News

This Is The Way To Treat A Breastfeeding Complaint

by Eliza Castile

Breastfeeding is an inexplicably fraught subject, and usually, it appears in the news because someone is making a fuss about a woman daring to feed her child where other people can see. Sure enough, a man in Rocksland, Queensland did exactly that earlier this week when he complained about a woman breastfeeding at the Cheese and Biscuits Cafe — but that's not the reason the story is making headlines. What makes this encounter stand out from the other, irritatingly common instances of people objecting to breastfeeding, is the cafe owner's (fabulous) reaction. According to BuzzFeed News, a man complained to Cheese and Biscuits employees when he saw a woman breastfeeding outside the cafe. After he was told the mother was perfectly within her rights to do so, he apparently decided his only option was to confront her himself, like some sort of feminism-averse Batman. What he didn't count on, however, was the owner's response. When Jessica Anne Allen brought out his order, the man mentioned that he had said something to the mother before kindly informing her that she should tell women to cover up in the future. Allen, however, wasted no time in coming to the mother's defense. "I informed him I would rather ask him to leave, and I took his coffee and put it in a take away container and asked him to leave," she told the Brisbane Times. Did you just fistpump? I totally just fistpumped.

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Not only is breastfeeding in public totally legal in Australia, but mother's groups come in "all the time" and breastfeed according to Allen. In fact, she was so irritated with the incident that she took to the cafe's Facebook page to remind patrons that the cafe "supports breast feeding mothers and... will not tolerate any bias towards them."

The cafe has received an overwhelmingly positive reaction online.

Allen says she is shocked by all the attention, because she doesn't see her reaction as anything particularly heroic. "We didn't do anything great; we just did what was morally right," she said. (Little does she realize that attitude makes her even more heroic.) Hero or not, Allen and the employees of the Cheese and Biscuits Cafe deserve all the praise that's been coming their way. Gold stars for everyone!

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