This is so, so perfect.
She says it all, and leave room to step back for silence.
She captures perfectly the divide between the face-burning shame of hauling your naked breast out in a (sometimes hostile) public space, and the desperate need to bravely and immediately meet your child’s needs.
Whatever they might be.
This hit home for me because it mirrored my own feelings about public breastfeeding. I’ve never been an aggressive, “I have the right to breastfeed WHEREVER, WHENEVER and YOU CAN’T STOP ME!” type. I believe this, of course, but my own approach was more like Hollie’s, and although I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have so far avoided any negative reaction, (go Canada?) I think if I had encountered it, my reaction would have been not anger or shock or defiance. I wouldn’t have been reporting it and organizing rallies, I would have been embarrassed.
I would have felt shame and wondered if I was wrong, I would have second guessed every time I had to feed Olive in public after. I hate that. I hate that that would have been my reaction, but here we are.
So, thank you Hollie. For saying, gently and angrily and thoughtfully, what petty much every breastfeeding mother has felt. For questioning and explaining and standing up instead of sitting.
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU