Happy Tuesday!
Do you ever read a story and think to yourself… WHAT am I missing?!?!
That’s how I felt when I saw this Jezebel post regarding a brouhaha over Jackie O, an Aussie radio host who crossed a street while feeding her baby a bottle.
Yes, you read that right.
New South Wales Families Minister Pru Goward wins this weeks STFU Award for comparing a woman crossing the street while feeding her baby a bottle to… dangling a baby over a balcony.
“We all were horrified when Michael Jackson dangled his baby out the window and this woman is crossing the road not just holding a baby but feeding a baby and I think it was unnecessarily cavalier,” Ms Goward told The Sunday Telegraph.
“There would be no mother, no parent probably, or even a hardened feminist, in the country who would think that was a good way of feeding a baby, particularly a little tiny baby,” she said.
I looked at the “damning” photo. This woman was crossing the street, at a clearly marked crosswalk, with other pedestrians around her, while holding her baby and feeding her a bottle. Again I ask: WHAT is the problem here?
I nursed my baby while crossing streets. I nursed my baby while walking through a supermarket. I nursed my baby while CLIMBING THE STAIRS, because I needed to retrieve something important and the baby was hungry, damnit. Guess that makes me cavalier and unfit.
This seems like nothing more than a clumsy attempt to judge and tear this woman down. Goward (the former sex discrimination commissioner!) also took a passive aggressive swipe at the working mom:
“It is very disappointing when a woman like Jackie O doesn’t feel she can take advantage of [paid maternity leave] because she is paid so much money to be on air that presumably the management have said to her: ‘Look if you take three months off, sorry you don’t have your spot’.”
“That is a judgment call for Jackie O about what she thinks is more important.”
Hey Pru? STFU!!
Aussie MTers, can you shed any light on this for us? Frankly, I’m baffled.
What’s the wackiest place you ever fed a baby? Was it more or less dangerous than dangling a child over a killer whale tank at Sea World? LOL.
What else is on your mind today?