Mother's Milk

Breast feeding in shul. I'm all for breast feeding. I don't believe mothers should be hidden away when the action is so natural. In fact, one of my earliest memories of Central Park involves visiting it with my older cousins, both mothers of small babies. We were on the Great Lawn and they were breast feeding. My grandmother wondered aloud if this was the best place to do it. They assured her that it was fine. In fact the week before they'd been there together and two women wandered by and the four of them began discussing the best kinds of nursing bras.

However, there is a time and place to be more private about it. And a house of worship is one of those places. One year my mom came up to visit me at school during Rosh haShana and we went to the local Reform service in town to check it out. An overall fine experience, except for the woman who breastfed next to me during the service. I found it distracting to my prayers. I mean, she probably wouldn't have done that if we were all there for a funeral service.
As one nursing mother says:

I think it would be distracting in synagogue, and I'm not sure that it's the best thing for the rest of people in this environment, especially people of another generation, she said. I would remove myself from the sanctuarywouldn'touldnt be bothered if other people breast-fed. Its a decorum thing for me.


I'm all for nursing. It's healthy for babies and is a great way for mother and baby to bond. But there's a time and a place for everything. We make sacrifices when having children, perhaps missing a few minutes of a service to discreetly nurse your child is one of those things.


I wonder what Miss Manners would say?