wouldn’t really know what they were up to.
So keep this information in mind next time you decide to eat at an Applebee’s. I know we are not likely to go there again thanks to this.
C’est Moi
I don’t care for this place much in the first place so this can just seal the deal for me not going back. Why were they even nebbing in this woman’s booth to see what she is doing?? That baby covered up way more than I see on a daily basis, as you said. I hope her lawyer can get more done for her than the promise of nasty ass blankets that other people are going to have put on them! Gross. Thats like hanging a hand towel in the bathrooms for all to use! You know I did not breastfeed but you know the reason. I would have probably been a public feeder if I had been able to, but made myself “decent” just for self comfort. I actually LOVE seeing a baby eat from the breast and always hope I don’t offend mother’s when I look at them LOL!
ma2jenna: We don’t love Applebees either. We have found better places to go that we enjoy a lot more (ya know like The Cheesecake Factory).
The blanket thing is disgusting and they should be slapped for even suggesting something of that nature. There should be more done since it was against the law.
JL joked that we should go there for me to nurse JSL, but he didn’t want to give them the money. So, we went to Fuddruckers instead – YUM!
C’est Moi