Today I was torn between writing about this harridan and this one - but having read some excellent posts on the Deech, I thought I'd stew on her and stick with Jan Moir instead.
This woman has got her Daily Mail knickers in a twist and is seriously confused about the concept of rights. Let's look at this from the standpoint of a real liberty lover.
After a nursing mother was thrown out of a South-East London charity shop this week, angry mums are mobilising to launch a mass breast-feed-in on the premises. Hungry or not, mewling tots must be prepared to shut up and glug back in the name of lactating-mum liberty and breast-is-best propagandists.
The concept of "lactating-mum liberty" is a nonsense. Either there is liberty for everybody to follow their preferences, or real liberty exists for nobody. Whether you choose to breastfeed your child, ban breastfeeders from your private property, or spout nonsense in the Daily Mail, either you are completely free to do these things, or you accept that somebody else has the right to force you to stop. In other words, although I would prefer for Jan's trout face to remain out of the public domain, it would be immoral of me to force her to stay indoors, or wear a bag on her head.
Similarly, it would be immoral of me to force my way onto private property to do something the owner did not want me to do.
For the mothers are appalled by the behaviour of Steve Symonds, the manager of the East Dulwich branch of the charity shop Mind in South-East London. After finding Anisa Baker in a compromising position with ten-month-old Elsie in the changing room, Mr Symonds sprayed air freshener around and chastised her for feeding her baby in his shop. 'Changing rooms aren't for breast-feeding,' he said, before telling her that her 'breast milk stinks'.
Isn't diplomacy a beautiful thing? Yet this small incident has been the starting gun for a blast of instant maternal affront and Curse Of The Mummy-style fury. Emphasising once more that it takes a brave man - or woman - to get between the modern young mother and her perceived statutory rights.
If you accept that nobody can tell you what to do with your property (your body, for example), then you cannot tell somebody what to do with their property (a shop, for example). You can ask, but it undermines your own freedom if you insist that others be forced to do things because you think they should. Let business owners make up their own minds about who they seek custom from and you can make up your own mind about what you think of them, what you say and write about them and where you choose to spend your hard-earned money.
I have money to spend. Business owners have money to make. Simples.
(An aside: for as long as I am taxed by the government, you can bet your boots that should I wish to use a provision I have subsidised, I expect to be able to feed my children there however I choose.)
These include, as if we all didn't know, the right to mow you down with a buggy if you don't get out of the way quickly enough; the right to behave as if they have just given birth to the second coming of Christ instead of a farty little squirt called Sam; the right to congregate en masse all day in the best coffee shop seats, sharing a single latte and a blueberry muffin between six; the right to sigh like a tornado when their Hummer-sized pram cuts your heel to the bone; and the general and overreaching right to behave as if the normal rules of polite society do not apply to them.
Yawn. Attractive a prospect though it may be at times, most polite people do try to avoid mowing people down, whether they are pushing a buggy, walking alone or driving a car. Rudeness is what one might take issue with, not mothers with buggies.
I am perfectly free to consider my children as supremely special - if I did not I would no doubt be criticised for selfishly dragging unwanted brats into the world. I expect no-one else to share this view and I ask for no special treatment, service, support or intervention from anyone or anything. In return I expect to remain free at all times from interfering old hags telling me how to feed, when and where; from old people who are certain that my baby needs a hat and mittens on in July; from health visitors who insist that I should be shovelling baby rice down the gullet of a four month old to make her sleep through; from NieuLabour child experts who want parenting to be a professional discipline; from prodnoses like Graham Badman who want to dictate the content of my children's education; from Fabian folk who insist that my children aren't my property to those who insist that I should make my children do x, y and z for their own good.
And I'll buy what I want and sit where I want, thanks.
For her part, Mrs Baker - true to breast-feeding mummy form - was 'amazingly insulted' to be told that her milk was odiferous and challenged the manager for looking into the cubicle in the first place. Now, she wants Mind to announce a clear policy allowing breast-feeding and guaranteeing privacy behind curtains.
