Babies up the vest

About two weeks ago I was in a Squirrel Hill Starbucks, a convenient place to nurse a baby and let some boys use a proper restroom before heading to the park. The shop was busy so we were actually sharing a sitting area with two 65ish women. I was in a comfy arm chair, wrestling a very thirsty Brigid to keep her under my nursing canopy. The two older women (one was named Pat-aren't they always?) were meeting for coffee on the sofa across the table from me. In our small talk it came up that our family no longer lives in Pittsburgh. Both peppered me with all kinds of questions about our life in China, and several about things about which they've read or heard. Then one asked me about Chinese attitudes toward breast-feeding.

I told her some of the things about which I've blogged before. While nursing isn't frowned upon, in some of the more affluent parts of China (like Shenzhen) I encountered surprise over my nursing from other Chinese mothers of babies. Many believed that as foreigner, I could certainly afford the milk powder with that being the perceived obstacle to more universal formula use. I would, however, frequently get the thumbs-up from the grandmothers.

In the more working-class and middle-class part of Beijing, where I live now, my nursing doesn't cause quite the commentary that it did in Shenzhen. What does get noticed, though, is my attempt to maintain a little bit of modesty under my nursing canopy. Or rather, my canopy is misunderstood. Most women tell me that it is bad for the baby, with one even trying to remove it from me in the middle of Mass. (!) One time someone said it was an interesting idea; she thought I used it to encourage Brigid to sleep. No one could understand that the canopy was for me, as in to cover me.

There are several other nursing mothers at my parish in Beijing. One in particular that sometimes sits near me has a son who is over a year old, possibly even 18 months old. He is, of course, totally mobile and somewhat on self serve. This does not raise the notice of any of the people sitting near her, even when her little guy just lifts her shirt during Mass and snacks. No cover, no canopy, no worry that someone might stare.

I thought about the differences between American and Chinese attitudes toward nursing last week at Mass in Pittsburgh. Had this happened even a week earlier, I could have used it as a perfect illustration of my point for those women at Starbucks. As sometimes happens, Brigid wanted to nurse during the course of the Mass. I realized I had forgotten my canopy at my in-laws' house, so I excused myself to a pew along the rear of the church. I figured that in this fairly empty church, I would be alone in the back. And I was, mostly. In front of me and to the left were an infant in the company of its mother and grandmother. When I sat down, Brigid smiled at them, and the two women turned around a few times to smile back. I couldn't help but hear one of them whisper to the other about the cute baby. And then it happened. I started to nurse Brigid, rather discreetly, I think, since I was wearing a large sweater that she just fit under. The other baby's mother looked horrified. Up went her right hand, swearing-in-style, and try as I might I couldn't avoid hearing most of what she said: "I don't care how something-something-something. I would never something something something at church."

Certainly, I couldn't decifer all her "something something something," but I suddenly felt incredibly self conscious and wishing I were back in a country where feeding a baby at the back of a church isn't something to get into an uproar over.