Monday, June 12, 2006

Milk With Your Coffee?

From the Miami Herald:

Yards from the scantily clad beach on Ocean Drive, the young mothers sat outside a closed Starbucks on Sunday, some with tank tops raised and breasts exposed as they nursed their babies.

About 15 women gathered in South Beach to show their support for breast-feeding after they heard that a nursing mother was kicked out of the coffeehouse last month.

Nicole Coombs, 22, says she was discreetly nursing 4-month-old Brahm at the Starbucks at 1451 Ocean Dr. when a manager ordered her out May 18.

But Starbucks spokesman Alan Hilowitz described a different sequence of events. He said Sunday that a store manager asked Coombs to leave when she refused to stop changing her baby’s diapers on a table inside the coffeehouse.

“She continued to change her baby and then she was asked to leave. There was no mention of breast-feeding whatsoever,” Hilowitz said. “We welcome nursing mothers in all of our stores. We always have.”

Coombs maintains that the reason for her ouster was breast-feeding, not diaper-changing.

“Yes. I did change him inside after I breast-fed him, of course,” Coombs said Sunday. “But that’s not why he asked me to leave. There’s going to be speculation. But I was there, and I was the person it happened to.”

[…]

In an effort to ensure that nursing mothers aren’t discouraged in the future, Coombs put together Sunday’s “nurse-in” to promote awareness and educate the public.

The Starbucks in South Beach was closed Sunday for temporary renovations, but the mothers sat outside with their babies for about two hours.

Among them was Liza Samuel, 33, of South Beach and her 14-month-old son, Caleb. She could not believe the practice continues to be controversial even in South Beach, where topless women in thong bikinis reign.

“People walk around on Miami Beach in a thong and topless, and that’s OK,” Samuel said. “But if you’re feeding your baby, forget it. People freak out when they see a nipple. I don’t know why.”

That reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Murphy Brown:

Oh my god, I have milk coming out of my breasts. This is like having bacon come out of your elbow.

Go for it, moms, especially on South Beach where they have no problem with 300 lb. guys going around in Speedos. Talk about an assault on nature…