Should college professors be able to breastfeed while they teach class?

Sep, 12, 2012 | AUTHOR: Starcasm Staff; | Related : News, Parenting

American University professor Adrienne Pine (NOT pictures above) sparked controversy when she breastfed her sick baby in front of students during the first day of her 75-minute class “Sex, Gender & Culture.”

Being a single mom, she didn’t know what to do when her baby fell ill that morning, and her friend who was staying with her from Chile suggested that she take the baby into the class for a “teachable moment.”

Pine describes the whole incident on her blog, where she says she tried to calm down her feverous baby girl by breastfeeding, and she didn’t even stop lecturing!

When Lee grew restless, I briefly fed her without stopping lecture, and much to my relief, she fell asleep.

The next day the professor was “shocked” to receive an email from a student reporter for the University’s newspaper:

Hello Professor Pine,

My name is Heather Mongilio. I am one of the news assistants on The Eagle. I hope you had an enjoyable first week of classes. It was brought to our attention that you breast fed your child during your “Sex, Gender and Culture” class. I was hoping to be able to talk to you in order to discuss what happened in class and allow you to speak about the matter in your own words. I understand the delicacy of the matter and I do not want to make you feel uncomfortable, but for the story to have the most balanced angle it would be best to have your thoughts…

– Heather Mongilio

Pine especially took offense at Heather Mongilio describing the situation as “uncomfortable” and “delicate.”

I was shocked and annoyed that this would be considered newsworthy, and at the anti-woman implications inherent in the email’s tone. “Delicate”? “Uncomfortable”? What did the Eagle, AU’s official student newspaper, think I was? A rice paper painting? A hymen?

Her post is really long and details her ultimately successful struggle with the student newspaper’s editors to not write the story about her breastfeeding in class. She also disparages “lactivism:”

“Those marauding bands of lactating white women who go to collectively feed their babies in places where the right to breastfeed has been called into question.”

Now her university has released an official statement against her actions, which they view as a health issue because her child was ill. They also said that that professors should use things like sick leave, break time, and private areas to deal with issues like this in order to “maintain a focus on professional responsibilities in the classroom.” They go on:

“Every working parent can empathize with facing the choice of an important day at work when a child gets sick. Both demand your focus and attention. There is no easy or ideal alternative.”

Public breastfeeding is a touchy subject, and people shouldn’t freak out if they see a woman doing it on the street or in a restaurant, but it’s another matter when a professional breastfeeds in the middle of doing their job. It does seem a bit unprofessional to not even excuse yourself for a few minutes to feed the sick child you brought to work. Most people don’t even have the luxury of bringing their child into work with them when they’re feeling ill.

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tab

a classroom isn’t the place for a child. if it was an isolated incident because she didn’t have child care, she should have stepped out of the room for 10 minutes to nurse her baby.
Jenn

WTF????? Why would someone think this is a good idea?????? Take the day off work if your kid’s sick. Or for heaven’s sake, LEAVE THE ROOM TO BREASTFEED!!!
Aina

I don’t necessarily see breast feeding in public as wrong, but it certainly was in this situation. First of all, the mother should have used one of her sick days if she couldn’t find a sitter-a college classroom is no place for a sick child of any age, and it could have made her students sick. Second, NOTHING that could disrupt a lecture that those students PAID for should have been brought into the classroom. Whether she stopped lecturing to feed the baby or not, it was surely a distraction to students-I had some professors that wouldn’t allow us to have anything other than a pen and paper out so she should extend the same courtesy to her students. Terrible decision making.
OhMyGeez

The classroom is not the place for it. You can fight for your right to breastfeed in public but you have to draw a line. I don’t care how old the students are, that is going to be a distraction and misconstrued. Stunts like this is why breastfeeding in public gets a bad rap. Stay home with your child or pump and leave milk with a sitter.
samantha

The classroom is no place to bring a sick child. She should have stayed home and cared for her child. A baby needs more attention when sick than just breast feeding. It was not her business to make this a teachable event. These children were young and when they do have children of their own, they will make the decision to breast feed or not, which is a very personable decision.
faithiejoy

You shouldn’t bring your sick child to work. period. That’s what vacation/sick days are made for, you stay at HOME with them!
And college courses are expensive, especially at America University, I’d be PISSED if a professor did this during MY time!
Kaja

You US american people got a stick right up your ass. In the US, the most violent movies are made that make me sick to my stomack but if someone beastfeeds or goes nude smimming or curses or happens to be gay, you freak out. The rest of the world really thinks you are crazy because guess what: YOU ARE. CRAZY HYPOCRITES. (most of you) Deal with it.
J

Not only could she have caused her students to get sick, her baby could have picked something up from one of the students in her classroom. A lot of kids go to class with colds or other illnesses and an ill child could pick something up easier. I also don’t agree that it’s appropriate since most working mothers cannot breastfeed while at work, especially around everyone else they work near.
Clay

She is a brilliant and fascinating woman, I can can’t say I’d have come to the same decision in her circumstance, but I can see how she weighed the options and decided to present her first class with a moderate level of distraction rather than have her students miss it entirely. There likely was no time for planning, breast pumping or any of the alternatives, these things happen with zero advance warning. You start your morning routine with a buffer for small issues, and then find out you need to find a sitter or call all your peers and find one that can fill in on a moment’s notice, without the benefit of your lesson plan. Or you cancel a 75 minute lecture and the students lose out entirely, with other non-trivial side effects thrown in.
The issue was the breastfeeding, the “sick child in class” would likely have slipped by with few comments from students. Breastfeeding the child in that particular class should have a included a grade for the student response. Those that are biased and closed minded will not make good Anthropologists. Fail.
Only humans argue about when it is appropriate to feed our offspring or let it cry out in hunger. We are the most unnatural creatures in nature. She is adding good genes to the gene pool, whether those that judge her realize it or not.