Really. What self-righteous humbug. Why should Mind do anything of the sort?
There is no such thing as "breastfeeding mummy form". Just as people called Jan can be pleasant, or completely unpalatable, the only thing that breastfeeding mothers have in common with each other is the fact that they have all chosen one of two (main) methods to feed their child. Nothing more.
If Mind issued a clear position statement on breastfeeding and clarified whether or not customers using their changing rooms should expect to be watched on the sly, then Jan would have nothing to complain about. But perhaps that's her problem. This information would help everyone to decide whether or not they want to patronise Mind shops or indeed donate. However, if Mind is another fake charity - does anyone know without me looking it up? - and my taxes are paying for morons like Steve Symonds to peer into occupied changing cubicles and spew forth random abuse at people, then I am a bit miffed, to be honest, and I can almost see the attraction of parking myself and my babies in front of him for the afternoon.
The application of decency and consideration for the feelings of others is, after all, a two-way street.
And a highly subjective one. I suspect that my definition of what is decent and considerate is somewhat more developed than Jan's. So unless either of us are actually inflicting damage by our actions then we will simply have to agree to disagree and continue to share the same wide public space with each other - her doing the trout thang and me breastfeeding a baby or two.
And when it comes to private business - well does this woman really think that Starbucks wants to alienate a significant segment of its market? I think not. Not only do those women spend serious money in those places (despite what Jan says) they also know exactly how to complain and to whom if they feel that have been treated badly. Like it or not, the right businesses are happy to keep them sweet and reap the financial rewards. Property rights, Jan - it's a two-way street. Although maybe you could see what happens if you set up your own coffee shop on the high street and ban breastfeeding mothers and those awful promiscuous homosexuals?
Whatever happened to make mums so angry all the time?
People like you, Jan, and the people who read what you write and nod in agreement without ever seeing the contradictions.
Previous generations managed perfectly well without the need to breast-feed in public.
Well, actually, women were pretty much removed from everyday life and shunted into the bedroom for as long as their babies were feeding from them. And, you know, I am not "previous generations", I am me and I live now. I am 30 years old, I have two children, I have a life to live and a business to run. I have my own bills to pay. There are plenty of places falling over themselves to accommodate me. If you are suggesting that I stay at home for a couple of years because it suits The World According to Jan Moir™ , then you are no better than the people who would force private businesses to cater for customers they have no interest in serving.
Yet the National Childbirth Trust is waging a campaign to make it illegal to stop women from breast-feeding in shops and restaurants in the UK.
Yes, most of us want to be kind to starving infants, if not their bolshie mums. But surely it should be up to individual owners to decide what does and does not happen on their premises?
Yes, it should be up to individual owners (and not Jan Moir) to decide this and accept the consequences. I suspect there would not be too many business owners prepared to publicly ban breastfeeding mothers or gay people, for example - and if they were, wouldn't you rather know to avoid lining their pockets?
Personally, I don't mind breast-feeding, but I mind that others do. And I mind that their objections are increasingly steamrollered by the righteous motherhood. Why should society, bus passengers and charity shop managers be terrorised by militant mothers determined to give junior his num-nums whatever the circumstances?
I could not care less what other people think about how I feed my baby. Honestly, I couldn't. When I have children with me, I choose to frequent public spaces, resplendent with humanity in all its weird and wonderful forms, or places I know to be child- and breastfeeding-friendly. If other people feel "terrorised" by a 5' 2" young woman, a 2 year old and a 7 month old baby, that really is their problem, not mine. When I have a hungry baby in front of me, my priority is sating that hunger. I think that's a good thing. I will not be told what I should and shouldn't do or where I may and may not go by Jan Moir or anybody else; I can work out what's right for myself. Property rights are not defined according to her bigoted view of the world. They either are, or they are not. There is no in-between.
