The great tit-feeding debate

From time to time I have been known duck into a coffee shop. True, such establishments have fallen from their eighteenth century position of being the centres of civilised discourse, where Dr Johnson, Dryden and Sir Francis Dashwood, with many a quip and sophisticated epigram hashed out the social, artistic and philosophical problems of the day, but caffeine is caffeine, and there's usually a ten month old copy of Movie Review or The Big Issue hanging around to relieve the tedium while satisfying one's addiction. When the Queensland sun is beating down outside, the muted, welcoming atmosphere  is something to be relished as an oasis of cool, womb-like security.

About the only condition guaranteed to ruin the sense of well-being to be found in such places is the high, teeth-grating sound of the infant voice raised in complaint. In fact, the foghorn wail of a baby or screaming child is enough to make me dive under the nearest table.

I am, you see, childfree. Not, I hasten to add, merely “childless.” The latter word can apply, with equal accuracy, to those that wish to produce children and haven't got around to it yet, those who want children and can't have them, or those sit precariously on the fence weighing up the advantages of the money thrown at those who breed by governments wishing to purchase their vote against the disadvantages of sharing one's life with a greedy, demanding creature that takes in food and liquid and spits out vomit from one end and pee and runny poo at the other. Me, I made my decision long ago and never regretted it. While many might find the unstable, upright waddle of the young child cute I regard it merely as annoying. The massive round heads and dribbling mouths of babies, endearing to many, are to me a source of nausea. If I wished to hear the patter of tiny feet, I'd buy a chihuahua and put clogs on it.     

So, when in the name-witheld-to-protect-privacy coffee shop a few days ago, I saw the approach of a woman pushing one of the tank-like strollers favoured by the modern parent, and which contained carrying what may have been a jam roly-poly but was probably her beloved offspring – when this pair approached, my heart sank and I began making immediate plans to swallow my just-served and still scalding brew and make my exit. The fact that (as inevitably happens) the possibly-but-probably-wasn't jam roly poly began the familiar, gorge-producing scream within a few minutes of the mother taking her seat confirmed my worst suspicions.

Help was, however, at hand. While, in most cases, the evil species known as babies produce their ear-splitting howls simply for their own amusement, or as part of the necessary business of training their parents to obey their every whim, in this case at least, the baby's outburst was for a genuine, identifiable reason. The creature was hungry, and the mother had a means to satisfy this need, and restore blessed silence, immediately to hand. With the result that the cacophony was cut off at source, and within a few seconds the baby was sucking happily at her breast.

A good result for all, one might have thought. Certainly, that was my naïve impression as I turned back to the contemplation of the Matt Damon's latest Bourne movie and picked up my coffee for another sip. I was to be proven tragically wrong.

The first indication of trouble was the noise of an altercation behind me. Two female voices raised in disquiet. Within a few seconds, I was dragged from my reverie unable to avoid clearly hearing the words, and being unable to avoid knowing the subject of the conflict.

It was this: That the waitress (in the red corner) was asserting that the feeding of an infant by use of the breast was not allowed in the restaurant, and that the adult performing the act was obliged to take herself off to an area of privacy forthwith. While not using the exact words, there was an evident implication that such an act was disgusting, anti-social and guaranteed either to drive away every other customer present (which consisted of me) or send them mad with slavering desire at the sight of her uncovered nipple. In the blue corner, the mother was countering with the fact that she had paid for her coffee and toasted sandwich, was entitled to sit and consume them, and was simultaneously indulged in an act that was necessary, beneficial and completely legal.

As the supposed beneficiary of the waitress's intervention, I felt it reasonable to intervene. I approached the waitress, and pointed out that as the only other customer present, I had no objection whatsoever to the mother feeding her child. In fact, I greatly preferred her doing this to having to endure the wailing of a hungry baby. I was politely put in my place by the waitress, who made it clear that whether I had a specific objection or not, it was policy, and that was that. Could not a special objection be made, I asked, given that the one person for whom this rule was made was happy for it to be waived? No, I was told. It couldn't.

Now, it isn't usual on my part that I am inclined to take the side of a parent who claim that having bred, they are entitled to disregard any of the rules of society as a reward. Rules keeping howling children from movie theatres or exclusive restaurants, or preventing strollers from blocking emergency exits are, I feel, in place for perfectly good reasons. But what we had here was not simply a policy put in place to protect the innocent. Instead, it appeared to be based on a violation of evolutionary principles.

Let us look at this biologically. Human beings are members of the class Mammalia. This group of animals have the specific property – in fact, one might say it is the main requirement for membership – that they suckle their young. Unlike reptiles that eat their own eggs or newly hatched offspring, mammals nurture and care for their infants, a system that has evolved through evolution, and which has given mammals a huge advantage in the evolutionary race - and which, incidentally, has given us by-products like art, music, language, philosophy and sport. The system of hatching from already laid eggs just does not have the capacity to produce offspring intelligent enough to do much more than eat, fight and fuck. You want a species capable of producing Van Gogh's Sunflowers, the Rolling Stones' Satisfaction, or Margot Fonteyn's Swan Lake, it's the mammal way or the highway. Except that reptiles can't make highways, of course.

Now, as inevitably happens (good old natural selection), the females of species that use this system come equipped with equipment designed perfectly to do the job. Call them breasts, bosom, teats, or other names with varying implications of appreciation, the boob, while it has other uses, is primarily there to feed babies. Sure, like radio controlled planes or x-boxes, adults can enjoy them too, but even in cultures where the breast has evolved as a secondary sexual characteristic – and few appreciate the sight and feel of a good rack more than me – the protuberances retain their primary function. The breasts are a milk duct first, a thing for adults to look at, fondle, tweak and dream over second.

And the unfortunate women sitting at the table behind me in the name-witheld-to-protect-privacy coffee shop was using them precisely for what they were for. A process as “disgusting” as using ears to hear things, opposable thumbs to pick up objects or a spine to walk upright.

Now, I am as aware as anyone that because a thing is “natural” it is not necessarily ideal. Like most people reading this, I do not eat my meat raw, live in a cave, or club women into oblivion before making love to them. I realise too that in a civilised society, it is universally accepted that certain things may not be done in public. Urinating, defecating, the sexual act and revealing ones genitalia are regarded as better performed in areas set aside for the purpose, and probably for very good reasons. Eating and drinking, however, are not among these. One may munch on a hamburger or slam down a soft drink in just about any public mall anywhere in the civilised world, and no-one will think any less of you for it. You can even give some of your food to another person, and passers by will not turn a hair.

And eating or drinking, depending upon definition, were exactly what the baby was doing. And providing such nourishment was precisely the mother's role in the interaction. You'd have to do a lot of talking to convince even a confirmed baby avoider like myself that breast feeding is in the same class as taking a dump in the main street or performing fellatio on the bus.

“But hang on,” I hear you saying – well, actually, I don't, since you're probably reading this long after I wrote it, but you know what I mean - “Breastfeeding involves exposing the breast, right? It's illegal for a woman to walk around in public showing her nipples, for more or less the same reason a guy can't flash his dick. 'cos they're associated with sexual desire. So why is titfeeding a special case?”

Well, it is. And here’s why.

Let's be brutally honest about this. A new mother, with a baby young enough to need to suckle, is hardly in the mainstream sex-object league. It's an easily enough observable phenomena that the slim, slinky, elegantly clad cocotte of the pre-baby days becomes, as soon as parenthood strikes, a drab, harassed-looking slave worn down by the cares of practicality, her face devoid of artifice and her attire chosen for its comfort rather than its sex appeal. Disrespectful as this may sound, it's a fact that new mothers usually have other things on their mind than making men's pee-pees go boing, boing, boing. The mother of a young infant is, in an erotic sense, a neuter, and there are probably good evolutionary reasons for this, connected with giving the new infant the best and most secure start in life.

A lactating breast, for “decency” purposes, is a totally different animal from an un-lactating one revealed for, no pun intended, titillation. Sure, under rule 37, there may be a small group that find a leaking breast a turn on, but are you also planning to ban balloons, the chewing of gum or fat people? The erotic appreciation of all of these have been documented as fetishes. And, in any case, any watching person who feels unable to control their desire in such a situation (or for whatever reason chooses not to witness it) always has the option of looking elsewhere. Which, btw ,is precisely what I'd been doing before the intervention of the waitress.

Anyway, there are a number of sequels to the incident of the argument, all of which I present for completeness. The first was that the waitress won the argument, and the mother, humiliated and defeated, left the establishment, slinking away under a cloud of shame that she certainly did not deserve, not before politely thanking me for my intervention as she passed. The second was that a phone call I made to the manager of the coffee shop in question the following day revealed the information that breast feeding by customers is not, contrary to what the waitress was asserting, banned in the establishment. Said waitress was, then, incidental in losing the repeat business of at least two customers, for I'd never return and I doubt the young mother will either.

Given the age of the infant whose appetites had started the whole imbroglio, I doubt he or she worried too much about having to eat their lunch in a public toilet. The mother, who was made to feel ashamed at feeding  him/her, though, probably did not regard the affair with the same insouciance. For what it's worth, and if she's reading this, I hope, Ma'am, that you found a coffee shop with politer staff, and please be aware that this particular childfree blogger, at least, didn't find your perfectly reasonable actions in any way offensive.