The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

The experience I am writing about took place a couple of weeks ago, and I am still flabbergasted that my staff reacted like they did. My center accepts children from 12 months to 5 years of age. We have a two year old who is still breastfeeding as mom usually pumps and brings the breast milk  in his sippy cup, but on occasion she has actually breast fed her son in the car after picking him up from the center. One day, she decided to breast feed in the classroom sitting in the rocking chair. She had a blanket covering herself and part of her son, so it looked like she was just cuddling and rocking him. My staff seemed shocked and embarrassed at the same time and I could not understand why. Children continued to play, parents came and went, and not one person noticed anything different or said a word except for my staff. I had an impromptu staff meeting to listen to their concerns about this situation. My first words were that she has every right to breast feed and this center supports breastfeeding. I asked my staff their feelings, and a few responded that it was awkward because she did not warn us what she was going to do. Another said that the child was too old and another staff member stated that there is a time and place for everything. All I could think was WOW, how could my staff that I have trained and nurtured be so biased? Upon further discussion, I found most of my staff agreed that breast milk was the best for children. Of course, I handed out information about the benefits of breastfeeding.

I felt this situation diminished equity because of the reaction from my staff. Did they think she was giving a bad example for other adults or the children? If my staff agree that breast milk was the best thing for a child, why were they so shocked when they saw this mom breast feed? My staff said that breast feeding was good, no doubt about that, but just not when they were around. I could say that my staff is just uneducated about the issue, but they are not; it is a biased situation. I asked the question "How would you feel if you saw a mother breastfeeding at the mall, restaurant, or park? What would your feeling be then?"       


My feelings on this subject was that of surprise for my staff. I did not believe that they were so opinionated on this issue. Could it be since that they personally knew this mother that they might have been embarrassed? I personally sat in the room and talked to her and her son while she was breastfeeding. I did try breastfeeding my first born, but it did not work for me. I applaud breastfeeding moms!