Posted on 04/15/2016 5:25:44 AM PDT by simpson96
Stephanie Rhodus was in court on Monday to testify in a custody hearing for her 8-year-old son. She was waiting to be called to the stand when her younger son, 8-month-old Archer, wanted to be fed. She was nursing him when judge Peter Knight called her up, and all was okay for about five minutes.
Then Knight can be heard saying this in an audio recording: "Ma’am, you need to cover up. For you not to realize that is absolutely ridiculous. Step outside, and cover up right now. Stand up, and go, now." He went on to say that having a child in the courtroom is allowed but nursing is "absolutely inappropriate." Rhodus apologized and tried to continue. Unsurprisingly, her son was fussy and agitated during the remainder of her testimony.
She told the Washington Post that her son won't take a bottle and he also doesn't like being covered when nursing. But the law in North Carolina says this is all fine: Women can breast-feed in any public or private place they're allowed to be, without covering up.
Rhodus knows this (she breast-fed in the presence of a woman judge last week) but she told ABC News that the judge was "so condescending and so aggressive" that she was too scared to say anything. A legal analyst for ABC pointed out that the judge went too far — he could have simply called a recess.
Rhodus's mother has custody of her older son and Knight ultimately issued six-month protective order that bars Rhodus from seeing him. Rhodus thinks the episode affected both her testimony and the judge's decision. "It caught me completely off-guard. I couldn’t think straight to present my case properly," she told the Post. "It was just — I was in shock."
(Excerpt) Read more at nymag.com ...
Graphic photos of our government in action is offensive and obscene to me !!
The barnyard comes to the courtroom. If you can feed the baby naturally in public, why not make the baby naturally in public?
Have you ever nursed a baby under a light cloth to protect his face from the light and bustle of a crowd?
No?
I have
Me! Me! Me! Lookee here at ME! ME! ME!
Gotta have my fifteen minutes of “fame”!
If Mom absolutely could not leave the baby with someone while she testified, she could have assured that his tummy was full before entering the courtroom.
And there are all kinds of attire mothers can get, that do not require “whipping it out.”
Had she been discreet about it no one would have been any the wiser.
Smooth move Mom.
She's got more problems than this judge.
I hear you...
I have no problem with breast feeding; it’s better for the kid. But there is a time and a place for it, and clearly the courtroom is neither. Get a babysitter, leave the kid home, and do what you have to do to resolve personal issues.
That’s the way adults used to handle things.
But hey... it’s “better” now, remember?
Sorry, but that line of argument just doesn’t work. Time was, people knew that there were discreet and modest ways of doing most anything; now, modesty-impaired women are apparently told (by militants in this “camp”) to “bare it and others can deal with it”... ostensibly because “breasts aren’t sexual unless the lustful man (or lesbian, I guess) MAKES them a sex issue, so they should just learn to control themselves and mind their own business.” Never mind that they’ve unwittingly played into the hands of a culture which objectifies them.
(Would these women object if lots of people took videos of their bare breasts and posted them on YouTube? Why? How would this be different than taking videos of passersby who’re doing anything else? Come up with an answer to that, and you’ll be one step closer to recognizing the insanity behind the “whit it out and feed” camp.)
Several commenters on this thread already nailed the main problem with that: that’s one of the most selfish, self-absorbed, entitlement-driven pieces of baloney ever uttered by human lips.
It’s funny: I seriously doubt that women would be blase about men “whipping it out” to pee in public (even if, instead of using a wall or a bush, the “pee-pee incident” were in a sanitary open-air basin with a nice drain to the sewer—maybe the government should start putting those in public parks?). The same argument applies, doesn’t it? “Hey, what’s even remotely sexual about peeing? You have an issue with a bare penis? Get over it, you pervert! It’s natural, and it’s horribly selfish of you to require men to hold their pee until they get to some sort of “interior” urinal!”
Sheesh...
“whit” —> “whip”, above.
She doesn’t have a brain, right? Women who do this are not concerned about their babies; they are exhibitionists.
Agreed. Well said.
She's in court, can't leave, baby wants to be fed.
The same argument applies, doesn’t it? “Hey, what’s even remotely sexual about peeing? You have an issue with a bare penis? Get over it, you pervert! It’s natural, and it’s horribly selfish of you to require men to hold their pee until they get to some sort of “interior” urinal!”
That doesn't even compare. All that shows is your immaturity or sexual issues. She's in court and has to keep that baby quiet. If the baby was bottle fed, there wouldn't be an issue but because he's breast fed, people act like idiots.
We called them the “militant La Leche League-ers” when my wife was pregnant with our first. They would not let her alone about how she’d be (inter alia) a terrible mother if she fed her baby anything but breast milk straight from the tap. She was kinder than I would have been.
From reading the comments here I think everyone is missing her intentions with her actions. She is involved in a custody case where she apparently is a bad mom and stands to lose custody. So rather than lose on the merits of the case, she turns the courtroom into a circus and trying to win by having the actions of the judge declared unreasonable.
I was taking my newborn to see my parents. Layover in DFW. I tried to breastfeed in the bathroom, but there was no place to sit, I was weak and tired and the baby was heavy, so I couldn’t stand to hold her. The toilets kept flushing and getting my clothes wet, so I went outside to breastfeed at the gate. DFW had NO private place to nurse, just a chair in the ladies room would have been enough. However, even at the gate, over in the edge, with a towel, a few men kept walking behind me, trying to get a look. My husband had to work and couldn’t come on this trip. I am still mad about that.
We have 4 children. All were breast fed. All were covered if it was necessary to nurse them in the presence of others. Most of the time my wife would just excuse herself to go to a more private spot.
Some women just enjoy yanking a man’s chain. “Why are you staring at my chest!”
Women’s fashions most often accentuate those portions of their anatomy they get upset about men staring at. Then they hang a fancy, flashy piece of jewelry! Like a spinner bait.
Moths to a flame....
No! No! It was your brooch!
I swear!
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