On " #Brelfies, " And Why I'm Fed Up With Detractors of Public Breastfeeding

My last LinkedIn Post of 2015 focused on my advance pick for this year’s "Word Of The Year," following the reveal of the Oxford Dictionary's choice of the most culturally relevant word from the previous 12 months. The 2015 winner was "emoji"; in hindsight, one of the finalist entries, "Brexit," probably should have taken the crown.

In my post, I proposed that even before the new year began, the Oxford Dictionary folks should have just gone ahead and announced that 2016's defining word would be “courage.” Seven brutal months later, I’m giving myself some inter-cranial high fives for my prescience, because 2016 has done more to sap my psyche than any year in recent memory. From the Orlando massacre to St. Paul and Baton Rouge and Dallas, from the relentless coverage of America’s historic political tempest to crises on foreign shores (UK, South Sudan, Brazil, Venezuela etc.) to Zika and the deaths of so many beloved cultural icons, many of us are feeling like we want to pull the covers over our heads until 2017 arrives. It takes a lot of courage to pick up a newspaper or click on a breaking news link these days.

But during World Breastfeeding Week 2016, I’m exiting crisis alert mode for a few minutes to consider another potential word of the year: “ #brelfie. ” It refers a selfie taken by a woman nursing her infant or toddler, sometimes in a public place. They’re patently intended to confront widespread objection to public breastfeeding. In this era of relentless Social Media Self-Promotion, the guidelines for what’s appropriate to share publicly have been all but erased, and I'm the first to acknowledge that. People who post hourly images of baby’s every twitch and gurgle, or grisly surgery scars, or various barely-covered body parts, or of themselves engaged in blatantly illegal activities, should be automatically banned from the Internet. But then I also should be married to Idris Elba, and that isn’t going to happen, either.

It's the price we pay for largely unfettered Internet access and freedom of speech. But what fascinates me most about the burgeoning “brelfie” movement is the head-on clash between what people find most troubling – nudity and redefined appropriate public behavior - versus a scientifically-proven beneficial human nutritional function for the most vulnerable people on the planet, i.e. babies.

Why should a hundred million or so women on this planet who walk around with the tools to assure perfect nutrition for their children be banned from using them unless they’re at home or in a public bathroom? In a world with plenty to boggle the mind, this has long been one of my top five brain scramblers. I’m bracing myself for a robust response to what may seem a shockingly na?ve question, but….

“What is so offensive about watching a baby eat?”

I understand  that a lot of people object to by public nudity. And if a woman at a restaurant just decided to unshackle a breast in mid-conversation for a quick airing out between courses, I would probably also find that uncomfortable to witness.

But I’ve traveled a lot, and I’ve seen plenty of women breastfeed in public, in America and abroad. This concern over visual offensiveness is a lot less prominent in rural developing world cultures. But in Western nations, I have never seen more than a handful of breastfeeding mothers be anything less than discreet while feeding their infants in public venues. Many are even hypersensitive, and you can see the concern about somebody complaining written all over their faces. They use baby blankets or towels or jackets to shroud their upper bodies, sometimes leaving only a thin slit of an opening between baby’s suckling mouth and that covering, so as not to offend. That level of coverage can be a bit trickier for a more mobile 1 year old, and I also acknowledge the disdain some people feel when a child who can ask permission to unbutton his mother's blouse decides to go in for a snack.

Of course I haven’t been everywhere, so perhaps there are even roving gangs of  mothers in developed countries who defiantly drop their tops and take pride in flaunting an engorged breast with an 8-year-old hanging off it.

There’s another disturbing opinion about public breastfeeding, in my view. People who compare it with public urination or defecation should search their psyches for underlying triggers of that disgust. There MUST be something more going on. Breasts are not in and of themselves disgusting and offensive. Personally, I think every baby is adorable. So my reductive brain concludes, “What’s so nauseating about watching an adorable baby eat?”

I know, it’s far more complicated. That’s why I’m fascinated by the “brelfie” movement, and hope we have a world that has so vastly shifted course from imminent destruction, it could be a contender for 2016 Word Of The Year. I think brelfies brilliantly capture the power of the Social Media to be bold and defiant for reasons other than making your ex jealous of your 100 pound weight loss by posting grainy pictures of your genitals. The movement expertly supports the scientific evidence that breastfeeding strengthens mother child bonding and provides babies with the irrefutably best form of nutrition available. It could also fuel the global goal of improving child nutrition in the developing world, where lack of education and cultural or religious taboos sometimes prohibit the practice.

Brelfies probably make a lot of people squirm, even those who may not otherwise object to public breastfeeding. But when a nursing mom stares directly into the camera while nourishing her child, that act of defiance isn’t just exhibitionism. It’s a powerful statement about a woman’s right to control her body and to prioritize her child’s well-being. I think it takes a lot of courage, too.